Isa 51:1 Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.
There was a remnant of God living in Babylon just prior to their return to Jerusalem. Seventy long years and most of Israel that had been carried off were now completely consumed with the things of the world. Babylon offered some of the most modern living and comforts the world had to offer in those days. It seems that two-thirds of the Israelites, when given the opportunity, would not return to a broken down city with no walls. Much of that generation had never experienced what it had been like to live in Israel or worship in the temple.
And so the prophet has some advice for the remnant who still followed after righteousness even although they lived in a pagan world. He tells those who still sought after the Lord to lookback unto the rock from where they had been chiseled out and to the hole from where they had been dug up. He was telling God’s people to look back and remember what God had done for them, how they had been redeemed and called. Maybe as you look around and see the state of the world and the state of Christianity, you too are deeply discouraged. But I want you to remember your salvation, I want you to bring to your mind the darkness of sin that God called you out of into His marvelous light. I want you to think about all the trials and tribulations that the Lord has brought you through. I want you to consider your very sanity in a world gone mad, even the state of your mind is directly due to the God of our salvation, our heavenly Father. Praise God that we still stand.
Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.(Isa 51:2-3) Read the rest of this entry »
A Call To The Remnant 