Isaiah 40:9. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift [it] up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
10 Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong [hand], and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward [is] with him, and his work before him.
11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry [them] in his bosom, [and] shall gently lead those that are with young.
What a beautiful portion of scripture! Isaiah, under the anointing of the Holy Ghost, foretold the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Writing about seven hundred years before Christ, Isaiah gives instruction to Zion to proclaim with strength that the Lord God has come to visit them. Surely in this last and evil day the church must lift up it’s voice without fear and proclaim that God has come and made a way of salvation to all who will believe and receive Him. While pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ we must say to the evil cities of this nation, "Behold your God."
Our God did come with a strong hand. He did come as a tender shepherd. I feel that He bore me up in His arms as a tender lamb, and has gently led me along the paths of my life. The Lord God came to the cities of Judah, but they did not know the day of their visitation. Although He walked on the water and calmed the wind, He was not accepted. He came to His own and His own received Him not. Some of us who were not of His original sheepfold have been priviledged to hear the gospel and to believe and receive it. What an honor that He gave us power to become the sons of God, simply because we have believed on His Name.
Jesus ate with the outcast and spoke words of life to those trapped in the clutches of sin. He allowed the women taken in the act of adultery to have a new start. He walked past a despised tax collector and said," Follow Me," and Matthew immediately left all to do so. He was criticised for eating with Matthew’s friends who consisted of fellows publicans and prostitutes. Jesus let it be known that He was on a mission to save sinners rather than the righteous. Can we not look at this scene and thankfully and tearfully say, "Behold our God!"
One day a frail sickly women determined that she had to press through the crowd and touch the hem of the Master’s garment. She had tried everything else and nothing worked. She did what we must also do. She pressed in and touched the Master. We must press through doubt and fear. We must get past our rhetoric and dead works and touch the Lord God who is walking among us.
Some soldiers were sent to arrest Him and came back empty handed. When questioned, they could only reply, "Never a man spake like this man."
Jesus met a women at a well in Samaria. This women was not one of the respectable ladies of the city. She was in fact the talk of the town. In her conversation she revealed some knowledge of scripture and a hunger for God. The Samatitans had only the five books of Moses and yet she knew of Messiah coming. At the climax of her conversation with Jesus she ran back to the city and cried out, "Come and see a man who told me all things I ever did, Is not this the Christ?" Is He not Shiloh whom our father Jacob talked of? Is He not a prophet like unto Moses? Is He not the Lord God among us? Can we not say to all who will hear, "Behold your God?"
The women’s theology was flawed, but she had an encounter with Almighty God. She didn’t know where to worship, but her life was forever changed.
There was another man with imperfect knowledge who was touched by the Master. This man had been blind and Jesus healed him. He was questioned concerning whether or not Jesus was a sinner. He could only speak from his experience. He could not tell what he didn’t know. His reply shut the mouths of the antagonists: "Once I was blind but now I see."
I don’t have to be the proverbial rocket scientist to know that I have been touched by the living God. I may not be able to explain the theory of relativity but I can tell of my encounter with the Mighty God. He did for me what He did for the prodigal son. He put a ring on my finger and shoes on my feet. He killed the fatted calf on my behalf and made me His heir.
I’m just like the blind man. I can only tell what I know. I know that I was mourning and poor in spirit and Jesus came and comforted me. He carried me as a tender lamb in His bosom. He calmed the storm in my life, just as He calmed the sea. I once was broken hearted because of sins effects, but Jesus bound up my broken heart. I once was a captive and Jesus set me free. I once was blind in the worst possible way, but the light of the glorious gospel of Christ shined across my path. I encountered the Eternal One whose Being is light and in Whom there is no darkness. I was bruised and He set me at liberty. I was sick and He took my sickness and bore my infirmity.
He gave me beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning. He gave me the right and honor to draw water out of the wells of salvation. Out of my belly has flown rivers of living water. He has placed His love upon me and allowed me to be called a son of God. He gave me the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. I am now called a tree of righteous, the planting of the Lord. I have been saved by His grace and His grace alone. He considers me to be His workmanship. Oh, what an honor!
Jesus announced to the women at the well that He was indeed the Messiah. He stated elsewhere that it was absolutely essential to believe that He was the "I AM" or we would die in our sins. Jesus freely claimed the Eternal Name of God as His Own. In the burning bush He told Moses, "This will be My Name forever and My memorial to all generations." If I do not believe that Jesus is the One who stretched forth the heavens alone by Himself, I’ll die in my sins. If I cannot believe that He is the Mighty Creator who spoke the world into existence by the power of His Word, I will have lived my life in vain. Except I can worship Jesus as the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity and Who is before all things and by Whom all things consist I will be living in idolatry. If I cannot see in Jesus all the fulness of the Godhead and all the power and majesty of God, I will have missed it badly.
If I must believe that Jesus is the I AM to be saved I must believe that He has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand and meted out heaven with it’s span. I must believe that it is He who has comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains and hills in a balance. We appear to His as grasshoppers as He spreads the heavens out as a tent to dwell in.
Yes, Jesus is the God of the Old Testament. He promised father Abaham that He would provide Himself as a sacrifice. Abrahan rejoiced at the prospect of his imnumerable seed being washed and redeemed in the blood of the promised Redeemer. This Redeemer would be his son according to the flesh and Almighty Eternal God according to His Deity. I have been made part of the seed of Abraham because of faith in the blood that flowed from the veins of God. He purchased me with His Own blood. Behold our God!
He commanded Israel to sing and rejoice because He had blotted out their transgressions. Israel’s redemption was an accomplished fact in God’s mind seven hundred years before Calvary. In fact it was an accomplished fact in the mind of God in eternity past. God knew back then that He would come in the flesh and gather all creation together in One, in Himself, even in Christ.
Jesus the Mighty God and the Everlasting Father came to us as a child born and as a Son given. He came as a Son over the very house He had created. He came for one purpose alone, to seek and to save the lost. God walked as a man and died as a man to save me! He was crucified and buried, but the grave could not hold Him. He descended to the lower parts of the earth and led a procession out of Hades. He ascended to the throne of God and poured out goods gifts unto men. From the throne He issues an invitation to all who are thirsty to come and drink of the waters of life freely.
I marvel at this God as I ask you to behold Him. I am thankful that He saved me. I eagerly await the day that I shed my mortality and am changed to be like Him. Someday soon I’ll look face to face with the One Eternal God who partook of my nature that I might become a possessor of His.
A man named George Studd made a statement similar to this: "If Jesus Christ be Almighty God and I believe that He is. If Almighty God Died for me and I believe that He did. I have no choice but to love Him and serve Him with every ounce of my strength and every fiber of my being." Behold our God! His Name is Jesus!
Don Spooner
