“There is No Other Rock” — Week 3
By Reverend J. Carla Northcutt, Ed.D., Marietta, Georgia

In Isaiah chapters 40-49, God declares at least 27 times, “I am God!”  He reminds His people:  “I am God and there is none like me; there is no God besides me.”  In Isaiah 43:1, 2 is the precious promise:  “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, Your Savior.”  He has redeemed us and called us by name.  Isaiah 43:10 declares, “Before Me there was no other God formed, nor shall there be after me.”  Isaiah 44:6:  “I am the first and the last; besides me there is no other God.”  Isaiah 44:8:  “You are my witnesses.  Is there a God besides Me?  Indeed, there is no other Rock; I know not one.”  Isaiah 45:21:  “And there is no other God besides me, a just God and Savior; there is none besides me.”  Isaiah 49:26:  “All flesh shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

The Holy One of Israel, your Savior, the First and the Last, the Rock, a just God and Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob—these are just a few of the appellations by which God called Himself in Isaiah.  “Yahweh,” the covenant name for God, is used more than 300 times; “Elohim” the plural form is used frequently; “El,”  the shorter form is used as a polemic against the other gods to show His sovereignty over false gods.  “Adonai” is used and suggests God’s dominance over His creation.  He is the Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel whose redeeming work did not stop with His chosen people but reaches still into the 21st century.  He is the Rock on whom we can depend and there is none other to whom we can turn.

In 2005, I was diagnosed and had emergency surgery to remove a large, ruptured mass from my pelvis area.  It was ovarian cancer that had produced this large tumor and two other small tumors besides.  The removal of my ovaries and appendix and the three growths effectively made me “cancer-free,” but to prevent their return, I had 18 months of chemotherapy.  After those 18 months, I was cancer free for 15 more months when a blood test revealed the cancer had returned.  I am, at this writing, in my seventh month of 18 more months of chemo.

During my hospitalization in 2005 to remove the initial tumors, I found God to be all that He says He is in Isaiah.  In a drug-induced (pain meds) “nightmare,” I found myself falling, falling into a deep well from which there would be no rescue.  As I plummeted downward, the thought found its way into my troubled sleep—“When I hit ‘rock bottom,’ then I will stand on that Rock, who is Christ Jesus.”

I will have no other God besides Him;  I will make no graven image from rock, wood, paper or people.  I will serve Him because He is my “Yahweh Sbaot”; the Lord Almighty—who is able to deliver me!

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