Set Free

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Isaiah 35:5-6

 

Our world is in a continual state of conflict that originated in Eden. Not just a conflict involving swords, or guns, or armies who leave battlefields strewn with the deadly results of conflict, but the cosmic conflict between the Kingdom of God and the powers of darkness.

 

This is the focus of the Prophet Isaiah’s words from the Lord. On the one hand the Prophet speaks God’s warning and judgment against the nations and specifically against Edom who arrogantly rejoiced over the tragedies and trials that hammered Israel, God’s people.

 

In  contrast with God’s anger toward the nations we have God’s promise of salvation to his people. In a world aligned against God’s sovereign rule and his saving purposes the Lord’s word is clear and comforting to the fearful in heart, “Be strong and do not fear for your God will come, he will come to save you.”

 

Then comes a powerful testimony to a coming visible witness to the arrival of God’s  salvation. Namely the blind will have their sight restored, the deaf will hear again, the dumb will once again speak and the lame will run and jump with joy. Isaiah testifies to a witnessed evidence of the saving God who comes in the person of his Son Jesus the one who comes with full freeing power. A freedom that not only addresses our physical bondage but addresses the root problem, a problem of the heart. This is the significance of Ezekiel’s word from the Lord, ”I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit in you.” This promise was given to those who walk in the WAY. The early Christians were called the ‘people of the WAY.’ People who believed in Jesus and walked in his WAY, of which he said, ” I am the WAY the truth and the life , no one comes to the Father but through me.”

 

Jesus accused the religious leaders of seeing but not seeing and hearing but not hearing. In Christ Jesus, by faith, from a new heart, our eyes are opened to see Jesus, to hear the truth and to speak it boldly with Joy and Gladness as God’s free sons and daughters.

~Pastor Jack Matheis