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ISAIAH

Chapter 2

There is a day when God will take His rightful place,
when God will be acknowledged as God alone.
It will be a time when what God says is heard;
His judgments will be considered just.
Differences and difficulties between people and nations will dissolve;
there will be no more war.
All will live in the light of God – in His ways and at peace!

Right now it may seem as though God has walked out on His people,
but look closer.
His people have forsaken Him.
They've followed after the gods of their neighbors.
They've fashioned their own gods.
Their time is spent on what they determine to have value;
they have established their own priorities and ignored His law.
(I wouldn't blame God, were He to walk out on His people.
They are so disloyal, acting in open defiance, being rebellious.
They have forsaken their commitment to Him!)

God will not put up with this forever.
There is coming a day when man will acknowledge that he is man
and that God is God.
God will show Himself greater than man's greatness
by bringing down all that man has worshiped.
Man will run and want to hide.
Man will see the worthlessness of all that He has valued.
God will show Himself strong.
Yes! He will assert Himself and take His rightful place.

Twila Charles Leichty
March 10, 2009

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ISAIAH

Chapter 5

God prepared a vineyard.
The soil was cleared of stones and cultivated.
It was planted with the choicest vines.
A watchtower was erected and a winepress was hewn out of stone.
He anticipated a crop of good grapes,
but, alas! he was “rewarded” with bad fruit.
He had done all He could have done.

So, He tore down the hedge that kept out those
who take without the right to do so.
The garden became a wasteland.
The vines were not pruned; briers and thorns took over.
And there was a drought.

What He wanted and what He got were two different things:
instead of justice, there was war,
instead of righteousness, the distress of evil.

The accumulation of material wealth,
the indulgence of self and disregard for the needs of others,
leads to ruin.
His people, forgetting the One who had created them
and provided them with instructions on living
(that would yield good fruit),
chose to find a way of their own.

Their waywardness was destined to take them into exile.
By choosing not to follow Jehovah,
they were choosing to follow the god of their own making,
one that would lead them further and further away from the blessings
He wanted to bestow upon them.
They were choosing their thinking and logic,
their preferences and feelings as guides in behavior.
Their judgments were producing the odor of decay
and the stench reached God's nostrils!

The judgment of God was visited on His people.
Their self-indulgence, disobedient and rebellious ways,
tore down the walls of God's protection
and provided their enemies easy access.
Their ways led them into captivity.
The light that God had given was but dimly seen;
They were captives by their own choosing.

Twila Charles Leichty
3-25-09

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ISAIAH

Chapter 6
Commissioned by God


When he saw the fullness of God
His righteousness, His glory,
Isaiah was overwhelmed with his own sinfulness.
And he saw himself among a nation
of those who had closed their eyes to seeing God's truth,
their ears from understanding.
Their hearts were calloused
because their wills had not been trained to obey.
He recognized his uncleanness and his acknowledgment of it
released the atoning work of God.
God was seeking a prophet.
He sought a man who, rightly, knew himself,
who acknowledged and worshiped The Holy One of Israel,
and was willing to be used by God
in the delivery of His message to His people.
His response: “Here am I. Send me!”
showed the willingness of a grateful heart,
for he had experienced God's mercy.

The message was not an easy one:
He was to tell them there was a difference
between hearing and understanding,
between seeing and perceiving.
It was a heart condition that could have been corrected,
had they submitted their hearts and wills to Him.
Time had run out; the sentence had been decided.
And Isaiah was to continue speaking this message
until the cities, houses, and fields were ruined and ravished
and the people taken captive to another land.
But, just as mighty trees leave stumps when they are cut down,
they would not be totally uprooted and die.
A small number of His people would remain as “seed.”

Twila Charles Leichty
3-26-09