isaiah 43-44

Read Isaiah 43-44 at Bible Gateway.

“You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen,
That you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He.
Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me.
I, even I, am the LORD, and besides Me there is no savior.
I have declared and saved,  I have proclaimed,
And there was no foreign god among you;
Therefore you are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “that I am God.” Isa 43:10-12

This is the crux of the whole matter – not only of these chapters in Isaiah, but of Scripture! Remember our history: that God is the Creator and Ruler of the universe, and the Maker of Adam and Eve, whom He created to know Him and believe Him! But Adam did not believe Him; he believed the lie of the serpent instead. Fast forward to Noah. Noah knew the LORD and believed Him, and after the Flood, mankind was given a fresh start to know the LORD and believe Him.

But when Noah’s descendants were to go out in colonies, in their 70 nations, to fill the earth, instead they rebelled against God, banded together, and set a king over themselves (or submitted to someone who made himself king over them, Nimrod) instead of the LORD God, and built a tower designed to withstand another Flood of judgment. Nimrod devised the pagan religion at Babel, which denies the LORD God exists and is Creator, and elevates nature as god and creator. This is why Babylon is the mother of harlotries and abominations in the earth (Rev 17:5). Babylon is the mother of evolutionary theory, which is nothing more than paganism dressed in a lab coat, although evolutionists will deny this to their dying breath. But their denial does not make it less true.

Every nation denied the LORD God at Babel – every man, the whole earth. So the LORD God waited for one man who would know and believe Him, who was Abraham. He is the father of all who believe (Rom 4:11)! Out of Abraham, He made Israel, whom He formed and created to reveal His glory (Isa 43:7, 21). Israel is His witnesses, plural. Yes, I know that is not grammatically correct, but it is true nonetheless. God needed two witnesses in the earth to establish the fact that He was God and Creator. He obeys His own Torah (Deu 19:15). This is why He told the prophet that the division of Israel’s kingdom was from Him (2 Chr 11:1-4). By dividing Israel into two houses, the house of Israel (or Joseph), the northern kingdom, and the house of Judah, the southern kingdom, He established two witnesses for Himself.

But whatever plan the LORD had going, the enemy was determined to sabotage it. He sabotaged the LORD’s plan, he thought, by so assaulting Israel with the temptation of idolatry that idolatry became Israel’s besetting sin. How pleased he must have been with himself, that the LORD’s singular nation, whom He created and formed to reveal His glory and praise in front of the nations, to witness in front of the nations that YHVH alone is God, was so thoroughly ensnared in the same sin that had ensnared the nations!

However, the greatness of God fills the heavens, and His glory fills the earth! His wisdom is unsearchable! Israel was thoroughly corrupt — so God not only became Himself incarnate to die on a cross and be raised to life again, so that Israel’s sins could be blotted out (Isa 43:25), but through Messiah Yeshua He opened the door so that the nations could return to Him and have their sins blotted out forever (Isa 42:6-7)! He is making streams of water in the desert — the living water of His Spirit, which so transforms the one who comes to Him, that they are not ashamed of the LORD their God, but proudly and boldly declare Him (Isa 44:1-5)! They witness, in other words!