Isa 48:6   "From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you.

   

I wonder what Isaiah's listeners thought about him? What? Oh not more of that ‘new' stuff! Two days ago we considered the thought that with God we live ‘new days', days that can be totally different because they are directed and energised by God and therefore we can achieve things that previously were beyond us. With God we definitely move into the world of the ‘divinely supernatural'.

 

The immediate fulfilment of this verse today is about Babylon (which will be used by God in the future Exile) being overcome. Whether that does mean after the exile and refers to Cyrus, or to some other time when Babylon is overcome, is unclear. The point is that history is in the Lord's hands. We can't see the future but the Lord can. This verse speaks about an intimacy with the Lord whereby He shares with us the things He sees.

 

In the future, the apostle Paul was to speak of “the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past” (Rom 16:25). Throughout the Old Testament period the Lord had spoken about the coming one, and yet they had not understood. It was only after he came that it became clear what the prophecies had meant. So often the Lord does share about the future, but so often we still don't understand what He has meant. Why does He then speak? Just so that we'll know that He is the Lord of history.