I live on Vancouver Island in beautiful British Columbia, Canada; and I have always loved this

verse because of that.

Isaiah 42:10

Sing to the Lord a new song,

Sing His praise from the end of the earth!

You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it; You islands, and those who live on them.

Let the wilderness and its cities raise their voices.

My location in relation to Israel is near to the furthest west you can travel.

It moves me to realize that His light has gone forth to the outermost reaches of the earth.

Again this post was triggered by my daily Bible reading. So take a wander with me.

Isaiah 42:10

Sing to the Lord a new song,

Sing His praise from the end of the earth!

You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it; You islands, and those who live on them.

Let the wilderness and its cities raise their voices.

Isaiah 42:20

You have seen many things, but you do not retain them; Your ears are open, but no one hears.

Isaiah 42:21–22

The Lord was pleased for His righteousness’ sake to make the Law great and glorious.

But this is a people plundered and pillaged. All of them are trapped in caves, or they have become plunder, with no one to save them or to buy them back.

Isaiah 44:19

No one remembers, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, “I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked over its coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination, I bow down before a block of wood!”

He feeds on ashes; a deceived heart has misled him. And he cannot save himself, nor say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

Isaiah 61:3

To grant those who mourn in Zion a garland of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.

The Bible remains alive and relevant for our day. We are surrounded by countless voices and

revelations that we can scroll through for hours, but do we hear?

Scripture does not separate hearing from obedience; to hear is to respond. Without that response

we become like the one in James who looks in a mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like.

If I cannot see myself, how can I adjust?

I could not think of a clearer picture of a people cut off from God than the one Isaiah paints of

victims trapped and in caves with no one to help them.

I had a dream that pressed that image on me.

I walked into one of our city’s first churches. Everything was ordered and pristine, but the pews

were empty. Instead, glass coffins stood upright against the walls. Inside each one was a person,

connected to a system that kept them ‘alive’ but incapable of breath or movement. They looked like

excellently made figures in a wax museum. It is a sobering thought to wonder if it is possible to

appear alive and yet be dead inside.

Jesus spoke to the religious leaders of his day about whitewashed tombs that look clean but contain

dead men’s bones. We see it again in the church of Sardis in Revelation whose works had made

them a reputation for being alive but were dead.

In John 15 Jesus tells us He is the vine and we are the branches; the one who remains in him bears

much fruit, but apart from him we can do nothing.

The beautifully coifed and dressed but ‘entombed’ church members in my dream were not bearing

fruit.

Everyone looked great, yet they were incapable of affecting each other or the world around them,

incapable of being sources of life.

Isaiah’s picture of idolatry is painfully precise. No one remembers; there is no knowledge or

understanding. The man who bows before a block of wood feeds on ashes.

To grasp that image, we must remember what ashes mean in Scripture: mortality, contrition, fasting, repentance.

Ashes are not merely the remains of a fire, in scripture they are the language of a humbled heart.

In Exodus, when Moses came down from the mountain and found the people worshiping the golden

calf, he burned it, ground it to powder, cast it into the water, and made them drink.

That public, corporate act was a remedy for corporate sin.

We are , all of us, guilty of creating this system where we exalt platforms or the praise of men above

God himself.

There is therefore, a need for corporate and public repentance.

The ashes in Numbers 19 used for purification were mixed with running water. Only running or

‘living’ water could symbolize life overcoming death.

That practice foreshadowed the living water that flowed from Christ’s side, the water that washes

and makes us clean.

I never connected before that ashes were used for purification with Isaiah’s promise of beauty for

ashes. We sing, “He makes all things beautiful in His time,” but sometimes we sing without the

awareness that God may transform our ashes into beauty by bringing us through the process of

repentance.

It is like shedding the old wineskin to receive new wine.

When Jesus told the parable of new wine needing a new wineskin it was within the context of

teaching about fasting.

Unlike todays view of fasting as merely abstinence from food, in that culture, fasting was

synonymous with repentance.

It was a posture of humility and turning over a new leaf so to speak.

Our faith is a living relationship where our hearts are enlarged through habitual repentance.

A moving living vital stream with riverbanks that bend instead of a concrete culvert of rigid rules.

Oh, how I wish I could convey the inflections of longing and compassion I hear in the Lord’s words

through Isaiah as he practically begs his people to return to Him.

Yet he also reminds them of his sovereignty, his authority over his enemies, and his absolute power

to destroy.

People talk about wanting to be on the right side of history; I want to be on God’s side!

He alone is worthy of worship.

Moses ground the golden calf to dust as a public act because corporate sin requires corporate

remedy. Just so, our penchant for public platforms and the praises of men is corporate and requires

a corporate repentance.

We are passing through this life on our way to the one that lasts.

It is my heart’s desire to live with the perspective of eternity and to get as much of its light as I can.

That is why I read the Bible and worship daily.

Not because I am super spiritual, but because I know where the life is.

I can smell it.

I smelled it the other day, like the scent of freshly mowed green grass, just outside a door.

Jesus is the door, and abiding in him is on the other side. The door is also the cross, and the abiding

life is accessed only through surrender of the throne of our life.

I despair at our current condition, and yet I take hope in this: He has always known our propensity to

idolatry and He has always provided a way back.

Before the foundation of the world the I Am, the Creator, Fountain, Source of all life, Jehovah Jireh

provided.

In Genesis the covering for Adam and Eve was a prophetic signal of the sacrifice He himself would

make for us. He knew we would fail, and He made us anyway. That omniscience amazes me. He

knows all things, and yet His knowing did not keep Him distant forever. He saw our wandering

hearts and prepared the remedy.

Throughout Scripture we see this cycle of rebellion, deliverance, and restoration.

Our compassionate Lord reiterated to Israel his promise to give them a lush land drenched with the

rain of righteousness if they would only obey.

Here we are again in that place of need for deliverance. And he longs to give us beauty for our ashes.

He says, Come.

Come if you are thirsty or weary.

Come and receive what you cannot produce yourself.

In that coming, find again your Source, the One you were always meant to live from.

Jehovah Jireh still provides.

I encourage you to take any thread from these verses and ask the Lord to show you if there

is a way for you to change your heart’s posture that would allow you to access His joy and love

more frequently. To abide.

I would be eager to hear what He whispers to your heart as you wait on Him.

And so, I leave you with this invitation: “Come and go with me to my Father’s house.”

All the love my friends.