Greetings members and friends and welcome to another commentary and preview to this Sunday’s study of the Word. This Sunday’s study text is entitled “God Offers Deliverance” and it is based on Isaiah 51:1-8.
Salvation is a word which means deliverance. In the case of this biblical text, the deliverance is from death. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a message about this same salvation or deliverance. This salvation is something a growing number of people has less confidence in. Their belief in the God of this text and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ has faded.
The reasons for this decline are complex. It partly stems from the promotion and consideration of an alternative view and narrative of the origin of humanity. There is a strong push to displace God with a completely undirected, unaided, inanimate explanation of how life began on earth better known as the theory of evolution.
This theory is unproven and based on conjecture. Yet it is and has been pushed upon people as settled and unquestionable fact when it is anything but this. Yet the result is that millions of people have yielded to the secular pressure to believe this unproven theory and have given up on deliverance and resigned themselves to death. This is what we must keep in mind as we view this text.
The text begins with God basically saying to all those who haven’t bought into some form of defeatist attitude concerning salvation to look to Him for deliverance. In a world which has its origin in the one described by the evolutionist there would be no such thing as absolute righteousness or morality. For it would only exist in the mind of those who made it up or defined it. But in a world in which God created, God would be able to define righteousness and morality for those He created.
In the text, He issues a call to all the people who are seeking righteousness and to all those who seek the true origin of their existence. He declares He is the rock from which they were hewn and the quarry from which they were dug.
He goes on to recall how and through whom He has called them in Abraham and Sarah and the covenant He made with him. He reassures all those who are looking to Him that He has not abandoned them and that they shall be restored. He announces that His offer of salvation is extended to all nations.
Furthermore, God declares that the heaven and earth shall all pass away along with all the people therein. However, an exception is made for those who believe in Him and who are waiting on Him. For them, His eternal righteousness and salvation shall deliver them from the fate of the other created things.
He tells all the people who have placed their trust in Him not to fear or be dismayed by those who insult or scorn them for their faith. Their fate is sealed if they do not repent and believe.
This study text for us today is about resisting the calls and efforts of others to offer unproven, and quite frankly, ridiculous explanations for our existence in this world. To suggest that all living, complex life in all of its varieties somehow sprang involuntarily from a single random source and combination of events of inorganic matter is unproven improbable speculation and conjecture.
Yet acceptance of this is what is partly responsible for the people of the world losing and other not having faith in the God who created us. But for all those who believe there is true righteousness and a God who created them and who seek such, the text said there is salvation or deliverance for them.
It just so happens that I delivered a message from this same text entitled “Making Sense Of The World”. You can listen to it by clicking on the message title.
Well, be sure to look over the study again and come prepared to offer your comments, questions and perspective on the meaning of the study. If you can’t attend your own Sunday School class this Sunday, you can join us live and online at 9:00 am at www.fbmbc.org and clicking the online services link.
You can also join us live by dialing 508 924-2890. If you have any comments or questions, be sure to place them in the comment section or you can share them on Sunday. So, let’s all have a great lesson and discussion this Sunday and remember to fear God and keep His commandments.
Pastor Jordan
