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Hi, this is Pastor Tom, and I want to welcome you back for week 8, day 5, and
our look at the book of Isaiah. As we look at Isaiah 66 today, we come to the
end of our study of Isaiah, this book about God's vision for change and God's
vision for comfort in your life. There's no better place to end than with what
Isaiah has to say about the hand of the Lord in this last chapter.

In verse 14 of Isaiah 66, the scripture says, "When you see this, your heart
will rejoice and you'll flourish like grass. The hand of the Lord will be made
known to his servants. " The hand of the Lord will be made known to his
servants.

God wants to make known to you the ways that he's at work in this world. There's
tremendous impact in seeing God's hand at work in this world, in our history, in
your life. When the hand of the Lord is made known to you as his servant, it
does some great things for you.

Even in this verse it talks about it. Your heart will rejoice. It results in the
joyful Christian life.

You will flourish like grass. It results in the growing Christian life. You need
to see the hand of the Lord at work.

It's as if you see written across the situations of your life, this great big
sign, God at work. Across the people, the problems, the successes, the past, the
future, this sign, God at work. That's the hand of the Lord.

This passage of Isaiah makes clear to us five specific ways that the hand of the
Lord is at work in our world today. Five ways you need to see the hand of the
Lord at work in your world today. You might remember them by the five fingers on
your hand.

First, the hand of creation. Verses one and two talk about this. This is what
the Lord says, "Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.

Where is the house that you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?
Has not my hand made all these things?

And so they came into being, declares the Lord. " When we worship together on
the weekends in our churches, our songs are filled with words that encourage us
to notice God is creator. God's at work in the creation of this world.

But do we notice it during the week? Do we thank God for what we're seeing, for
what he's made, what he's brought about? When we begin to see God's hand of
creation at work, it brings joy, it brings growth into our lives.

When we begin to take his creation for granted, it cuts into our joy, it slows
down our growth. We are surrounded by living, breathing, majestic object lessons
of God's hand at work in our world. And as we notice them, God impacts our
hearts.

Isaiah reminds us here of one truth that our notice of God's handiwork should
drive home. We can't build a house for God. Who can build a house for me?

He's built it all. So when we build a church, we're not building a house for
God, we're building a place for us to worship God who built it all. When you
notice God's hand of creation, you're more and more reminded God doesn't need
you.

He made you. He doesn't need you to appease him. He wants you to praise him
because he knows what it does for your heart.

So we don't help God out by serving him. The opportunity to love, to serve him,
they're simply wonderful gifts given by a God who doesn't need us but who truly
loves us. That's what you see in the hand of creation.

The second hand here in Isaiah 66 is the hand of blessing. These verses, verses
2 to 4, talk to us about who does God lay his hand of blessing upon. Sometimes
it's not what we would exactly expect.

Not the person who seems outwardly to be making the biggest sacrifices. There's
some things that are in our hearts and those things in our hearts are what God
lays his hand of blessing upon. There's this very clear contrast in verses 2 to
4 of the kind of person that God blesses and the kind of person that God judges.

Verse 2, the last half says, "This is the one I esteem, he who is humble and
contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. " That's the hand of blessing. On
the other hand, in the last half of verse 3, talks about those who have chosen
their own ways and their souls the light and their abominations.

Or in verse 4, "When I called, no one answered. When I spoke, no one listened. "
There's this contrast going here between the humble and those who have chosen
their own ways.

This hand of blessing are on those who have the humility to say yes to God
rather than choosing their own way. It might seem like a good way, may not even
seem like an evil way, but to choose my own way is to choose myself out of the
hand of blessing because the hand of blessing is choosing to say yes to God.
There's a contrast between the contrite of spirit here and those whose souls
delight in abominations.

The soul of one who delights in God or the soul of one who delights in sin. To
delight in God, it reminds us here I have to be contrite in spirit, sorry that
I've delighted in the wrong things, that I've trusted in the wrong things. To be
contrite in spirit is also to turn and start to trust to God to build my delight
in him.

There's this third contrast between those who tremble at my word in verse 2 and
then the last half of verse 4, those for whom when I called, no one answered.
They wouldn't even answer. On the one hand, you have a person who doesn't even
listen.

On the other hand, someone who takes God's voice so seriously, they tremble when
he speaks. You want to be the kind of person God blesses? You take his word
seriously.

You are contrite in spirit, you take your sin seriously and you turn to him.
You're humble in spirit, you take God's direction seriously, you say yes to him.
And God says this is the one I esteem.

That's a great way to express God's hand of blessing in our lives. We talk a lot
about self-esteem in these days, the ability to see yourself in the right kind
of way as a worthy, as an important person. These verses remind us that
self-esteem begins with God's esteem.

You don't seek to esteem yourself, you seek to get God's esteem. How do you do
that? Being humble, being contrite in spirit, trembling, listening to his word.

God says that's a worthy person. That's how you live out God's hand of blessing.
A third hand that we see in these verses, there's a lot in Isaiah chapter 66,
worth reading through again, studying again and again, we're just walking
through this quickly, is the hand of judgment, verses five and six.

Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word. Your brothers who hate
you and who exclude you because of my name have said, let the Lord be glorified
that we may see your joy, yet they will be put to shame. Hear that uproar from
the city, hear that noise from the temple, it is the sound of the Lord repaying
his enemies all they deserve.

These verses begin with religious people, with religious power and religious
words. Let the Lord be glorified. Let me see God working in your life and
they're going to be put to shame.

This gives significant light on God's hand of judgment. It's a time of shame.
It's not just a time of suffering, but a time of shame.

Adam and Eve in the garden, when they were judged for their sin, they were
ashamed. Mankind at the end of time, as we are judged for our sin, we will be
ashamed. That is the hand of God and the hand of God of judgment is at work.

We don't see it now, but it will be seen at the end in eternity. Do not let
Satan fool you ever into thinking that the world is getting away with something
when it sins. It may seem so for a moment or even a lifetime.

It will not seem so in eternity. And at the end, we will all either be ashamed
because of what we've done or we will praise Jesus Christ that he took that
shame of what we've done upon himself at the cross. Jesus died for your sin.

He died for your shame. You don't have to be ashamed in God's presence because
he took that shame. The hand of judgment reminds me that I need his forgiveness.

The fourth hand that's talked about in Isaiah 66 is the hand of deliverance in
verses seven to eleven. It gives this picture of a woman and it says before she
goes into labor, she gives birth. Before the pains come upon her, she delivers a
son.

Who's ever heard of such a thing? Who's ever seen such things? Can a country be
born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment?

Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children. Do I bring
to the moment of birth and not give delivery, says the Lord? Do I close up the
womb when I bring to delivery, says your God?

He talks in verse seven about giving birth without labor. These verses look back
to Genesis 3 verse 16. The curse of sin, the curse of when you give birth to a
child, it will be with great labor.

And now here is a birth without any labor. This is a picture of the curse of sin
being taken away. It's a picture of God delivering us out of the curse of sin.

He uses the picture of a delivery of a baby to show us that God is going to
deliver us out away from the curse of sin. Just as a baby is delivered into this
world, God will deliver those who trust him out of the curse of sin into the
promise of a restored relationship with God. He's talking about your spiritual
life here, about your relationship with God.

Just as Jesus was when he talked about being born again in his conversation with
Nicodemus. This new birth, there's this picture in these verses, it will be
brought forth in a moment. This describes so much of what God has done for his
people.

For Israel, what he brought forth as he released them from captivity, what he
brought forth as he brought them back to their nation and has brought them back
again and again. And for followers of Jesus, what he brought forth in the birth
of Jesus, in the birth of the church at Pentecost, in the new birth of everyone
who trusts in him, and the rebirth of creation into a new heaven and a new
earth, in a moment, God does this. That's the hand of deliverance.

And then finally, the fifth hand of God that's talked about in Isaiah 66 is the
hand of comfort. The last half of Isaiah begins and ends with a message of God's
comfort for your life. He doesn't want you to get comfortable with where you
are.

He does want you to be comforted in order to become all that he wants you to be.
Isaiah 66 12 to 13, for this is what the Lord says, "I will extend peace to her
like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream. You will nurse
and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees.

As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you, and you will be comforted
over Jerusalem. " Now just look at these pictures of God's comfort in our lives.
Peace like a river, just flowing by, wealth like a flooding stream, more than we
can handle.

As a mother comforts her child, I will comfort you. And it gives this picture
of, you will nurse, you will be carried, you will be dandled on her knees.
Dandled, what's that word?

Let's end our study of Isaiah with this word, d-a-n-d-l-e-d, not dangled,
dandled. What does it mean? Well, you look it up in the dictionary.

To be dandled on a knee, that's the playful way that we bounce a child on our
knees. We've all done this. We just not use this word.

God dandles you. He's like a parent lovingly bouncing you on his knees, enjoying
his relationship with you, delighting in who you are, but also looking forward
to your growth and all that he's going to cause you to be. The first word in the
book of Isaiah is vision.

What's God's vision for your life? It's a vision for change. It's a vision for
comfort.

It's a vision for you seeing all the ways that he enjoys who you are right now,
what he's doing in your life, but you also seeing all the ways that he's calling
into being new things in your life, all that he wants to see happen. That's the
vision of God for your life. Let's pray together.

Father, help us to live with vision. Not our vision, but your vision. Your
vision for our lives, your vision for change.

Not staying like we were, becoming all that you've called us to be. Your vision
for comfort. Not settling for things like they are, but living out what you're
creating in our lives because we're experiencing the comfort of your spirit, the
strength and power of your comfort in our lives.

Help us to live with the vision of what you're doing in our lives today and what
you're going to call into being in all of eternity. And let that vision, not
what somebody says about us, not what somebody did to us, not what happened last
year or last week or today. Let that vision become what drives our lives
forward.

Let that vision become what more than anything else is the voice that we hear.
Let your vision be called to being in our lives, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, I'm grateful that you studied all the way through this long book of Isaiah
with all the encouragement that it has. I want to encourage you to stay with us
for Drive Time Devotions, for the next book that's going to come up on our
regular study. Or you can go to drivetimedevotions.

com or get the app on your phone, study any book that you want. I'm glad that
you have a love for studying God's word.