As we all know, today is the last day of the year. In only a few hours many of us will gather with our family and loved ones to bring in the New Year. Those that live in the world will do this by hosting great parties, where alcoholic beverages will abound, thus providing our enemy with yet another opportunity to separate men from God. Y say this because as we all know, tonight many will loose their life due to automobile accidents caused by drunk driving. Others, unable to reason properly due to alcohol impairment will commit acts that will result in grave consequences to their life and the life of those that surround hem. As I said, the world will celebrate this evening in this fashion, but unfortunately, a large group of believers will also join these festivities or celebrations, thus providing the enemy one more opportunity to enter and destroy what God has initiated in their life. Why does this happen? How can people that know the truth stumble and fall? I would say that the main reason why people stumble and fall is because they continue living in the past. Once this happens, we then make ourselves slaves of this world. Why do I say this? I say this because our conscience will constantly accuse us, something that will drive us to lead a life full of remorse, instead of a life full of the love and peace that God wants us to lead. How many would like to lead this type of life? How many would like to have a life full of joy and peace in our Lord? How many would like to have a new start? Let’s now turn to the word of God to learn how we can achieve this.
Isaiah 43:18-19 - Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
As I always say, to have a better understanding of the message that God has for us today, it will be necessary to conduct a brief history review. Isaiah lived during a time when the people of God were divided in two kingdoms; Israel was the kingdom of the north, and Judah was the kingdom of the south. What was happening back then was the kingdom of the north had turned its back on God, and the kingdom of the south was headed in the same direction. When we study what was happening with the people of God back then, we find that they had turned their backs to God to lead a life full of sin. It is for this reason that Isaiah warned the people of Judah of the impending judgment of God due to their moral depravation, political corruption, social injustice, and specially the spiritual idolatry. This is something that is very well reflected in the prophet’s words as we find in Isaiah 1:1-4 when we read "The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. A Rebellious Nation 2Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: "I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. 3The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand." 4Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him". Because the people would not turn their back on sin, Isaiah told them that they would eventually be defeated. God would deliver them in the hands of Babylon so that they would once again become captives and slaves. Look carefully at how this is clearly stated in Isaiah 39:5-7 when we read "Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the LORD Almighty: 6The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. 7And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." Why is it important to know these things? It is important because through them we learn that there are consequences to our actions. Therefore, keeping these things in mind, let’s now continue with our study for today.
The people of Judah would still have to endure through another one hundred years of difficulties before the fall of Israel, and through seventy years of exile, but in these verses that we will be using today, through Isaiah God offers them words of consolation. God was calling them to a new beginning; God was calling them to repent. But what do these words tell us today? Will we be led captives into Babylon?
The answer is that we will not be led captive to the Babylon of that time, but unfortunately, there are many within the body of Christ that are captive to the things of this world. There are many that due to their rebellion, idolatry, lack of will power, apathy and discouragement, are already slaves to this evil world. But if you fond yourself in this situation, then you must know that God wants to do something new in your life. We are about to begin a new year, and God calls you to have a new beginning. How many would like to have a new beginning today? How can we achieve this? Let’s explore these two small verses to find the answer to our question.
The first thing that we find here is "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past". This is of extreme importance, so tell the person sitting next to you, "forget the former things". Perhaps some of you may asking yourselves, why is this so important? This is of extreme importance because our adversary will use our past and faults to accuse us; he will use our past and faults to keep us slaves of our own conscience. Our adversary will use our past to keep us from leading the life that God wants us to lead. What type of life does God wants us to lead? Look carefully at what we find in Philippians 4:4 when we read "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" Tell the person sitting next to you, rejoice in the Lord.
God wants us to be happy, full of joy, and always victorious. But our adversary will use our past in an attempt to prevent this from happening. Our adversary will use our past to blind us to all the things that God has done, is doing, and will continue to do for us. Now, I want to make a brief pause here to clarify something. I want it to be very clear that I am not saying nor implying that we should forget from where Christ rescued, cleansed, and purified us. Furthermore, this is something that we should always remember, and we must testify about. This is something that is very well reflected in Acts 10:40-43 when we read "but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." Therefore, we must testify of these things so that the glory, power, and mercy of God are reflected in our life. We must testify about from where our Lord rescued us to glorify God. But what we can’t allow to happen is for these things to influence the way that we now think, or to affect the way we now feel. That life that we once led, that life of sin, that life that led us away from God and straight into hell, can not influence our present, and has no part in our future. It is as the apostle wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17 when we read "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" But if we continue living in the past, then we will never be who God wants us to be. If we allow the devil to accuse us, if we allow him to keep us concentrated in our errors of the past then we will never reach the place that God wants us to reach. This exactly is what happened to the people of Israel back then. The people that God liberated after more than 400 years of slavery in Egypt, the people that God led to the promised land and gave them victory over their enemies, the had now rebelled against him. They saw His power, majesty and glory. They saw signals and prodigies, but regardless of all of this, they failed Him and consequently allowed themselves to be led away from God’s will and into back into captivity by sin. In other words the enemy stopped their progress using the same demons that he used to stop their ancestors in the desert; he used the demons of rebellion, apathy and discouragement.
We can not allow the enemy to stop us; we can not allow the enemy to invade our mind. We have to renew the way we think, we have to concentrate on what God is doing in our life, and look to the future and what He will do. We have to do as we find in Romans 12:2 when we read "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God".
Continuing we read, "See, I am doing a new thing!" God wants to do something new in your life today, God wants to renew you, and He wants to strengthen you. Tell the person sitting next to you, God is going to something new in my life today. God is searching for people that are willing to trust Him; He is looking for people that will depend on Him. As believers we must begin o depend more on God and less in our own abilities. Once this happens, then we will begin to experience God’s power in our life. Once this happens we will begin to experience what we find in Deuteronomy 28:6-7 when we read "Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. 7“The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways". How many of you would like to experience the power of God in your life? How many of you would like God to do something new in your life today? God wants to do something new in our life, and the Word tells us "Now it springs up". This is God’s promise to all of us, and it let’s us know that He will work in our life, and that He will glorify himself in us. But here we also read "do you not perceive it?" But why is this question included here?
This is an extremely important question because what happens quite often is that many do not get to see the blessings of God. Many never receive the blessings that God has stored for them and the main reason is because they are unwilling to recognize their own faults. After all, how can anybody think that they will receive God’s blessings if they continue leading a life of sin? Let’s never forget that God can not dwell in sin, and that is exactly why He calls us to lead a holy life as we find in Leviticus 20:26 when we read, "And you shall be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine." Tell the person sitting next to you, God separated us to be His. This is something that the people of God ignored back then, and the consequence was that instead of receiving God’s blessings, they were led away into captivity. The truth of it all is that just as them; no one will ever receive God’s blessings if they continue on the path that leads away from God. No one will ever receive God’s blessings unless they are willing to recognize their own faults, and genuinely repent. It is as we find in Proverbs 28:13 when we read "He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy." But when this happens, then God begins to act. When there is a genuine repentance in the life of a person, God acts and does something new in that life. Tell the person sitting next to you, God is going to do something new in my life today.
What will he do in our life today? The scriptures tell us "I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." These were words of consolation to the people of Judah; God told them that He would once again free them from slavery, that He would once again lead them, but these words speak to us as strongly as to them back then. These words tell us that if we trust Him, He will guide us through the tribulations that we have to traverse. Listen well for the Lord tells us "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). He wants to open for us today a new path filled with His presence so that we will be able to traverse that desert of depression, and discouragement without falling. He wants to open a new path for us so that we can overcome the rebellion and apathy that often times leads us away from His presence. He wants to give us a drink from that fountain of living waters so that we will never thirst again. Listen well for the Lord tells you today "Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:13-14). We can not allow the enemy to detour us from the path that God has chosen. We can not allow the enemy to depress or discourage us by bringing up the past in our mind; we have to concentrate on God, we have to concentrate on what He wants to do with us.
In conclusion. The people of God of that time were about to be captive and once again be led into slavery by Babylon. Because of their rebellion and disobedience God would allow them to be captured, but here the prophet was bringing them words of hope. God told them that He would free them and perform even greater things than those that He had done when He liberated them from Egypt. Unfortunately they failed to heed the warnings of the prophet, and the people continued on the path of rebellion and sin, the path that led them into captivity by Babylon. The sad part of it all is that although there are numerous examples in the bible that let us know the final results of these actions, many within the people of God of today continue falling into the slavery of sin due to the same things. God told these people that He would do something new, that He would do even greater things with them, but in order for this to happen, they had to return back to Him. God speaks to us today using the same words, we have to turn back to God and leave far behind the sinful life; we have to turn to God and leave far behind the depression, rebellion, apathy and discouragement. God wants to do something new in out life, He wants to restore and use us. We are about to begin a new year, but you may also be ready to start a new life. Examine yourself today, reflect and ask yourself, am I a slave to the things of this world? Am I about to be led captive do to my rebellion, apathy or discouragement? Listen well for God tells you today "See, I am doing a new thing!” God want to do something new in your life today. He can renew you, and He wants to bless you, but you must want Him to do so.
