July 3, 2024 - Isaiah 26-27

Chapters 26 and 27 both begin, “In that day.”  The prophet is speaking to a people who have been oppressed and who have suffered greatly because of their own sinfulness and at the hands of their enemies.  It’s a time and a people who are in desperate need of hope.  The prophet looks ahead – “In that day” – to a future time, and he utters words that are well known and which are burnt into our minds:  “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.  Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock” (26:3-4).  You have to wonder if Augustus Toplady had these verses in mind when he wrote his great hymn:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

let me hide myself in thee;

let the water and the blood,

from thy wounded side which flowed,

be of sin the double cure;

save from wrath and make me pure.

Nothing in my hand I bring,

simply to the cross I cling;

naked, come to thee for dress;

helpless, look to thee for grace;

foul, I to the fountain fly;

wash me, Savior, or I die.   -- Augustus Toplady (1776)