Isaiah 30:20-24 NLT
20 Though the Lord gave you adversity for food
and suffering for drink,
he will still be with you to teach you.
You will see your teacher with your own eyes.
21 Your own ears will hear him.
Right behind you a voice will say,
“This is the way you should go,”
whether to the right or to the left.
22 Then you will destroy all your silver idols
and your precious gold images.
You will throw them out like filthy rags,
saying to them, “Good riddance!”
23 Then the Lord will bless you with rain at planting time. There will be wonderful harvests and plenty of pastureland for your livestock. 24 The oxen and donkeys that till the ground will eat good grain, its chaff blown away by the wind.
Isaiah lets his Holy-Spirit-anointed imagination run to a time coming when the Lord will once again bless His people. Was it all to be “pie in the sky”, with blue skies, balmy winds, roses growing around the door and bonhomie all around? A time when there would be no fighting and peace reigning everywhere? A time when the people transitioned from idolatry to worship of God alone? A time when God’s discipline on His wayward people would be replaced by unlimited blessings? I’m sure there are times when we pilgrims muse on what life will be like when we “dwell in the house of the Lord forever“. There is nothing wrong with God-inspired “day-dreaming”; in fact, Paul wrote, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20). Think about this verse: there is the power of the Holy Spirit within us, and with His power we can achieve far more, “immeasurably more”, that would at first seem impossible to a mere human being. It seems Isaiah knew that as well. But Isaiah’s imagination knew no bounds because He knew His God.
Solomon the philosopher wrote, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” and “a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,” (verses from Ecclesiastes 3). The Judeans were facing into an invasion from the Assyrians but instead of turning to God, they turned to the Egyptians for help. Their season of uninterrupted idolatry was coming to an end, and we know from history that those who were not killed by the invaders were deported into exile, prevented from being able to live in their lands for a season, during which most of the people died, and a new generation started to appear. This happened to the Israelite slaves when they finally arrived at the promised land. After the twelve spies explored the Promised Land of Canaan, ten of the twelve spies brought back a frightening report about the inhabitants. The people believed the bad report, wept, grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and refused to enter the land God promised them. So God judged them based on the 40 days the spies spent exploring the land—assigning one year of wandering in the desert for each day of spying (40 years total). The punishment ensured that the adult generation (aged 20 and older) who rebelled would pass away in the wilderness, allowing their children to inherit the Promised Land instead (with the exception of the faithful spies, Joshua and Caleb). God is patient and He has all the time in the world. But human beings don’t; they only have a short season of life before the grave beckons. The sobering thought for Christians everywhere is that “in that day”, the day when the existing world will be replaced by a New Heaven and a New Earth, the day when God will live with His people here on earth, a day that will not come until Jesus’ commands have been fulfilled. Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). God is indeed patient, and to those who are obedient in doing His work, He will be waiting for them with a “Well done …” welcome.
In recent years I have been increasingly aware that time is short, not just my time here on earth but also the time that all pilgrims have to communicate the “gospel of the kingdom” to those in our society who haven’t heard it. Here in the UK there is a new generation who are growing up without having heard anything about God and the Bible stories. They have never been in a church. Many don’t even know why churches are there at all. Gone are the days when schools had an assembly, sang Christian hymns and enjoyed a nativity play at Christmas, and in the process implanted a God-consciousness that would stand the pupils in good stead in their later lives. We pilgrims must increase our efforts to plant Gospel seeds at every opportunity. Unless we do, we commit our generation to another metaphorical forty years, wandering in a Godless wilderness.
“In that day”, will be a day when we “will see [our] teacher with [our] own eyes. [Our] own ears will hear Him”, a day when our relationship with God will not be vague and tenuous. Instead, it will be a day when we will be able to reach out and touch Him. A day when we will arrive in our new home, finally aware of why God created us in the first place. And a day in which we will realise the Lord’s blessings, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ“. These blessings are available now for all those who dare to embrace the God who is all that He has said that He is and can do all that He has promised. And then we can go further and dream like Isaiah and Paul, that God will do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine”. But it’s not a dream for those able and willing to reach out to God in faith. It can also be a reality for us pilgrims because we have the power of the Holy Spirit within us.
Dear Heavenly Father. Anoint our imaginations, we pray, by the power of Your Spirit, so that we can do Your work in our families and communities. We praise and thank You for all You have done for us. Amen.
