Isaiah 14 … Consider Him Whose Plan Will Stand

Originally posted: 3/08/2021

The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand… ²⁷ For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?” (14:24, 27).

Such comfort, when we believe that His Plan Will Stand. And let’s face it, when we read of His impending judgment, we all need some comfort. Even when the judgment is not aimed at us. But when we set out, in our own thinking, to reconcile the actions of our loving Father with those of the God of wrath, if not careful, we may find ourselves wavering between confidence in Who He is and confusion about what He does.

I needed to be reminded that I will not always be able to understand His ways. He is God; I am not. And it seems the people in Isaiah’s day needed the same reminder.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts,” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Since we can never understand His thinking or His ways, we will find comfort in knowing Him and believing His promises. He is Faithful, and whatever He has promised He will fulfill. His is Omnipotent, and whatever His Plan, it Will Stand; and none can frustrate it or turn it back.

Consider Him Whose Plan Will Stand

• His Plan Will Stand: He Will have compassion on His people.
  • When the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and again choose Israel, and settle them in their own land, then strangers will join them and attach themselves to the house of Jacob, (14:1).

• His Plan Will Stand: He Will give rest from pain and turmoil.
  • And it will be in the day when the Lord gives you rest from your pain and turmoil and harsh service in which you have been enslaved, (14:3).

• His Plan Will Stand: He Will break the rule of the wicked oppressor.
  • …“How the oppressor has ceased,
    And how fury has ceased!
    ⁵ “The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked,
    The scepter of rulers,” (14:4-5).

• His Plan Will Stand: He Will fill the whole earth with rest and joy.
  • “The whole earth is at rest and is quiet;
    They break forth into shouts of joy,” (14:7).

• His Plan Will Stand: He Will thrust down the rebellion of the arrogant.
  • “But you said in your heart,
    ‘I will ascend to heaven;
    I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
    And I will sit on the mount of assembly
    In the recesses of the north.
    ¹⁴ ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
    I will make myself like the Most High.’
    ¹⁵ “Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol,
    To the recesses of the pit,” (14:13-15).

• His Plan Will Stand: He Will sweep away evil with the broom of destruction.
  •  “I will also make it a possession for the hedgehog and swamps of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of hosts,” (14:23).

• His Plan Will Stand: He Will provide refuge for the afflicted in the place He has founded.
  • “How then will one answer the messengers of the nation?
    That the Lord has founded Zion,
    And the afflicted of His people will seek refuge in it,” (14:32).

How do we respond to Him Whose Plan Will Stand?

God revealed His Plan, through His prophet Isaiah, to the people of Judah. And He has revealed His Plan to us, through His Son Jesus, Who was sent to break the reign of wickedness, oppression, rebellion and evil, and to grant us His compassion in His rest, joy and refuge.

“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— ²³ this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death,” (Acts 2:22-23).

And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, ²² yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach, (Colossians 1:21-22).

God’s Plan Will Stand; all who believe in God’s Son for eternal life will be saved. But just like in Isaiah’s day, whether we believe Him or not, is our choice.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. ¹⁸ He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God,” (John 3:16-18).

And when we are saved, His Plan Will Stand, to secure us and sanctify us in Him for all time.

 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified, (Hebrews 10:14).

But the truth is, since His thoughts and ways are so unlike our own, we can easily stray in our tendency towards making our own plans, led by our own thinking and ways. Oh, that we would set our hearts to learn His ways, for it is only His Plan that Will Stand.

The mind of man plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps, (Proverbs 16:9).

Many plans are in a man’s heart,
But the counsel of the Lord will stand, (Proverbs 19:21).

Let us ask the Lord to enlighten the eyes of our heart that we would grow in unwavering confidence in Who He is and all that He does, confident that nothing can frustrate or turn back the strength of His might brought about through His Plan that Will Stand in Christ.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might ²⁰ which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,  (Ephesians 1:18-20).

Let us ask the Lord to change our hearts, that we would be transformed to hear and understand His Will through our time with Him in His Word, and that He would grow us in our faith to become convinced in the truth, that His “good and acceptable and perfect” Plan Will Stand.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect, (Romans 12:2).

And when we are convinced that His Plan Will Stand, we can be confident that He will enable us to Stand in His Plan through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, ²⁵ to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen, (Jude 1:24-25).

Let’s Grow Together!