Passage Read: Isaiah 39-42
Meditation Verses: 42:18-22
Thought
There are two kinds of deaf and blind: those who are deaf and blind to the things of God and those who are deaf and blind to all but the things of God. There are those who trust in idols and human imagination instead of in the Lord, who see and hear the Law but don't recognize its greatness and glory so they refuse to obey and walk in it. They think they see; they think they understand. Then there are those who serve the Lord and speak His messages, who live at peace with the Lord because they believe and trust and obey His glorious Word. They are deaf to the lies of the world and blind to its treasures. They only have eyes for the Lord and ears to hear Him. They are considered blind and deaf and stupid and ignorant by those who love the world. But those who love the world are in fact blind and deaf to the truth, given by God who alone made all things and designed how they should operate. They live according to their own imaginations, instead of in the light of truth. So they will march confidently into hell with no one to rescue them, sure of their own wisdom and understanding, unwilling to face the truth that God rules all creation, so they owe Him all allegiance.
Application
This is a warning and a challenge to turn to the Lord and His Word, to choose His wisdom rather than that of men, to walk by His Word and in His ways rather than in those ways that seem so right to the unbeliever and unredeemed. If I trust in all God's Word and ways so as to walk by them, the lost will consider me a fool. But if I trust in the wisdom and walk in the ways of the lost, I will truly be a fool. Better to be blind to the world and deaf to its wisdom than to follow them into eternal darkness and torment. Better to have eyes and ears only for the Lord, to do and say and know and believe only what He teaches and approves, though all the world call me a fool and I miss out on all the pleasures of sin. The Lord will count me His servant and messenger, and take me into His eternal home.