Gift of Freedom

 

                                                                    (photo by Otto Gonzalez)

“For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, and the rod of their oppressor, You have broken as on the day of Midian.” (Isaiah 9:4, ESV)

In Isaiah 9:1-7, Isaiah prophesied to Israel, the northern kingdom, about their captivity. God sought to bolster their hope, give them joy, and remind them of His promises to them as His children. Though God allowed the Assyrians to capture the people of Israel, He meant for it to last only for a time, not for an eternity. As His mode of disciplining the people of Israel, God allowed Assyria to capture Israel. Like most captives, the government (kings, governors, and ministers) and captors, would subjugate them according to their whims and by their laws. God would allow this captivity by Assyria, but He would not allow Assyria to oppress the people of Israel permanently. He promised Abraham His heirs would own their own land and be a nation.

With Isaiah 9:1, God spoke to every person within Israel, not just the Jews. Abraham trusted God’s promises long before the Mosaic covenant, and God credited his faith as righteousness. That means God credit a person as righteous if he or she believed in God before the Messiah’s arrival on earth. That person in a right relationship with God became an heir to the promise He gave Abraham. With the disciplining by God of the people of Israel, which God allowed by Assyria, each captive would experience oppressive servitude. Isaiah 9:2-3 reveals what God would do for the people of Israel — both Jews and Gentiles—and how they would respond. God said, through Isaiah, that He would give them light, joy, and an increase in their nation. For people living in captivity, this hope of God leading them from the shadow of death by His light, giving them joy, and enlarging their nation, would cause them to rejoice in their hearts, minds, and spirits. With their internal rejoicing, their bodies would join with singing, dancing, praising, praying, and celebrating God. God would give them His joy, His light, and His redemption.

In Isaiah 9:4, God continued telling the people of Israel what He would do for them. He did this so they would not lose heart and completely turn away from Him. God did not want their captivity to be permanent, but a temporary disciplining. God remains true to His people, Himself, and His promises. Isaiah told the people they would become but would not stay slaves. That sentence tells the intent of verse four. The next sections of this study will expand on God’s message in verse four.

God said He would break “the yoke of his (the people’s) burden.” For the people of Israel, this meant the slavery and subjection the people would endure in Assyria would not last forever. God gave the people hope by telling them this. Assyria would treat Israel harshly. History bore witness to this terrifying and formidable army. The Assyrian army laid siege to Samaria for three years before they overthrew it. They waged war within the northern kingdom from 740 BC. The Assyrians overthrew Samaria, the capital of Israel, in 722 BC. The Assyrian army possessed tenacity, manpower, and extensive military training. When captured, Assyria put rings in the noses of each person they overtook. This government subjugated its captives. God told the people of Israel He would break the yoke of the burden Assyria put on them. He would free them from their oppressors. The people of Israel would go home, live as they wanted, and worship God alone, not the Assyrian gods.

Compare what Jesus said about God’s yoke with the yoke of the Assyrian oppressors. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus said,

Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light (ESV).

Jesus described the yoke God’s people would have with Him. He said His yoke would be gentle and easy. Contrast that with Assyria, whose army and government people feared most at that time. The people of Israel, by force, would become slaves to Assyria. They would not choose to enslave themselves. Note the difference between slavery and servants. Slavery is a coerced servitude, an oppression. People chose to serve someone. Throughout the Bible, the people of God have called themselves—Jew and Gentile—servants of God. Nehemiah, in Nehemiah 1:10, wrote about the Jews being God’s servants and His people whom God redeemed. Paul wrote about being God’s servants in 2 Corinthians 6:4. He said, “In everything we commend ourselves as servants of God,” even in affliction, hardships, and distress. Ezra called the Israelites servants of God in Ezra 5:11. The psalmist in Psalm 105:6 referred to Abraham as being God’s servant. In each of these Bible passages and many others, the people choose to be servants of God because of who God is and what He did for them. Just as the psalmist wrote in Psalm 100:2, the people of Israel reacted to God and His love, promises, and care for them by gladly serving Him. Because God promised to break Israel’s yoke of oppression, they would endure and rejoice. The people of Israel would have hope. They would see God’s light in the deep darkness of Assyrian slavery.

God continued to bolster the minds, hearts, and spirits of the people of Israel in Isaiah 9:4. He said He would break “the staff from his shoulder.” In the Hebrew vocabulary, a staff, bar, and or scepter come from the original Hebrew word. It represented the government’s authority over the people. The staff of the Assyrian King, Shalmaneser V, sought to oppress the people and acquire their lands for his empire. He sought dominance over the nations surrounding him. That King’s heart and mind cared not with helping the people he overthrew, but with his power and dominance. Contrast this with what David wrote in Psalm 23:4. He said God’s rod comforted him. David feared his enemy, king Saul, but he showed no fear of God. He trusted God loved him and would protect him. God promised David would be king. He told Samuel to anoint him as king (1 Samuel 16:1-13). God vowed that, through David’s line, a king would reign forever (2 Samuel 7:16). His staff would be light, unlike Assyria’s staff. God would lead and guide David, not push and oppress him. David chose to be God’s servant (2 Samuel 7:18-29). The people of Israel faced a lack of options; Shalmaneser cast them into slavery after his army overthrew them. They did not choose willing to be servants. The people of Israel became slaves.

Isaiah continued prophesying in verse four by saying God would break the rod of the oppressor of the people of Israel. This rod is like what shepherds fight with against bears and lions to keep their flocks safe. David, a shepherd, told King Saul about fighting lions and bears to “deliver” the sheep from their predators’ mouths (1 Samuel 17:34-36, ESV). The rod in Isaiah 9:4 was a weapon God would use to free His people. Assyria used this rod to subjugate the people of Israel. They would use it to beat the captives into submission. The captives from Israel would not willingly and joyfully assent to being slaves. The Assyrians created submissiveness by the force wielded through the rod. God’s rod, according to David is Psalm 23:4, would bring comfort, not fear. It would bring peace.

God promised the people of Israel He would break the rod of fear the Assyrians oppressively wielded over them like “on the day of Midian.” This promise recalled the day Israel prepared to battle the Midianites. Isaiah used this battle to help the people of God’s promise recall how God’s might, wielded for them, showed His light, and gave them joy, hope, peace, and comfort. The story of God’s defeat of the Midianites is in Judges 7:15-25.

First, though, why did God tell the Israelites to battle the Midianites? In Judges 6, the people of Israel sinned against Him and His commands (2 Kings 17:6-23). God allowed the Midianites to win a battle against Israel. The Midianites punished Israel more than God wanted by capturing their crops and continuing to pester them. When Israel saw they had sinned against God, and His disciplining of them included sending Midian against them, they cried out to the Lord.

Judges 7:15-25, God’s response to His people calling to Him included sending Gideon, the prophet, to deliver them. He commanded Gideon to cleanse Israel of the pagan influences. One act God commanded included destroying the altars of Baal in Israel. The people were unhappy about him destroying the altars, but God’s hand kept them from harming Gideon. Gideon wanted confirmation from God about His promise to save Israel. He laid a fleece on the ground twice. Because the Israelites doubted God’s promise to save them, He reduced the number of men for Gideon’s army to three hundred. Gideon spied on the Midianite encampment and heard a Midianite soldier’s dream about Israel defeating Midian. Emboldened, Gideon and his army obeyed God’s command because of that dream. The Midianites ran in fear when the three hundred Israelites trumpeted their horns and shattered their clay pots.

The Israelites retold this victory story through the generations. People of Israel readily recalled this story. Because the battle with Midian was well known, when Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 9:4 that God would break the rod of the Assyrians like He broke the rod of the Midianites, they had hope. The Israelites knew God would defeat the Assyrians. The Babylonians defeated the Assyrians. The Persians defeated the Babylonians in 539 BC. Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, freed the Israelites to return to Judah. Those Jews began rebuilding the Temple. God broke the rod of oppression. The people of Israel would remember God and His promises to them from Isaiah. Because they recalled the defeat of Midian at God’s hand, they would have hoped, would have rejoiced, and been at peace, acknowledging and praising Him as the source of all good things.

Because of God’s promises, the people of Israel would have hope for the end of captivity. These people would have hope that God would free them from their oppressors. Hearing, knowing, and trusting God’s promises would shed God’s light on their hearts, minds, and spirits. Like His promises to Abraham and Moses caused joy and peace, the people of Israel would receive God’s joy and peace, then recall and know God loves them.

God promised light, joy, and an enlargement of the numbers of the people of Israel. These people include all people today. We each can be part of those promises because of God’s promises to Abraham, through Isaiah, from Jesus in John 3:16-17, and from others throughout the Bible. God did not promise a light and intend to keep the interpretation vague. He did not intend it to be just a metaphor. His promise became real. The Light, Jesus, became flesh and dwelled among us (John 1:14). Jesus taught and proved He is the Light of all humanity in John 8:12. He said, “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Yes, God gave the people of Israel light in their hearts, minds, and spirits to bolster their hope. He also alluded to His Son, Jesus, who would come into this world and be the actual Light for all people. Approximately 740 years after the captivity of these people of Israel, this Light, Jesus, was born in Bethlehem. Jesus came to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed (Luke 4:18). Isaiah prophesied this in Isaiah 61:1-2. Like the captives in Assyria, God gave hope, joy, peace, and light. It stilled their anxious hearts and helped them turn to God.

Today, for people everywhere, Jesus’ words proclaim the same thing. The hope, joy, peace, and light God alluded to in Isaiah 9 came true for the Israelites, is true now, and Jesus will fulfill it entirely upon His second coming to Earth. Isaiah said, “The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this” (Isaiah 9:7d, ESV). He told the truth; it happened.

Jesus is the Light of the world. David celebrated God’s yoke, rod, and staff in Psalm 23. Jesus tells us His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. God continues to offer His promise that will give hope, peace, and joy. He makes our yokes light. God gave the Light, Jesus, for eternal freedom from our oppressor, Satan. Jesus calls out even now for us to receive release from captivity, sight from blindness and darkness, the bounty of provision, and the redemption from our sin-captive souls.

Isaiah proclaimed this Light of God, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace” (Isaiah 9:6b, ESV). David ended Psalm 23 by saying, “Surely (God’s) goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6, ESV).

Who is God to you? Who is the Redeemer of your captivity? Who or what do you rely upon to give you perfect peace, full joy, and eternal freedom from captivity? Join saints of the past, including Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, David, Micah, the angels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and millions of others who believed in Jesus, and whom God declared righteous. Believe in Jesus.

We celebrate Jesus, whom Isaiah and other prophets foretold. God includes all people in His promise of Light. Will you rejoice with other believers, praise God, and celebrate His goodness? Join all believers and the angels in proclaiming what Luke recorded in Luke 2:14.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased! (ESV).

The Reward

The “end” is over,
Timeline erased.
Life ran o’er its course;

Heart completed the race.

One last beating.

One last exhale.
One final eye-blink.
Life ends its brief trail.

What more can be done?

What remains beyond?
Mere mem’ries recalled
At setting of sun.

A psalm said o’er life.

A psalm said o’er death.
Prophecy fulfilled,
Shepherd’s love begets.

Mem’ries of Shepherd’s love;

What was now and not yet,
Becomes now and always
As with Shepherd, they sit.

The Lord is my Shepherd,

Said with understanding in full.
He laid them down in green pastures,
Just as He led them by waters still.

He refreshed and restored them

And led them on righteous paths.
The Shepherd gave them peace and calm,
Walking with them, with His rod and staff.

Before eyes of their enemies

Made He a table for His own.
Anointed their heads with oil;
Son and daughter, He made it known.

Faithful and faultless,

Merciful and good,
The Shepherd never left them;
Through their days of life, He always stood.

Breath and heartbeat gone forever.

Timeline faded away.
Eternity stretched before them,
Because of the Ancient of Days.

Surely goodness and mercy followed them

Through the length of their days.
The “not yet” is now theirs,
To God, we now praise.

     For being their Shepherd,
     the One who gave rest and led.
     For being their Savior,
     their Restorer and Righteousness.
     For being their Conqueror,
     their Peace, Rod, and Staff.
     For being their Provider,
     their Defense and Holiness.
     For being their God
     all their days and night.

To them, all that was, their timeline ran out.

The days of their “not yet” have begun without end.

The reward of a life consecrated by God?

Forever hearing “well done” and eternity with the King,
Singing with the angels, “Praise God and Amen!”

In their lives, they sang with men.

Now with the angels, this song never ends:

The Lord is my Shepherd;

I did not want.
He laid me down in green pastures;
He led me beside still waters.
He restored my soul.
He led me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yes, though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I did not fear evil because You were with me;
Your rod and staff comforted me.
You prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies.
You anointed my head with oil; my cup overflowed.
Surely goodness and mercy followed me all the days of my life.
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.

Unchanging

 

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  Hebrews 13:8

 

Jesus Christos (Messiah) is unchanging (immutable). He will always be the same from yesterday to now and into the expanse of eternity.

 

“Yesterday, today, and tomorrow” was written to emphasize and provide an example of just how unchanging Jesus is. He existed before creation. Jesus came to earth to live among us and die for us. He is with us now giving what we need and more, guiding us, and protecting us. Jesus will exist into infinity. He is part of the Godhead. No matter what conflicting teachings and doctrines you hear, the Jesus who has always been and will always be—the One you met when you were convicted of your sins and when you recognized you need a Savior—is the unchanging Jesus Christ. 

 

This truth is what the writer of Hebrews taught, reinforced, and emphasized in this verse.

 

So, “Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace and not by foods of no value to those devoted to them” (Hebrews 13:9). Ceremony (rituals, food, clothes, words, etc) have no value for the people who follow them. Jesus, His grace, His teaching, and His examples should be what we believe and follow. 

 

Don’t follow those who teach, preach, and model a way different from Jesus. Theirs is for vanity and pride. It serves only the false teacher and not his/her hearers. Jesus and His words are unchanging. 

 

Lord Jesus, help me not to be confused by conflicting teachings. Help me to see You alone and Your path. Lead me in the paths of Your righteousness for Your glory, O Lord. Help me not to fear evil but to see You are with me. You are my Foundation, my Savior. You alone are unchanging. You alone, Jesus, are the Truth and Way. Lead me in it. .

I AM, the Eternal Victor

We each come to a point in our lives, actually many points in our lives, when we must decide if we will let our circumstances get us “down.” For some people, death seems to take them “down.” Others face illness or a diagnosis they didn’t expect, and that gets them “down.” Possibly losing a job or not getting a promotion will cause a person to be “down.” For other people, not finding a spouse or being childless can make a person feel “down.”

A whole host of things in life confront us and we get to decide how they will affect us. Notice I said, “We get to decide how they will affect us.” That doesn’t mean I am immune to feeling trampled by life because of illness, death, dark thoughts, lack of family or love, or any of thousands of other non-happy things in life. It means at this place in my life, at least for today, I can say my situation has not made me feel “down.” For me to admit that is a major step in my faith journey. Yes, I have been through difficult times without feeling pummeled before, but they were few. Still, the times of feeling “down” because of circumstances are becoming farther apart. As I pondered that today, I have come to conclusions.

God has been busy teaching me the last year or two that circumstances don’t define Him, but He defines circumstances. This year, He began teaching me more, and I am just at the start of this learning experience. God is teaching me about Himself as He revealed Himself to the people of the Old Testament using the Hebrew word anoki, meaning “I am.”

Any of us who has ever read about Moses and the burning bush thinks, “I know this one!” But maybe you don’t. The I AM God who spoke to Moses does not come from the Hebrew word anoki, but is significant. As I’ve said, I have only begun to study where God says anoki and have finished reading through Genesis. Each time God said anoki in the six instances in Genesis, He revealed something about Himself, about His nature, how we can relate to Him, and how He helps us because of that particular characteristic or nature.

To Abraham in Genesis 15:1, God said, “I am your shield.” He meant He is and would be Abraham’s King, Protector, and faith. Abraham could draw faith from God, the Source of faith, and could rely on God to protect and provide for him. He would also be able to go on the defense or offense in obedience to God because God is His King and Protector. God gives Abraham his shield to do battle for Him and to protect him from harm in a defensive battle just as Paul taught in Ephesians 6 with the armor of God.

To Abimelech in Genesis 20:6, God said, “I know you and I kept you.” God knew Abimelech, his heart as well as his actions and thoughts. He knew Abimelech better than Abimelech knew himself. God is all-knowing and all-powerful. He kept Abimelech from sinning against Him, Abraham, Sarah, and himself even when he didn’t realize what he had thought to do would be a sin. God is as close as our next breath and is transcendent knowing the big picture and able to keep things from happening. He protects us from ourselves and from harm by other people. Remember, Abimelech told Abraham what God revealed to him and so Abraham learned, too, that God is all-knowing and the one who is all-powerful and can keep people from sinning.

To Isaac in Genesis 26:24, God reiterated His revelation of Himself to Abraham, Isaac’s father. He reminded Isaac He is with him by saying He is his father’s God-the King, Protector, source of faith, faithful One, all-knowing, and all-powerful. He adds to this promise for Isaac what He didn’t tell Abraham. God told Isaac not to fear. Lack of fear is assumed when God is immanent. Immanence means God is always with you; He is near. Still, sometimes we people need to hear “do not fear.” Isaac needed to hear that. The king of the Philistines, because Isaac’s people and possessions had become large, asked him to leave their land. They filled in the wells Isaac’s men dug. As Isaac’s people moved on, the herdsmen of the Philistines kept fighting over the wells Isaac’s people dug so that Isaac kept having to move on and felt threatened. Then one night, God met with Isaac and told him, “Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you, and will multiply your descendants, for the sake of my servant Abraham.” When faced with enemies or bad situations over and over, sometimes we need to hear God’s reassurance we need not fear. God is faithful to His promises, and He has it all under control. He is faithful, loving, protector, keeper, all-knowing, all-powerful, and the God of Abraham, your father. Who can be afraid when confronted with this nature of God?

To Jacob in Genesis 28:15, God reminded him He is immanent, protector, and faithful. At this point in his life, Jacob was afraid. As the second-born son, he had just been part of the trickery to steal the birthright of the firstborn son from his twin brother, Esau. Esau had a fiery temper and Jacob was afraid. His father, Isaac, told him not to marry a woman from among the Canaanites, but to return to Paddan-aram, the birth home of his grandfather, Abraham. To get there, he would likely cross territory in which Esau lived. God calmed Jacob with a vision of a ladder that reached from the ground to heaven with angels descending and ascending on it. At the top of the ladder God stood and told Jacob, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” All the lessons Abraham and Isaac taught Jacob and Esau about God and His nature, God reiterated in this dream. He added another element to His faithfulness. God’s faithfulness to Abraham and Isaac, and His covenant with them meant He must provide for the bodily needs of Jacob and Abraham’s other descendants. Besides protecting, God would feed, clothe, give water, and provide a wife for him. He would bring him to the land He promised his fathers before him. God said He would not leave him until He had done what He promised. This statement was the prelude to God’s statement to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 3:16 when He told them He would not leave them or forsake them.

With Genesis 35:11 and 46:3-4, God reminded Jacob He is almighty; nothing can thwart His plans or purposes. He commanded Jacob to be fruitful and multiply. God promised from him nations and kings would come. Even though hard times would fall on them, God could still make a great nation come from Jacob. He said He was immanent to Jacob and would protect Him and His offspring, provide for them, and would remain faithful to His covenant to him and his fathers. Even though Jacob and his descendants would walk through the valley (Egypt), God would surely be with them. He invested greater immediacy with this latter set of verses to give Jacob greater courage and conviction to go to a foreign land, walk through an unknown place, and have faith in Him.

For each of these men, as for most people of Bible times, continual verbal retelling of history relayed history from one generation to the next. It was an oral society, not a literate society. Abraham relayed to Isaac and his descendants who God is, what He promised to him, and how He intervened in his life. Isaac, Jacob, and each descendant afterwards carried on this oral tradition. Sometimes God reminded the next generation who He is with another anoki statement. Sometimes He revealed something new about Himself to the person to whom He spoke.

Why does God reveal Himself and His nature to people? Because He wants us to seek Him with all our hearts and find Him. God wants to have a relationship with us. He wants to be our faith, Protector, King, Provider, Keeper, Blesser. He wants us to know Him immanently and to know He is transcendent. God wants us to trust Him. He wants us to know Him. That’s yada knowing, experiential knowing so we know Him with our heart, soul, and mind. God wants us to realize at all times-before, during, and after difficult times-He is with us, knows us, protects us, strengthens us, loves us, keeps us, blesses us, and is all-powerful.

God revealed Himself with the anoki statements, the “I am” statements, in the Old Testament. He revealed His nature and by doing that He revealed to our finite minds how we can understand and relate to Him. More important than these “I am” statements and our holding on to this God of love, protection, omniscience, and omnipotence, is the God Moses first came to know. Moses encountered Elohim God the first time in the burning bush and God commissioned him to go to Egypt to bring His people out of slavery there to His Promised Land. He asked Elohim, “And who shall I say sent me?” (Exodus 3:13) God told Moses to tell them, “I AM WHO I AM. That is what you are to say to the Israelites. I AM has sent me to you.” (Exodus 3:14) This statement by God of who He is carries more weight than any of the anoki statements. God’s description of Himself includes and goes beyond all the characteristics He reveals to people. I AM is the One Who was, is, and always will be. Understand this. I AM is eternal!

With this understanding that God is before, during, and after time, we gain a new, fresher, and more accurate perception of our particular situations, our troubles, the things that make us feel “down.” Keeping our eyes on God eternal-almighty, all-knowing, faithful, Protector, Provider, Lover of our souls, King, faith, Blesser, Covenanter, immanent, transcendent, Savior-changes our perspective. If our God is for us, who can be against us. (Romans 8:31) Better yet, with our God for us, nothing can beat us. Whether we are sick or well, rich or poor, smart or not, big or small, old or young, God is the same. Circumstances do not define God; He defines them. When Elohim is your God, nothing can defeat you. God already has won the victory. Because of this, you can face difficult days without being “down.” You are not defeated because God has won the victory for you.

“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear NO evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff comfort me.  Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of my enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Psalm 23 is not a death song. It is a victory song.

Lord, so often I fall prey to the victim mindset. Forgive me for giving up on myself and You. Forgive me for mentally allowing my situation to define You. Nothing defines You. Help me to remember You define my circumstances. Help me not to give up or get “down,” but to give praise and testimony for You, I AM, what You have done and what You will do. Help me keep my eyes on You in faith. I am trusting You in my situation today. Amen.