Look To The Rock

“Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, You who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for I called him alone, and blessed him and increased him.”
For the LORD will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; Joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.
[Isaiah 51:1-3 NKJV]

The message is always “Look to The Rock” which is Jesus Christ. Nowhere else will you find the complete comfort that will make your “wilderness like Eden”, and your desert “like the garden of The Lord.”

The passage ends with that beautiful phrase “thanksgiving and the voice of melody”. Interestingly, ‘melody’ is related to a word meaning to prune, as in ‘pruning the roses’, with the actual expression meaning to ‘pluck on strings’, or ‘make music’. What a lovely connection to make between the garden and music. It shows that the creation of our spiritual garden requires regular cutting back to allow new growth, something that pleases The Lord, and that the voice of melody, or praise, is the vocal equivalent of saying that a flower is a delight to the eye, or has a sweet perfume. Joy and gladness will be found when we return to His garden.

On this occasion we are in Isaiah, but similar thoughts appear in many other books in scripture. Really, The Lord can take the worst of us and turn us around — with no condemnation! Then we see more in verses 5 to 6 ...

“Listen to Me, My people; and give ear to Me, O My nation: for law will proceed from Me, and I will make My justice rest as a light of the peoples.
My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, and My arms will judge the peoples; The coastlands will wait upon Me, and on My arm they will trust.
Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish away like smoke,
The earth will grow old like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die in like manner;
But My salvation will be forever,
And My righteousness will not be abolished.
[Isaiah 51:5-6 NKJV]

These are words to treasure; to take to the heart, and it becomes apparent that the Genesis garden promises become embedded into scripture as a ‘garden of verses’, each verse a seed which will be sown in the fertile ground of a believer’s heart. We must always and ever ‘look to the Rock’.

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“Jesus Is My Rock” — Anointed Body of Praise

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OSWALD CHAMBERS — RUN TODAY’S RACE
Tuesday 12th August 2020
Conscience is the faculty of the spirit that fits itself on to the highest a man knows, whether he be an agnostic or a Christian; every man has a conscience, although every man does not know God.

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