In this piece, we will be meditating together from the book of Isaiah 43:10. We want to see from the word of God how we can affect our society, how we can affect our world under God. We want to see the name that God calls us and we want to see the responsibility that follows that name. In Isaiah 43:10, the Bible says: “You are My witnesses, says the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after Me”. May the Lord bless the reading of His word in our hearts in Jesus’ name. The Bible revealed to us in that verse 10 the word of the Lord to us. God said: “You are my witnesses.”
If you are conversant with the Book of Acts of the Apostles, in chapter 1 verses 7, 8, 9 and 10; when the disciples were having conversation with the Lord Jesus, they said to Him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” and Jesus said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Just as Jesus said to the disciples, God is saying it to us today and I believe this is the word of the Lord to us. God said: “You are My witnesses, says the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen”.
So, you have been chosen, and since you have been chosen, you are the servant of the Lord. And having become a servant of the Lord, the name that the Lord calls you is “You are His witness”. We are His witnesses. As disciples, as followers of our Lord Jesus Christ, and servant of the Lord God, we have this identity under God as witnesses. And what is the responsibility of this identity? It is that we may know Him — “that you may know believe Me.” You know, when you see a word that begins with ‘that’, it is showing us the purpose of the preceding statement. It means something has been said and what is the essence of it. It says: “that you may know and believe me.” I believe you still remember in that place in Romans 10:17, 14-15 where the Bible says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”” How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?”
The Lord said: "you are my servant whom I have chosen". The question is: "Why have I been chosen?" That you may know Him. So, God chose me that I may know Him and believe Him and then understand He is the one, He is the Lord. And He says before Him there was no God formed nor would there be any after Him. So, I have this responsibility of knowing and believing in God. And what do I know God for? What do I know God as? What do I believe God for? What do I believe God as?
Number one, I Know God and I believe God that He is the maker of the ends of the earth; He is the Maker of the heavens and the Creator of the earth. He is the One who spread the curtains of the heavens all by Himself. I know Him as the One who created me; I did not evolve from animals or ape; I didn’t come by the reason of any evolution on the earth. I was created by God; I was made in His image; and I was designed by God to function in His likeness. I must know that God is my creator. I must know that I have been created in His image and I must believe it. Having believed this, I have this responsibility under God to witness the same thing to others: to show others that I was made in the image of God, and in same image they were also made. Bringing men back to their true identity, their original identity, that is my assignment, and that is your assignment as a disciple.
He says, “You are my witnesses”, and I am His witness and my responsibility having been chosen by God to serve the Lord is that I must know Him; and as simple as that could sound to us, it is a big deal. Until you have known Him, you can’t tell others about Him. Except if you want to go about telling others about the ignorance that you have known about Him. You see, it is not possible for anyone to give what he or she does not have. If you know God, it will be possible for you to tell others about Him. If you are in relationship with God, then you can help others to get into relationship with God from your own experience.
Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 from verse 4-5 saying, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. That is how God has ordained it. You are comforted by God, and God uses you to comfort others. You have been shown something or taught something by God, God uses you to show or teach others the same you have been taught by the Lord. And this has been ordained by Lord so you can witness Him to others— this can only be possible when you have known the Lord, believe in Him, and understand that He is the Lord.
Now, let me show us something that create a need for us to really get this matter sorted out. There is a place in the Bible in Isaiah chapter 44 from verse 13-17:
“The craftsman stretches out his rule, He marks one out with chalk; He fashions it with a plane, He marks it out with the compass, and makes it like the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man, that it may remain in the house. He cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress and the oak; he secures it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a pine, and the rain nourishes it. Then it shall be for a man to burn, for he will take some of it and warm himself; yes, he kindles it and bakes bread; Indeed he makes a god and worships it; he makes it a carved image, and falls down to it. He burns half of it in the fire; with this half he eats meat; he roasts a roast, and is satisfied. He even warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm, I have seen the fire.” and the rest of it he makes into a god, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
You see, there is so much confusion and ignorance going on around the world today. We began our consideration from Isaiah 43:10 and that is where we saw our place that we have been raised up by God haven been chosen by Him and haven been made servants of the Lord, witnesses of Him. And our responsibility is to know Him, believe Him and know that He is the Lord. And so, if that can be done, we will be able to deal with the issue that prevails in our time; a situation where a man will cut a tree from the forest; and will carve it and make it beautiful; and calls what he has made a god and fall down to it saying, “Deliver me, deliver me”.
For many of us, it might not happen in same manner by going into the forest to cut logs, carving images, but with the hands we have craft gods that we adore, they we pay obeisance to, and this ought not to be. When a man is ignorant of his God, such a man will fall for any god. While there are gods, the makings of men, there is the Lord God, the One who is the God of god, the one who is the Lord of all gods. It is important for us who are disciples of our Lord Jesus to overcome this ignorance with the truth that there is the Lord, and I know Him. it is not about what people tell me about Him, but about my own personal experience with Him; and I am able to witness Him to others around me that there is the Lord God, He is the judge over all gods, He is the One who sits upon the circles of the earth and the inhabitants of the earth are like grasshoppers before Him; that is the responsibility that the Lord has entrusted into our cares.
God has ordained and called us; and the purpose is that we know Him; and that brings us to the place of understanding the person that we have believed. When Jesus called the disciples, He said to them, “Follow me and I will make you finishers of men”. There is also a place in the Book of Mattthew that Jesus says, “Come unto me all you who have labored and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.” Do we understand? So, there is a place of taking the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ, learning of Him, and becoming like Him. There is this aspect of learning in our work. If we will become effective witnesses of the Lord; if we will become men and women who look effectively like our God; who represent the interest of God across the nations, then we must not miss out on the place of learning God: we must learn about Him and learn of Him. He must teach us.
John wrote in the book of 1 John. He says: you have the anointing of the holy one, you know all things. The same anointing teaches you all things. And so, we must understand that there is a place of learning God in our journey with Him; learning God from Him not from others. If you must witness Him then you must come unto Him. That’s why God keep saying: come unto me, and when Jesus came, He also said: come unto me. Definitely, to learning of Him, there is place of you coming unto Him, so that you will learn of Him. If you learn of Him, you will believe Him, and if you believer Him, you will understand that He is. It is not the things that we call gods that are gods. If you read the entire Isaiah 44, there is something I believe you will take home from there.
God is particular about His people knowing Him and believing in Him. There won’t have been a problem if there were not to be anyone parading himself as the Lord, as being God. We have a situation in which the fallen angels are going to places, are going to people, giving the people the impression that they have authority, and that they are gods and they deserve to be worshiped. But in reality, you cannot worship the creation of God and abandon the Creator who is the Lord over His creatures. That is why you must know God; you can’t continue your ministry around what men say about God — the hearsays about God. You must go in search of the knowledge of God. Know God for yourself, and when you know God, you will believe Him; when you believe Him, you will understand. You will know why He speaks the way He speaks. God is so meticulous about His people. He is so mindful of us that He does not want us to follow the gods that we have created by ourselves, or bought with our money.
We must understand that if our lives must be better, then we must be a people of the Lord. Now, look at the Bible verse that I read in Isaiah 44:17. The Bible concludes with “prays to it and say, deliver me.” Now look at it. When a man has made an image from a fallen tree, and he calls it gods and say to it, “deliver me”; when such a man does not experience deliverance, do you blame the tree, the gods, for the lack of deliverance or you will blame the man? I will blame the man because he is the one who saw a tree, cut it down and burnt some part of the tree; you also took some part of the tree to cook your food for your belly; and the remaining part you have used it to carve an image; and you think that the part that you chose not to burn, and you have made into an image has the power to deliver you? It does not.
I want us to read the Book of Isaiah to see another story. King Hezekiah of the nation of Israel was reigning as over the Lord’s people, the king and the nation of Israel was threatened by the king of Assyria. The king of Assyria threatens the whole kingdom saying, “Don’t trust in your God, all the nations that I defeated before they all had gods, and none of the gods was able to deliver its people from my powers; do you now think that your God will deliver you?” See what king Hezekiah said to God when he was praying to Him: “Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore, they destroyed them. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord, You alone.”And this is the core of the matter; the kingdoms that were defeated had gods according to the king of Assyria but none of their gods were able to deliver from his hand, the king of Assyria.
They could not deliver them because they are not God; in actual reality they were the works of men’s hand. They were wood and they stone; how can stone or wood deliver a people? That is why we the people of God must have the knowledge of our God. Our God is not a wood, He is not a stone or an object that is carried, or seen around us; He is the Creator of all of them. He created them, He created us. If you are beautiful, our God is much more beautiful; He is the Creator of your beauty, you must acknowledge Him. The Bible says, “In all your ways, acknowledge Him”. We must not imitate Aaron who make an image for the children of Israel and told the people, “Behold your god who brought you out of Egypt”. God did something but he gave the glory to a carved image, that was a lie. That was a man given the glory of God to things that are not God.
Many people are lost into the vanities of searching of gods, fake gods, gods who can’t deliver themselves from trouble, fire. Men seeking their deliverance from the things that them themselves created. It is our God who can deliver, He is the redeemer, the deliverer of His people. You have been chosen by Him as His servant, and you must know Him, believe Him and function as His witness. Anywhere you go, he has the responsibility to show the people His power, His authority, His true nature, and His life. God is love, show people His love; God is patient, show people His patience. Every of God’s attributes that you have known, you must show it to people, manifest it before the world. Show the world who the Lord is.
Do not allow the ignorance of our time to persist. Be an ambassador of the Lord. Show the world that there is the Lord God; He rules in the affairs the world, and He wants to rule in their affairs. If you can show Him well, the people will know Him well. I want to show you something in Romans chapter 10:14 as I conclude; “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And shall they preach unless they are sent?” Now this is the word. God began in the book of Isaiah 43 by saying, “You are my witnesses, you are my servant because I have chosen you”. You have been chosen, ordained by God as His witness, so you have the responsibility of going about to tell the people about God.
Make sure the people believe in Him, and if this must be possible; you also must believe in Him. You must graduate from the place of saying, “My pastor said and I quote’, to the place that you will say, “God told me and I quote.” This is what the Lord has said, this is who the Lord is, this is what God can do and He will do it in your life, He will do it in your situation, He will do it in your midst. That is why the Bible says: “these signs shall follow them that believe.” You must come to the place of believing God for who He is, and knowing Him for who He is. God does not want us to be His servant in ignorance. If you must serve God well and serve Him among the nations; then you must know Him. Come to Him and learn of Him; drop your ambitions, drop your ego.
You could have known certain things about God, but you must come to Him with a broken heart. God said: this is the one I will not look away from. The one that has a broken heart and a contrite spirit. The one who trembles at my word. So, you must come to God trembling at His word and believing in Him. You must come to God with an open heart. And as you do this, I believe our ministries would become more effective. We will disciple the nations indeed in the right order as witnesses of the Lord and I believe the Lord will be glorified, in Jesus’ name.
Amen!
