A Word From God

Well ... I guess this post is more than one word from God.  It's from Isaiah ... Chapter fifty-five.  But it is from God; it's His word written down by one of God's prophets. 

As I was reading this portion of scripture, I felt impressed to try and present some selected verses from three translations ... the old King James Bible, the Amplified Bible, and Young's Literal Translation of the Bible.

I don't claim to know if one version is better than the other.  Each one of them use different English words to express the same meaning.  By carefully selecting certain words or phrases from each of the three versions ... my purpose is to make this important chapter a little easier to understand.  To do this, I must edit all three versions, hopefully without doing harm to the Word of God.  I've never attempted this before, so let's see what I come up with ...

God starts with a poetic, humorous exclamation or expression of concern ... "Ho" ... a call for attention.

"Ho, wait and listen, everyone who is thirsty; come to the waters ... even he who has no money.  Yes, come and buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts this blessing.]

Why do you spend your earned money for bread which is not satisfying?  Listen to me and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in spiritual fatness.

Turn your ear to Me and come and hear, and your soul shall live.  I will make an everlasting covenant with you ... even the kind I made with David ... full of kindness and compassion that is stedfast.

Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.

Let the morally wrong forsake his way, and the sinner his thoughts and the Lord will have mercy on him and will abundantly pardon him.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord.

For as high as the heavens have been above the earth, so have My ways been above your ways, and so are My thoughts above your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from the heavens, and returns not again there, but waters the earth and makes it sprout and bud and causes it to yield which gives seed to the sower, and bread to eat ...

So is My word that goeth out of My mouth ... it shall not return unto Me void [useless, without any effect] ... but it shall hath done that which I have desired, and has accomplished that which I pleased and purposed, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."

So says the Word of God ... as spoken through Isaiah.

Some people think that once God finished writing the Bible, that He stopped speaking.  Well, He didn't.  Jesus said ... "My sheep hear My voice." 

He speaks to me.  Not in an audible voice, but in my spirit.  But the only sure way to know the voice you hear is of the Lord ... the Word of God will bear it out.  It must agree with the printed Word.  That's the true test.

Now ... as far as this portion of scripture in Isaiah ... yes, I know it was written to Israel some 2600 years ago; but I find nothing in it, that God said through Isaiah, that is not relevant for us today.  God's Word stands the test of time.

Today as then, the message is the same.  The Lord is still saying, there is a better way.  Turn to Him ... what He gives is free.  It was paid for by Jesus.  It won't cost you a thing ... accept giving up all the stuff that weighs you down. 

Yes, we do need natural bread for our physical bodies.  But we also need spiritual bread for our soul.  It's a good thing to be made spiritually fat.

Is your soul ... "delighting itself in spiritual fatness?"  God is asking that question. 

It can be.  Do you want or need kindness and compassion?  That too is available.  Does unconfessed sin still trouble your thoughts?  "The Lord will have mercy ... and will abundantly pardon you."  

Turn your ear to the Lord and listen to what the Word of God is saying.  You can start with this chapter from Isaiah.

It's ... a Word from God.