The Word for Wednesday, July 22 Edition

I haven't gone far in Isaiah during this past week, as sloth and disorganization have exacted their usual price. But, right here in chapter 40, God provides us, through the prophet, with a perspective-restorer. Verses 18 through 26:

To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare with Him?
As for the idol, a craftsman casts it,
A goldsmith plates it with gold,
And a silversmith fashions chains of silver.
He who is too impoverished for such an offering
Selects a tree that does not rot;
He seeks out for himself a skilled craftsman
To prepare an idol that will not totter.

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
Has it not been declared to you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is He who sits above the vault of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
He it is who reduces the rulers to nothing,
Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.
Scarcely have they been planted,
Scarcely have they been sown,
Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth,
But He merely blows on them, and they wither,
And the storm carries them away like stubble.
"To whom then will you liken Me
That I should be his equal?" says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high
And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power
Not one of them is missing.

Well, I don't know about you; my experience, shamefully enough, is that I do know, and I have heard, and it has been declared to me from the beginning; but I'm weak-minded and forgetful, and I need reminding all the time. Which might be the best thing about reading the Bible on a basis approaching regularity ... thereby are the reminders provided. Thereby is the weak mind built up and reinforced. Thereby are peace and rest obtained.

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