Dear Ones:
For seventy years Israel was in exile, having been taken there by the Babylonians. The Psalmist would write of that time: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'” (Ps. 137:3) What a terrible sight. What a sense of abandon and isolation. How does Israel return to the land from a situation like this? How do they find the way home?
There would come a day, after the Lord had spoken through Jeremiah, that Israel WOULD return to the land. Hear what is written about that event: “When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing…The Lord hath done great things for them.” (Ps. 126:1-2) What do we discover here? It is that God did not forsake His people. It is also clear that He provided them with knowledge of the way home, and the resources and capacity to return. Again, what is the way home?
The way home begins with the Lord’s declared will, that the time has come for Him to intervene. “Comfort, Comfort My people, says your God…cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.” (Is.40:1-2) What iniquity? We discover later in this passage that the Lord, by giving Israel a comparison between what He is and what they are, He reveals the essence of the answer. Israel had departed from the Lord in the land of promise because she began to believe false ideas of Him. Her concepts of His holiness began to be mingled with, and affected by, the mentality of the nations that surrounded her. The moment that she began to fabricate idols of wood and stone, she declared that she had turned away from the truth of the living God. Subconsciously she had begun to associate the true concept of God with the twisted, distorted, and deceitful concepts (ideas) coming from a sinful heart. The path back to God will require that all of those ideas be scrapped, and that she depend ONLY and WHOLLY on the living God for the knowledge of the truth. Without that TRUTH, she cannot come back, for God will never bless the lie…and idolatry is just a religion of lies.
It is to this suffering heart of a nation that the Lord asks the question: “To whom then will you liken Me, or shall I be equal?” (Is. 40:25) “Lift up your eye on high, and behold, who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: He calls them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power: not one fails.” (v.26) There must of necessity be a return in the heart and mind to God according to the truth of Who and What He is. Secondly, there must be the knowledge that the Lord is “for” Israel, and is, not only mindful of her, but intent and committed to meeting her. He has not forgotten her. “Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgement is passed over from my God?'” (v. 27) It is here that He declares to her that she is not forgotten. On the contrary, He is waiting to be gracious to her, and to meet her by giving her POWER and STRENGTH to return. (v.29-30) It is here that He commits Himself, in His great and measured glory, to reveal Himself to her, by meeting her in heart, mind, soul, spirit, and body. She is on the way home since she has forsaken the false ideas of God, and cast herself on His great mercy and goodness.
Dear Father, save us from the imaginations and speculations of our hearts and minds, and every high and lofty thought that would exalt itself against the knowledge of You. Then, strengthen our hearts and minds to rise up, knowing that your eye is upon us, and enable us to run well the race set before us…looking unto Jesus. Then we shall experience the way home, and the blessing of home itself…in fellowship with You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad