By Nick Dalgety
A prophet of Israel who spoke to his day and to coming days. God through Isaiah, foretold the first coming of the Messiah and also His anticipated second coming. How so? God knows the end from the beginning. He is the Alpha and the Omega.
The prompt for this story came while visiting a great cafe in Nelson, called Deville. My table number was, you guessed it 61!
The first verses of this chapter are profound. As powerful in their meaning today as at any time in history.
The context. Yeshua stood up in the synagogue in His home village of Nazareth on the Sabbath day. He was handed the book of Isaiah to read. He opened the book and found the place where it was written:
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives [Isaiah 61:1b]
Yeshua then closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
Yeshua chose this time to start His ministry to His people. Identifying Himself as the Annointed One; that He has come to set His own people free from captivity to sin and death. The only way to freedom passing through Calvary Hill.
Yet not just freedom for the Jewish captive, but the Gentile captive too. That is you and I. This truth of freedom for all comes alive through divine revelation given to the apostle, Paul which we read about in the Book of Acts.
Now is the hour of God’s mercy. The Gospel message is still going out, yet there is a time of judgment coming. In fact this judgment will occur when Yeshua returns at the end of time as the King of kings. In the latter portion of verse 2, these words, that Yeshua did not speak at that time, appear:
And the day of vengeance of our God [Isaiah 61:2b]
Let us draw near to Him now, while His mercy prevails.
About the Author
Nick Dalgety is a Kiwi born in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. In recent times my wife and I have made Nelson in the top of the South Island home.
My day job involves working with people making a living from land and sea. In my spare time my passion is taking pictures that celebrate what is iconic about Aotearoa New Zealand. Inevitably this involves discovering amazing people, in their special place making and doing what they do best.
When travelling overseas, I often seek out similar experiences. I created Provenance101 to share these experiences.
The Garden of Eden
The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed (GENESIS 2:8). God makes known in the first chapter of Genesis a sweeping account of the creation of the earth, the heavens, plants, animals, birds, fish and ultimately Man. God then turns His attention…
Man To Cultivate
Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it (GENESIS 2:15). Right from the start God intended that Man have real purpose in life. Here Man was to cultivate the land and care for the creatures that inhabited the Garden. There is real…
Not Good To Be Alone
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him” (GENESIS 2:18). Relationships. As a Christian I believe in one God yet three Persons in nature, namely Father, Son and Holy Spirit – a truth revealed overtime in the Bible. Therefore relationship…
Man and His Wife Hid
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden (GENESIS 3:8). Adam and Eve are together for the scripture says they heard the Lord God.…
Enmity Between the Seeds
The Lord God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel” (GENESIS 3:15). Here we witness the greatest calamity of Mankind. Adam and Eve chose to disobey an…