But there would be some occasions when they might not know what God wanted them to do. He had been telling them how they ought to live, naming things they should put out of their lives and things they should incorporate into their lives. The Apostle Paul taught much the same truth to the Colossian Christians hundreds of years later. As the prophet pointed out, “There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.” 101 But when we go God’s way, there is a beautiful calm within. We can never know true peace when we go our own way. In other words, the crowning confirmation that we are walking in the will of God is peace. The lesson is simply that God wants to lead us, he makes his way known to us, and when we follow his direction we enjoy an inner quietness and assurance that has all the abundance, freshness, and persistence of a deep-flowing river. In the prophet’s 2,700 year-old message to Israel there is a great truth concerning the will of God for believers today.
Oh, that you had listened to my commandments then your peace would be like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” 100 Listen to him plead: “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Isaiah faithfully called them to repentance and warned them of their coming captivity in Babylon. They professed to worship God, but they did it “neither truthfully nor rightfully.” 99 Their lives were steeped in sin and their hearts were obstinate and rebellious. The people of God in Isaiah’s day had become prosperous, proud, self-sufficient, and self-indulging.
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