The first verse of Isaiah 25
says, "O Lord, you are my God; I
will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things,
plans formed of old, faithful and sure."
Those words of Isaiah are a
profound statement of trust and faith in God.
Isaiah lives during some hard times for the people of God. They are a people surrounded by enemies and
it has been Isaiah's job to proclaim God's word of judgment on those enemies.
For the people of God that should
be good news. God's enemies have harmed
God's people, and God is going to set things right. But, as they say on TV, "Wait, there's
more!" And perhaps to the surprise
of the Hebrew people, the "more" that Isaiah brings to them isn't
good news.
Isaiah also has to make known to
God's people that they haven't been blameless.
They may be God's people but they haven’t been living according to God's
ways, and as a result some bad things are going to be coming their way too. But even that news of judgment is not the end
of this part of Isaiah's story.
As Chapter 25 begins Isaiah
proclaims his own faith in God. He says
that the Lord is his God. He doesn't
hold up any idols as the place where he puts his trust. His trust is in the Lord, and the Lord is the
one he exalts, the one he worships.
In this verse Isaiah also
remembers the things that God has done in the past. He isn’t specific about what those things
are. They could be things that God has
done for His people, or they could be things that God has done for Isaiah. Whatever it is that God has done, Isaiah
calls these things "wonderful." And then comes the part of the verse that
really catches my attention, where Isaiah mentions God's "plans formed of old, faithful and sure." Isaiah is looking back here, but he is also
pointing us forward.
Isaiah is reminding God's people,
both of his time and of ours as well, that God doesn’t make his plans on the
fly, adapting them when they don’t seem to be working out. God's plans are "of old," and of old means that that they were in place
before the act of creating the world.
And God's plans are "faithful and sure." We don't need to have any doubts about God's
plans, particularly the plans He has to hold the people He has claimed as His
own. Plans to hold them today and
throughout eternity. It is a plan that
Isaiah points toward and is shown most clearly in Jesus, who comes as the
Savior and Lord of God's people.
May you find peace and hope
knowing that God's plans for you, to hold you as His precious child, are
faithful and sure in Christ Jesus.
Scripture quotations
are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by
Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.
