A Call to Light

By John Stembridge

(Editor's note: This is an exerpt from Stembridge's book manuscript, "The Sh'ma". Sh'ma, "Hear" in Hebrew refers especially to Deut. 6:4: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One." Jesus said this was "The first of all the commandments...." Mark 12:29.)

Isaiah, the son of Amos and the Prophet to King Hezekiah, reveals more about the Messiah than any of the prophets. His own testimony concerning the Sh'ma is: "The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth my ear to hear [Sh'ma] as the learned."

Isaiah is the prophet who tells us that when gross darkness covers the earth, that God shall arise and His light and glory will rise upon Zion (Isaiah 60:1,2). This appears to be a mystery to many Christians. . .

David said in Psalm 119:30, "The entrance of Thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple."

When the world is covered in gross darkness, God through Isaiah says that it will be the Sh'ma (the Hearing and Speaking of His Word) that will bring His light to the nations. He also says that "Whereas you have been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations. . . The sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended. . . . I the LORD will hasten it in his time" (Isaiah 60:15-22).