The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (ESV)

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. (NIV)

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever. (NLT)

Dive Deeper:

Tempting Kingdoms

A collective fear is rising as overseas tensions unfold, wars breaking out, and an election provokes anxiety across the country. I have noticed in my own life how quickly conversations transition from small talk to the major problems our world is facing. More than ever, we are controlled by fear, and as a result, we are grasping for our own control. One of the main temptations in this fear/control state is to look to some person or group for a sense of hope.

This desire for security outside of God isn’t new. This week's context of our verse illustrates the grass and flower as a metaphor for kingdoms in the Old Testament. Specifically, Babylon looked powerful. It was a kingdom that people trusted because of its strength. But Isaiah points out that these strikingly strong kingdoms on the surface will fade away in the same way simple things like grass and flowers do. And we know this to be true in history: empires rise and fall, leaders come and go, and even our little day-to-day plans fall apart. But the deception still seems to lurk enough for us to trust in this person or that kingdom.

Promises To Come

Even for those of us who would say, “I want to trust Jesus,” we can still go to church, sing worship songs, and read the Word (which stands forever) but never find confidence if our hearts still buy into relying on the kingdoms of our day. At the beginning of the Scripture, we see a pattern. God speaks, and action occurs. He says let there be light, and there was light. He says let the land produce vegetation, and it was so. This continues. We can see that God is true to His Word from the beginning. Then, the prophetic theme of a coming Messiah unfolds in the Old Testament. With these prophecies, we see a word given, time passes, and then, through Jesus, the word is fulfilled. 

We can map Old Testament prophecies all over the Gospels and see how Jesus truly fulfilled them. The Jews awaited their messiah, now that He has come, we find ourselves in another moment. A moment between Jesus winning the victory over sin, death, and the devil on the cross, and His final return. In this return, He promises to make all things new and set everything right. Theologians call this moment between the already, and not yet. And just as people missed Jesus when He came fulfilling the promises of a savior, we can miss the promises to come if we trust in kingdoms, strategies, and kings of our day. Isaiah is clear… The Word and promises of God will never fail and will not fade. But the flowers, and the grass, the temporary empires luring us in, will fail or one day fall at the feet of Jesus. Put your trust in The Word.

Written by Ben Hesch

Challenge:

Familiarize yourself with the coming promises of God in Scripture. Let them live as a guide to how you engage and live amidst the rising and falling kingdoms vying for our attention. You can start by reading Revelations 21-22 and storing these promises in your heart. Read it as the hopeful Word that it is.