God is Doing a New Thing - Part I

God is Doing a New Thing! – Isaiah 43:14-28 Part I

On this first Sunday of the year 2008, a year of new beginnings, hear the encouraging and prophetic promises of Isaiah.  God is doing a new thing in our midst!  With the eyes of the mind and heart, can we see it?  Let’s cultivate the faith and expectancy to receive the mysterious, mystical and majestic work of Almighty God within us, individually, and collectively.  Whereas the prophet straightforwardly instructs us to forget the former things, he does not suggest that we obliterate the past.  If we were to do so, we would actually annihilate the basis of our hope and trust in God.  Rather, he recommends that we do not dwell upon the great deeds of God in our personal and collective history.  Instead, he desires that we look forward with triumphant anticipation and infinite enthusiasm about the future actions of God.  The past records the unquestionable faithfulness of our Heavenly Father.  No one who retrospectively considers his or her life can deny the persistent faithfulness of Almighty God throughout every circumstance.  Indeed, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceased; His mercies never came to an end.  His grace was new each and every morning.  Hence, we concur with the hymn writer, “Great is Thy faithfulness O Lord.”  Nevertheless, the prophet insists that God’s past faithfulness foreshadows His future and unending grace.  God’s future glory will exceed greatly His former glory.  Accordingly, God is doing a new thing.  Those hopeful and uplifting words direct us to focus our attention toward the unfolding works of God.

A lengthy pursuit of your heartfelt dreams and goals parallels the arduous period of exile for the Israelites.  Their situation lasts for seventy years.  You will recall the wilderness wandering period consumes forty years and an entire generation of Israelites.  I believe we can thank God that our situation will not last as long as those examples.  Nonetheless, we can relate to their anguish, anger, and aggravation as they long to return to their homeland with its familiarity of culture, tradition, religion and identity.  Inexplicably, the Babylonians came into Jerusalem in 587 BCE and demolished everything that these exiles knew of their language, literature, religion and history.  Although they have been away for a while, they still cannot grasp mentally the extent of the devastation and loss of their history.  Understandably, they ask the obvious question, where was the God about whom they had heard such mighty and legendary stories?  Why did not His great powers prevent this catastrophe? 

Similarly, we undoubtedly ponder what happens to us?  How could we find ourselves embroiled in such a predicament as our current state of affairs?  Were not the hard work and innumerable sacrifices of the past necessary and substantive enough to prevent the occurrence of our failures?  How could circumstances and unscrupulous characters victimize us?  Why did we not see the warning signs that our good faith was not being met with an equal and honorable response?  Moreover, how do we understand that it takes so long to chart successfully a course that ends with success? 

The foregoing questions, those of the Israelites and ours, tempt us to dismiss the hopeful and encouraging words of Isaiah.  As we linger in our destitute state, how can we possibly assert that Almighty God is about to do a new thing?  Cynically, we may even ask, “Why has not He already done it?”  In response to such sarcasm, the prophet points us toward the past.  He encourages us to recall the mighty deeds and perpetual faithfulness of God throughout the years of Egyptian slavery, wilderness wandering, entering the Promised Land and living in exile in Babylon.  The text alludes to the mighty deeds of God during those hard and most difficult challenges for Israel.  They left their bondage in Egypt escaping on dry ground as Yahweh divided the waters of the Red Sea.  Every one of them, from the smallest and youngest child to the oldest adult, walked on solid ground.  Upon arriving on the opposite bank of the Red Sea, they watched the waters return and swallow the pursuing army of Egypt with their mighty chariots, horses and weapons.  As they wander in the wilderness, they receive bread, meat, water and shoes as they need them.  God’s faithfulness supplies them with everything that they need as occasion warrants and they ask.  Moreover, as they enter the Promised Land, this same God again commands the waters to recede so that they may safely cross the Jordan River and inherit the promises of His enduring covenant.  Isaiah cites these historical deeds of God to encourage the people to imagine that He is capable of as many majestic acts in the future as He was in the past.