54:16
“It is I who created the destroyer”. To our modern ears this sounds terrible and many will try and ignore or twist the meaning of this because it offends us. However, it is actually good news. To Israel it seemed that Assyria and Babylon had wreaked havoc. They thought they were at the mercy of these nations. However, it was God to whom they were at the mercy of. And that is good news, for God has provided a saviour, He has provided atonement for our sins. We want to avoid the reality of our sin, we do not naturally want to acknowledge the reality of sin. Yet to do so is the only way to salvation. And it is a good thing to do because God’s heart is to forgive the repentant. Our problem is our sin against God, and our salvation lies in repenting and trusting in God. And, which is the key point of this section, when we have done this we are completely secure in God.
54:17
Once we have turned to God everything changes. “No weapon forged against us will prosper”. Why? Because we are no longer under judgement. Our punishment has been paid in full by Jesus Christ. So we will refute every tongue that accuses. See that it is us who refute the accuser. This is our heritage, the fruit of our vindication. There is an enormous transformation through the cross and we need to appreciate it. We need to appreciate the before and to appreciate the after. Before the cross, before we repented, we were enemies of God. We were under judgement because of sin, we were rebels against God. Afterwards we are completely justified by the blood of Christ, we are now adopted as sons. God is for us and not against us.
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