8th February
Read Psalm 147
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
Another great song of praise and thanksgiving – “He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds” – how wonderful is that? Would we not want to “extol the Lord” (v12) and “pu t our hope in his unfailing love” (v11)? It is a Psalm to read with wonder and thanks and to close with “Praise the Lord”
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Monday Isaiah 52:11-12
Verse 11 & 12 are a command to depart from a place that is unclean and to leave it taking nothing with them in the way of contamination (“touch no unclean thing”) . The next sentence about carrying the articles of the Lord’s House would refer to the prietly cast whose job it was to carry the Ark of the Covenant and all the accoutrements of the place of worship. This departure would seem to be pointing to the time when Babylon was overrun by Cyrus of Persia and in theis new regime the Jews were told to return to their home in Jerusalem. It was a great time of rejoicing and it was not going to be like the flight from Egypt many years ago being followed by the Egyptian army for this one was to take place in an orderly fashion under the protection of Cyrus.
The command to depart from impure things has been recycled many times within the Christian community sometimes correctly and sometimes not about taking an action of separation from some thing. My friend David Randall, long time minister of the Church of Scotland beside me in Macduff, felt he had to leave because of the Church’s lax connection with Scripture as the rule of life in the Church. He wrote a small book called “A Sad Departure” (Banner of Truth) which referred to his departure from the Church but also from the Church’s departure from the Bible’s authority. We all need to consider our attitudes to things that we are linked with.
Tuesday Isaiah 52:13-15
We come now to one of the most important parts of the Old Testament because it introduces us to the Servant of the Lord figure about which there is no longer any doubt or mist about an identity; we are dealing with Jesus Christ, prophesied 700 years before his birth in the land of Judah by Isaiah.
We find the Servant not resplendent in glory but disfigured and marred (v14). We hear that many are aghast but despite this we hear that he will ‘sprinkle man nations’ meaning that he will bring a cleansing to may peoples and powerful Kings will be silenced before him because they will see what has been hidden from them but then they will understand.
The message about Jesus will expand and grow across the world even in the midst of his appearing at first as a non-entity, the child of a peasant girl. Chapter 53 will tell us more.
Wednesday Isaiah 53:1-6
If you haven’t been in the habit of memorising scripture this chapter is the one to start with. Isaiah 53 is a messianic chapter describing the person and work of Jesus hundreds of years before his birth. Isaiah begins by asking, “Who has believed our message?” and that hangs as a message to all who are summoned to come to Christ in faith and trust.
He tells of the humility of his birth, like a tender shoot out of dry ground, in other words out of an unpromising start, and with no outstanding appearance as men count beauty, and he was despised, rejected by men and being a man of suffering and familiar with pain. People turn away from him and hold him in low esteem. When we read the gospels we see again and again the Pharisees, Sadducees, the Teachers of the law looking down on him.
Then the prophet lets us know that this servant of God was a suffering servant who suffered because he took our pain and bore our suffering and this was because he was bearing our transgressions. He tells us that Christ’s suffering was for us, which is the understanding of substitutionary atonement, that our salvation from sin and death is because Christ died for us, he bore the penalty of our transgression. Pause and consider as you read this passage and give your thanksgiving to Him.
Thursday Isaiah 53:7-9
Do keep memorising this chapter. In verse 7 we read of the quiet humility of Jesus under suffering who, though he was “oppressed and afflicted” did not open his mouth and we reflect upon Jesus before Pilate who was frustrated that he wouldn’t answer the charges of the Jewish Council against him and we see him as God’s lamb, led to the cross.
Having spoken about the oppression and and unjust judgement we hear why it happened, “he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgression of the people”. The substitution of the Messiah as God’s sacrificial lamb for the sins of his people was made though he had “done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth” (v9).
That the death of Jesus was with the wicked is seen in his crucifixion between two thieves and his grave is seen with the rich in that he was buried in a tomb donated by a wealthy man. All of thse things point so conclusively to none other than Jesus the Messiah shown in the gospels of the New Testament.
Friday Isaiah 53:10-12
How could it be that, as Isaiah says, it was “the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer” (beginning of v10). It sounds astonishing if we read it on its own and without reading the whole verse. The rest of the verse however speaks of Christ’s offspring as those who come to life through him – namely believing people in all ages. It is not pleasure in the suffering but in its outcome that God is pleased in namely the redemption and eternal life of his people which Christ will see and rejoice in – “he will see the light of life and be satisfied” (v11). The death of Jesus is the justice of God being seen on sin which Jesus takes on his shoulders and bears for us# which verse 12 tells us of, “He bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors”. This is at the heart of our salvation that we are saved not though our own deeds but through his substitution of himself under the just judgement of God so that we might receive his life. These verses need to be read and pondered over and believed in.
Saturday Isaiah 54:1-17
Chapter 54 begins with an invitation to the barren woman to sing with great joy. The message of God is to his people who feel that they have been abandoned by their husband (God) who has not given her the joy of fertility but now things are reversed. The prophecy is looking to the future and inviting her to enlarge her tent because the family of the Lord is going to need space. We think ahead to the time of the New Testament and the enlargement of God’s family with the Gentiles as the gospel message spreads abroad.
The message is not to be ashamed of the reproach of their widowhood (the shrinking of the Jewish kingdom) and then its exile, with a reminder that their creator and Lord is her husband (v5) and he will call her back like a wife deserted and distressed. He says that he abandoned her for a moment but with deep compassion would bring her back.
These prophecies about the Jewish people are still to be fulfilled which we look for and pray for.