Isaiah 48:1

Isaiah 48:1 says, Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness.  God called on those of the house of Jacob who called themselves people of Israel, which included Judah, or the whole kingdom of Israel before it divided, to remember who they were.  He said they called on His name but didn’t do so in truth.  They were paying lip service to God, but they weren’t living in righteousness.  It is not enough for us to use God’s name to endorse what we do or even our righteousness before Him if we do not truly believe in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord, and I believe that God will always call us to a real relationship with Him. 

Verse two adds, For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The Lord of hosts is his name.  This is a continuation of the fact that even though the people of Israel, especially those in Jerusalem, called themselves a holy people and city, they were so in name only.  We in America can call ourselves a holy nation and use the name of God to justify a lot of what we do, but if our actions are not consistent with our words, we are fooling ourselves, but we will never fool God. 

Verse three continues, I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.  God said that He had showed the people of Israel that He was God in the past by telling them things that would happen and then having them coming to pass.  God has shown the world that He is God, and this was manifested at its most personal level when Jesus Christ came to live a perfect life and die on the cross so that the sins of everyone could be forgiven.  Of course, we have to put our faith in this in order for it to be of any benefit to us. 

Verse four states, Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass;  God said He called the people of Israel even though He knew that they were a stiff-necked people who would tend to turn away from Him.  God still calls each individual today, even though He knows that even if we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord that we can be stiff-necked, going our own way at times instead of following His. 

Verse five adds, I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.  God said he showed them the truth of Who He was from the beginning so that they could not give the credit for what He had done to idols, yet we find that they often did.  As followers of Christ, we need to give credit to God for all the good that He has done in our lives and never try to give the credit to anyone or anything else.  If we do give the credit to any one or anything other than God, even giving ourselves credit for the good things in our lives, we are giving credit to an idol.

Verse six continues, Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.  God continued to call on the people of Israel to acknowledge that He alone was God and stated that He had revealed this to them plainly.  We can see the workmanship of God in the order of the universe today, and this should lead us to acknowledge Him as the only God that there is.  Instead, many times we try to give credit for His work to someone or something else, even a giant cosmic explosion. 

Verse seven says, They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them.  God said He had revealed to them new things that were set in order even before they heard them, so how could they claim to have known these things before He revealed them to them.  We may see things happening in the world today that have been foretold by God long ago and then claim that we always knew exactly what was going to happen and when based on our own intelligence, but we never will.  We may see some things coming to pass that God has foretold, but we certainly didn’t know what was going to happen before He did.

Verse eight adds, Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb.  God said that not only did they not know what He was going to do because they wouldn’t listen to His word, but that they were born transgressors.  I know some people disagree, but I believe this means that they had the ability to choose to transgress from the time they were conceived since everyone is born with free will and not that they were guilty even before they had the opportunity to choose whether to obey or defy God.