Daily Devotion

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.

It Won't Be Long Now

Soon—and it will not be very long—the forests of Lebanon will become a fertile field, and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.
In that day the deaf will hear words read from a book, and the blind will see through the gloom and darkness.
The humble will be filled with fresh joy from the Lou).
The poor will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
The scoffer will be gone, the arrogant will disappear, and those who plot evil will be killed.
Those who convict the innocent by their false testimony will disappear.
A similar fate awaits those who use trickery to pervert justice and who tell lies to destroy the innocent.
That is why the Loiw, who redeemed Abraham, says to the people of Israel,
"My people will no longer be ashamed or turn pale with fear.
For when they see their many children and all the blessings I have given them, they will recognize the holiness of the Holy One of Israel.
They will stand in awe of the God of Jacob.
Then the wayward will gain understanding, and complainers will accept instruction." - Isaiah 29:17—24 NLT

Sooner, rather than later, the people of Israel would get a clue. When Isaiah volunteered to become God's prophet, God told him that the people he went to would "be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving" (Isaiah 6:9 NN), and that it would remain thus until the nation was destroyed. But afterward, the blind would finally see and the deaf would finally hear, and then the wicked would finally be gone.

The forests of Lebanon were famous for their cedar trees, not for being good farmland. God used that as a metaphor. What you'd least expect to be possible is just what God can do. Those who were most disadvantaged in society—the handicapped, the poor, the humble of whatever sort—would find joy in God, while those who had oppressed them would be destroyed. The destruction of the wicked was not necessarily by their deaths, however. God explained that the wayward and complainers would gain understanding. The wicked would be destroyed by being transformed into the righteous. Some of the wicked would have their old hearts changed. They would die to their past way of life. They would be renewed in God. Their fear of destruction would become a fear of God, their redeemer who had saved them.