There are some things though that we are not so ready to have change. As quick as we may be to purchase the new item we are not quite so ready for things to change in church. We are not quite ready for God to do something new. Our response to passages like Isaiah 43:18-19 is not exactly what can be called enthusiastic. When God speaks through the prophet announcing: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland; we are not so ready to hear it, let alone embrace it.
In a world of constant change there are some things we like remaining the same. There is comfort and security found in having that one or two things that won’t change. If this is the way it has been done for 50 years don’t mess with it. Or for the Israelites, if it has been this way of hundreds of years it is just an accepted fact, this is the way it is suppose to be. The familiar seems to calm our nerves and ease our minds. Not to mention God is never changing. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. That must mean that He never does things differently, right?!
Isaiah’s proclamation says otherwise. Not only Isaiah, but Jeremiah and Ezekiel also tell us about new things; new covenant, new hearts, new way of doing things. One of the things that has frustrated God’s people down through the centuries is that God didn’t always do it the same way. One time God tells Moses to hit the rock with his rod and the next time he tells him to speak to the rock. One city is conquered by walking around in silence for six days and on the seventh singing and shouting praises to God on the seventh time around. Another time the leader is required to reduce his forces and with some extremely odd antics watch the opposing army destroy themselves.
Old Testament you say, but now we are in the New. We can’t walk with Jesus very long until He frustrates us. We want to nail down a methodology with practical user-friendly steps, but we just cannot do it. Jesus just didn’t do it the same way every time. A cursory glance at Acts reveals that God would not be placed in a box in the early church. There were councils convened to work through the fact that God just wasn’t doing things the same way in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts. God doesn’t change. His original intention for His people remains eternally the same. People are still made holy by grace through faith being washed in the blood of Jesus. But the manner and methods by which He does His work have and do change.
This passage doesn’t suggest that we obliterate the past from our memories. Our “goodly heritage” is important. Praising God for His faithfulness throughout the generations is an essential part of our worship. But God tells us that we are not to dwell in the past. We are not to allow the way it is has always been done (which isn’t really true anyway) dictate the present. There are still desserts that need a way through them. There are still wastelands that need streams to flow through them. And God just may use new methods of making the way and creating the streams. We need to alert so that as it “springs up” we “perceive” whatever God is doing. We surly don’t miss being involved and useful to Him in the new thing! He is doing!
Keep Close to Jesus.
Pastor Gerry