Know that whatever happens today, nothing can thwart the purposes of our Sovereign God.
Read / Listen
Read Isaiah 14:24-27
Listen to passage & devotional:
Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 26
Q. What do you believe when you say,
“I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth”?
A. That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who out of nothing created heaven and earth
and everything in them,
who still upholds and rules them
by his eternal counsel and providence,
is my God and Father because of Christ his Son.
I trust him so much that I do not doubt
he will provide
whatever I need
for body and soul,
and he will turn to my good
whatever adversity he sends me
in this sad world.
He is able to do this because he is almighty God;
he desires to do this because he is a faithful Father.
Summary
The story of God's covenant people in the Old Testament is one episode after another of their pagan neighbors threatening their security. While it's true that at times God enabled these nations to rise up against His sinful people in order to punish them, God would consistently answer the Israelites' prayers for salvation when they finally came around.
This section of the book of Isaiah is full of God's promises for deliverance, containing oracles against powerful enemies like Babylon and Moab. This particular passage concerning God's promise to crush Assyria is one of the shortest passages in this section, but it's also one of the most pointed and significant.
God, through His prophet Isaiah, reminds His people - Israel then, and us now - that whatsoever God plans and purposes will happen, because there is no created being powerful enough to thwart Him or turn back His outstretched hand (v24 & 27).
Dig Deeper
We refer to this doctrine of God's absolute dominance using several different terms, but among the most common are the words omnipotent, meaning all powerful, and sovereignty. Sometimes we refer to a king or other head of state as being a sovereign, meaning they have total control over their domain.
Simply put, God always gets what He wants.
Understanding the concept of God's sovereignty is essential to properly understand Christian theology. We see it in every major theme in the Bible: yesterday we saw that God powerfully spoke reality into being through His Son; God demonstrates His righteous authority by cursing Adam's sin; God's omnipotence is made clear by raising Christ from the dead; and the Bible ends with God sovereignly establishing a new heavens and earth.
People tend to be skeptical of promises, because they are so easy to make but hard to keep. Know that you can absolutely trust the promises God has made to you, because passages like this one in Isaiah demonstrate that He not only has the desire to make good on the promises He made, but the omnipotent ability to follow through on them as well, just as He did for Israel time and time again.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our powerful, omnipotent, sovereign God: no one can thwart Him;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Thank God for reminders like today's passage that build up your trust in His sovereignty.
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - Acts 26
