Isaiah - Hope

 

Good morning Class, 

We get to have another lesson that is a song.  A song of praise.  I am so thankful for it.  I am so thankful for the opportunity to praise.

Question of the day: Who is someone who brings joy to your life and why? 

Read: Isaiah 26

A Song of Praise

26 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city;
    God makes salvation
    its walls and ramparts.
2 Open the gates
    that the righteous nation may enter,
    the nation that keeps faith.
3 You will keep in perfect peace
    those whose minds are steadfast,
    because they trust in you.
4 Trust in the Lord forever,
    for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.
5 He humbles those who dwell on high,
    he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
    and casts it down to the dust.
6 Feet trample it down—
    the feet of the oppressed,
    the footsteps of the poor.

7 The path of the righteous is level;
    you, the Upright One, make the way of the righteous smooth.
8 Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws,[a]
    we wait for you;
your name and renown
    are the desire of our hearts.
9 My soul yearns for you in the night;
    in the morning my spirit longs for you.
When your judgments come upon the earth,
    the people of the world learn righteousness.
10 But when grace is shown to the wicked,
    they do not learn righteousness;
even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil
    and do not regard the majesty of the Lord.
11 Lord, your hand is lifted high,
    but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame;
    let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.

12 Lord, you establish peace for us;
    all that we have accomplished you have done for us.
13 Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,
    but your name alone do we honor.
14 They are now dead, they live no more;
    their spirits do not rise.
You punished them and brought them to ruin;
    you wiped out all memory of them.
15 You have enlarged the nation, Lord;
    you have enlarged the nation.
You have gained glory for yourself;
    you have extended all the borders of the land.

16 Lord, they came to you in their distress;
    when you disciplined them,
    they could barely whisper a prayer.[b]
17 As a pregnant woman about to give birth
    writhes and cries out in her pain,
    so were we in your presence, Lord.
18 We were with child, we writhed in labor,
    but we gave birth to wind.
We have not brought salvation to the earth,
    and the people of the world have not come to life.

19 But your dead will live, Lord;
    their bodies will rise—
let those who dwell in the dust
    wake up and shout for joy—
your dew is like the dew of the morning;
    the earth will give birth to her dead.

20 Go, my people, enter your rooms
    and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
    until his wrath has passed by.
21 See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling
    to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed on it;
    the earth will conceal its slain no longer.

Now let's talk about it. 

Verses 1-8

Walls.  What walls are they talking about here.  

When are walls good? When are walls bad?  What should our relationship with walls be? 

Who makes the walls? 

Verses 9-11

This is an interesting section.  It starts with verse nine, that I LOVE! "My soul yearns for you.."  Does your soul yearn for Jesus at night and in the morning? 

Seriously yearn?  What does it feel like to yearn?  When was the last time you really yearned for something or someone? 

Then there is this section where the unrighteous don't accept grace and just get worse.  What is that all about?  

Does this mean we don't extend grace or that God shouldn't?  Is this speaking to what will or does happen, or is this a passage to warn us about giving grace?  Who does God extend grace to?  Or maybe I should put it this way, to whom is God's grace available to? 

Verse 12-13

"Lord you establish peace..." 

What a beautiful thought.  In this time when we talk a lot about peace, when we sing about, "peace on earth, do we believe that God has given us peace? Or do we keep trying to find it in ways that are fruitless?  

Verse 13-15

Power to move, protect, give peace, extend grace, it is all His. 

Verse 16-21

Here it tells us to go to our rooms and wait until the Lord comes.  What are the rooms? What is this talking about?  

At the beginning of this song, we talked about the walls.  Then the grace, etc.  I would suggest that going to our room is to wait in the protection of Christ.  It doesn't mean we need to be recluse or not be out their serving our world, but waiting and resting in the protection of Jesus.  To remember that he is the one who grants us peace, moves us, protects us etc. His grace affords us a resting place until the day when he returns.  Oh let us rest this holiday season!  Let us accept the assurance that comes from Christ and rest as we celebrate the gift gave us!