The Voice of the Prophet, Day 14 A refuge. Read Isaiah chapter 14. We see a lot of things happening in this chapter. God is sharing judgment again on people who have gone against him. Often, this chapter is used to describe the fall of Satan and his angels and even through the events of this tragic chapter, we come to the very end and God reminds us that he creates a refuge for his people. We can always rest in God. There is always safety in him, even when everything else in our world is crashing down around us. As we continue to come through all the things that…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 13 Preparation. Read Isaiah chapter 13. God is sharing about the upcoming destruction of the land of Babylon. As Isaiah is giving this insight into what is to come, we see an interesting characteristic about the army that God is putting together. God is preparing those who will go to battle for him. God sees our heart and God understands who we are, and God is making sure we are ready to do anything he asks us to do. God never asks us to do anything that he has not previously prepared us for. We need to recognize that God’s preparations are extensive and…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 11 The coming King. Read Isaiah chapter 11. So much of the book of Isaiah is focused on the coming Savior. Isaiah speaks regularly of how God is going to move and work through the people of Israel, and that Jesus is coming as the permanent solution to our sin problem. As we read through Isaiah, we come to understand just how crazy of an idea this would have seemed to the people at the time. They already had kings, and their kings weren’t always that great. There was a lot of war and a lot of conflict and back-and-forth between other nations. This…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 10 What do we rely on? Read Isaiah chapter 10. Isaiah is prophesying about the judgment that is coming for the land of Assyria. They have been brutal to their enemies, and the people of Israel have been tormented by them. God is explaining that judgment is coming. As a result, we see that God reminds the people of Israel that he is going to be the one they rely on. In the past, they had tried to make deals with Assyria. They had tried to negotiate their way through the situation, and Isaiah wants them to understand that the time is coming when…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 8 Respect and Honor. Read Isaiah chapter 8. God continues to work and move through the prophet Isaiah. God shows Isaiah that the people are going to be left without God because of their rejection of Him. They decided that they didn’t want a God and now God is giving them what they have asked for. Then God reminds them that all the “things” that they are worshipping, fearing, turning to, and trusting in… all these things will let them down. They should be trusting in God. They should be recognizing His holiness. They are missing an opportunity to enjoy all that God is.…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 9 Forever. Read Isaiah chapter 9. Do we really understand the concept of forever? As beings that are born and die, it’s almost impossible for us to wrap our mind around the concept of something that has no beginning and no end. Trying to understand something that has always been and then will always be is complicated. When we think about the fact that God will reign over everything forever, that takes on new meaning that we struggle to understand. There has never been a point, and there will never be a point, when God is not in complete and total control of everything.…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 7 The sign. Read Isaiah chapter 7. As Isaiah is prophesying, he is sharing with the people the importance of the judgments of God. He wants them to understand the things are going to come to pass. He tells the people to go ahead and ask for a sign so they can know for sure that God will do what he says. And the people say they don’t want to do that, so Isaiah says that God himself will tell you what the sign is. The sign is that a virgin will bear a son and that son will be called Immanuel or God…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 6 Sin versus holiness. Read Isaiah chapter 6. We don’t always think about the difference between sin and holiness. They are so vastly different that we, with our sinful nature, truly can’t understand what holiness really even looks like. Isaiah was confronted with the holiness of God and as a result, he saw exactly how sinful he was. There is so much difference between the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. As soon as he saw how holy God truly is, he could do nothing except look at himself and recognize how sinful he was by comparison. We need to see God…

The Voice of the Prophet, Day 5 The story of the vineyard. Read Isaiah chapter 5. As this chapter starts, the prophet begins telling a story. God is speaking and explaining about a vineyard. God created a vineyard and planted it and did everything he could for it to set it up for success. But, the vineyard only ever produced bag grapes. God asks the question, “Is there something additional I could have done that that would have caused the vineyard to have been successful and productive?” The question for them, is there something additional that would have helped the people to understand their loyalty and commitment to God? He…