Isaiah 1:26 [re: 21-27] - “And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.”

God’s people had left the pattern and become what they were not designed to be. He promised restoration. We know, hereby, that restoration is both possible in us and desirable to God. Compare with the pattern of the New Testament the church today where you worship. See where restoration is needed, and do what is necessary to return the bride of Christ to righteousness and faithfulness. To deny without examination that some departure has occurred is not a rational course.

Isaiah 26:3 - “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”

Whom will God keep? Whom will God keep in peace? Whom will God keep in perfect peace? People who have any good thought at all of God generally think that He is loving and merciful, and will not allow any decent person to be lost. That is not what He says. The person whom God will keep in perfect peace -- peace with God, peace with neighbors, even peace with oneself -- is that person whose mind is on God – not on God once in a while, but whose mind is stayed (secured, held steady/stable) on God. THAT is the person who truly trusts God – and the person who is kept by God in perfect peace. Do you have peace?

Isaiah 38:15-16 - “What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.”

King Hezekiah of Judah understood what Jesus later said (Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4), repeating what Moses had written (Deut. 8:3): “Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Man didn’t invent human life, nor create his own habitat on earth. “It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12). How many times and by how many prophets does God have to say it? Read the Bible. Know what it says. Live according to its guidance. That is why God put it in the world with you.

Isaiah 51:2 - “Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.”

God compared the spiritual state of His people with that of Abraham, and found the latest generation wanting. For their departure, and their repeated rejection of His call to restoration, they were deported to a foreign land and ill treated (ch. 47). They could have continued in God’s grace, maintained their homes and nation, and been safe, secure and happy - if only they had considered again the righteousness of Abraham and returned to that in humility. Paul calls the church today to “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (I Cor. 11:1). Will the church keep its heart in the original pattern, or will we think that a new generation justifies new ways? (Review I Cor. 10:11 to see what the answer should be.)

Isaiah 51:18 - “There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.”

Jerusalem (v. 17) had fallen so far from her roots as the holy city of God that there were none in the current generation who remembered and respected the sound principles of moral citizenship and national honor. There were none who could, or would, lead her back to her former glory - the times in which they had been pleased to give God respect as individuals and as a nation. Adults in leadership were once children in their parents’ home. They are today what they were trained to be. If we want godly leaders in the nation tomorrow, we must rear God-trained children today. Having done our part, we might then rightly pray, “God bless America.”

Isaiah 58:13-14 - “...honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth ... for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”

I have read on Facebook today two lengthy posts arguing that the Bible was written for the people, and dealing with the circumstances, of the time of the writer. Moses wrote the Sabbath laws in the wilderness of the Sinai peninsula. Isaiah, 800 years later in the established, populous and prosperous country of Judah, wrote that God was saying that people should honor those 800-year-old words as law for them in their time and circumstances. Those who actually study the Bible, and respect it for what it is, know that God has shown us how to interpret what is written. To argue that instruments of music in worship are approved by God - or that God approves of women preaching in the general assembly of the church - or any of the other worldly philosophies brought into the church by modern agents of change - is either rank ignorance of the Bible or defiance of God gone to seed. Read the Bible. Study it. All of it. If you don’t, you will never know in this life whether you have the right faith and practice before God.