Scripture

The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well watered garden like an ever flowing spring.

Observation

The people of Israel are sinners, despite their pious actions. They go to the temple every day. They pray and ask God to intervene on their behalf. they fast, expecting God to be impressed.

The kind of fasting the Lord requires is to free the wrongly imprisoned and let the oppressed go free. They are to look after the homeless and care for relatives in need.

When they do that, salvation will come like the dawn. When they call, the Lord will answer. If they feed the hungry they will shine like light in the darkness. Then the Lord will guide them continually and make them like a well watered garden.

Application

The Lord is not interested in our deeds of piety – prayers, praise, fasting and so on. These things are important, but they do not impress God.

The Lord is impressed when we allow our salvation to flow out to others in good deeds and when we set free the oppressed.

We are saved by faith in Christ. That then transforms our hearts and minds so that we live for Him and for other people. When we do that, the little light that is my relationship with God is magnified and shows forth in my community in actions that bring freedom and life.

Then we start to bloom like a well-watered garden. We help others to flourish, and by doing that, God’s grace multiplies in us.

As a a new Christian and a new member of Parliament, William Wilberforce asked God, “What can I do for you?” He dedicated his career to ending slavery and brought liberty to millions of people around the world. He became a well-watered garden that benefited countless people.

Prayer

Lord show me how to glorify your name today. Amen.

Scripture

Whom do you mock, making faces and sticking out your tongues? You children of sinners and liars! You worship your idols with great passion beneath the oaks and every green tree. You sacrifice your children down in the valleys, among the jagged rocks in the cliffs.

Observation

Good people die, sometimes as a young age, but they are going to a good place. God protects them from the evil to come.

The witches and idolaters mock the righteous people. They worship their idols and sacrifice their children. They commit adultery in the high places where they worship Molech and Baal. They travel far in order to find new gods.

God says to rebuild the road and clear away the rocks. God is restoring His people. He will lift up the humble and comfort those who mourn. Those who repent will know God’s peace, but those who reject God are like the sea which is never still.

Application

Those who consider themselves wise and knowledgeable mock those who follow the Lord. They pull faces at people who follow Jesus as if we are foolish and stupid.

Like the people Isaiah describes, they worship under every green tree. They claim that they love the environment, but they are destroying it. They cut down the rain forests to save the planet with windmills and solar panels.

While they are so in love with creation, supposedly, they murder their own children. We don’t have religious rituals of child sacrifice, but each year millions of babies are killed in the name of “reproductive health care.” This is an abomination to the Lord. As the people sacrificed to Molech in the past, our abortion industry is just as dedicated to this evil deity.

But the promise of God is that He will save those who turn to him. Worshipping other gods, abortions, and other sins can all be washed away when we turn to God in true repentance.

Prayer

Thank you Lord for being so gracious to those who turn to you. Amen.