The Book Of Isaiah. Day 133, The Faith Of Their Forefathers

Isaiah has been prophesying about the ministry of the "Servant" (the Messiah). In today's segment the Lord urges the people to listen to the Servant and turn back to the Lord.

"Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of His servant? Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God." (Isaiah 50:10) The Lord Jesus will later say, "My sheep hear My voice." (John 10:27) Those who love the Lord and who want to honor Him will be sensitive to the word of the Lord's servant and will follow His leadership. But this next verse is a warning to those who kindle fires on pagan altars and hold abominable ceremonies at the feet of idols, refusing to make God the Lord of their lives: "But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what You shall receive from My hand: You will lie down in torment." (Isaiah 50:11)

There is no guidance to be had from false gods, false prophets, and false priests. There is no wisdom in mankind's schemes either, for, "There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death." (Proverbs 14:12) When we allow ourselves to be led by our carnal natures, serving ourselves or the idols of our choice, we will make nothing but bad decisions that lead us farther and farther away from the Lord. But if we make God the Lord of our lives, we have the benefit of His wisdom and guidance. As the Lord Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12)

Now we move on into Chapter 51 where the Lord urges the people to remember their heritage and the faith of their forefathers. If they want to be righteous in His eyes, they must live the way their ancestors who loved the Lord lived. The ones who seek after righteousness must do it the way people like Abraham did it---by faith. "Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn; Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth. When I called him he was only one man, and I blessed him and made him many." (Isaiah 51:1-2)

In the years that led up to Judah's defeat by Babylon, a great number of the people turned away from the Lord. Those who did not forsake Him must have felt like a minority. They must have thought, "What good can I do for my nation? The godly are vastly outnumbered by the ungodly." But Abraham was just one man who obeyed the Lord's calling and the Lord created multitudes upon multitudes from his descendants. Abraham trusted the Lord and believed the promises the Lord made to him and he was blessed by the Lord as a result.

After Judah has been conquered by Babylon and most of the people carried off into captivity, the people must have thought in that foreign land, "We are surrounded by these godless Babylonians who hate us and have treated us cruelly. What good will our prayers do us here? We are vastly outnumbered by our enemies. How can we ever see our own land again?" But just as Abraham trusted the Lord and believed His promises, the people are to follow Abraham's example and believe what the Lord is promising them here: "The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; He will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing." (Isaiah 51:3)

In this world where it often feels like things are falling to pieces around us and we don't know who or what to believe, the Lord is our strong anchor. We can safely place all of our trust in Him. We can be led by His holy word. We can have a relationship with Him. We can count on every promise He has ever made.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 132, The Lord Helps The Servant's Ministry, Part Two

Chapter 50 is a prophecy about the earthly ministry of the One called the "Servant"---the Messiah. It is being spoken in His voice and yesterday's study ended with Him speaking of being obedient to how badly He would be treated. He was able to do this because it was part of the Father's plan of salvation and because the Father strengthened Him in His humanity.

"Because the Sovereign Lord helps Me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set My face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame." (Isaiah 50:7) Setting His face "like flint" (like a hard rock) is an expression of determination. I believe this is a reference to His final journey into Jerusalem where He knew He would be arrested, cruelly mocked, abused, and crucified. When we are performing a difficult task that takes strength, we will often set our jaw in a clenched position, steeling ourselves to perform the task. This is what Jesus did when He entered the city. He faced His fate head on with no looking back.

At Jerusalem He would be accused of many things without any proof. The accusers' stories did not agree with each other, though it was the law that no one could be put to death for a capital crime without the eyewitness testimony of two or more witnesses. Pontius Pilate found Him guilty of nothing and when we arrive at that part of Scripture we will see that Pilate shrewdly determined that the religious leaders of Jerusalem wanted Jesus dead to further their own ambitions. In this next segment we find the Servant proclaiming His innocence and His faith that the Lord will vindicate Him.

"He who vindicates Me is near. Who then will bring charges against Me? Let us face each other! Who is My accuser? Let him confront me! It is the Sovereign Lord who helps Me. Who will condemn Me? They will all wear out like a garment; the moths will eat them up." (Isaiah 50:8-9) No one could ever prove that Jesus sinned because He didn't sin. God the Father proved this by raising Him from the dead and giving Him the name that is above every name. If Jesus hadn't risen from the dead, He would have been largely forgotten just as the false Messiahs had been. How could there be any proof that He is God the Son if He remained in the grave like any other man who had been executed? The resurrection is the proof that He is who He says He is and it is upon the basis of seeing the resurrected Christ that His disciples stopped being afraid and began to boldly "set the world on fire" (Luke 12:49) and "turn the world upside down" (Acts 17:6) with the gospel message.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 131, The Lord Helps The Servant's Ministry, Part One

The remainder of Chapter 50 is a Messianic prophecy. It regards the One we have already seen being called the "Servant" of the Lord. God the Father will help and sustain this Servant through His ministry on earth, no matter who or what opposes Him. We find the words of this passage being spoken by the Servant Himself.

"The Sovereign Lord has given Me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens Me morning by morning, wakens My ear to listen like one being instructed." (Isaiah 50:4) At first we might think that Isaiah is talking about himself but as our passage continues we will see that it describes some of the things that Jesus endured on the earth. I love the part of this verse that says He knows the word that sustains the weary. Many times the word of Christ in the Scriptures has sustained my weary soul!

The verse above can only be about His earthly ministry because the Son of God, in all of His glory with the Father in heaven, did not need to sleep or to be awakened. But while in a human body on the earth we find in the gospels that He was in the habit of waking early to commune with the Father. In His humanity He had to pray to the Father like we do and that is a comforting thing to know. Christ knows what it's like to inhabit a mortal body and to send prayers up to the Father and to wait for His instructions rather than to simply be in the presence of the Father as He was before the incarnation. Because He had to interact with the Father as a human, He understands what it's like for us to speak to the One who is invisible to us. In Hebrews 4:15 the Apostle Paul reminds us that because Jesus lived in a human body on earth, He is able to sympathize with the weaknesses we experience. The word translated "sympathize" is literally "feel for" in the Greek. Jesus knows exactly how we feel.

The Lord Jesus was obedient to the Father and did the Father's will on earth, no matter how difficult it was in human form. We can only obey the Father imperfectly but Jesus obeyed every single commandment, law, and instruction without fault. "The Sovereign Lord has opened My ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away." (Isaiah 50:5) The Apostle Paul phrased it like this: "And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by being obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:8)

In regard to what this blessed Servant of the Lord endured for our sake, and in regard to how obedient He was to the Father no matter how much it cost Him, the Servant says: "I offered My back to those who beat Me, My cheeks to those who pulled out My beard; I did not hide My face from mocking and spitting." (Isaiah 50:6) 

We know from the gospel accounts that Jesus was beaten many times across the back and that He was mocked and spit upon. The gospels don't mention the pulling out of the beard but I don't doubt that it happened. It was a custom to cut a man's beard in order to humiliate him but in Jesus' case they pulled it out. They did this in order to inflict pain as well as humiliation. But God the Father gave Him the strength to endure it and Christ's love for us enabled Him to endure it. He was willing to do His part in the Father's plan of salvation because to Him we were worth it, which is difficult for us to contemplate because we are aware of our faults and failures, but He loved us and wanted us to be with Him for eternity. He counted the cost of what He must do to save us and He considered us worth the price.

 

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 130, The People Forsook God

As Chapter 50 opens we find the Lord pointing out that He did not forsake the people; they forsook Him. A number of times in the Old Testament we find the Lord comparing His covenant with Israel to a marriage covenant. When Israel engages in idolatry, He refers to it as adultery, for example. In our previous chapter we found the Lord making good promises for the future but the people said, "The Lord has forgotten us."

He has not forgotten them but it is possible for us to live in such a manner that the Lord cannot bless us. He doesn't reward sin. He doesn't reinforce wrong behavior. That is the reason the nation will go into captivity---because of sin---in order to correct the rampant idolatry in the land. It's not that He can't save them from their enemies but that He will use their enemies to turn them back to the right path.

"This is what the Lord says: 'Where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors did I sell you?'" (Isaiah 50:1a) The Lord didn't reject the people; they rejected Him and left Him. The Lord didn't want to send them into captivity; they sold themselves to sin and He allowed them to be captured.

He explains this in the next segment. "Because of your sins you were sold; because of your transgressions your mother was sent away." (Isaiah 50:1b) I assume the reference to their "mother" may be due to the fact that many who were taken captive passed away before an opportunity came to return to the land. Jeremiah will tell us that the captivity in Babylon is to last seventy years, so the majority who are in Babylon when they are set free will be people who were born there. Their mothers are no longer living.

"When I came, why was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Was My arm too short to deliver you? Do I lack the strength to rescue you?" (Isaiah 50:2a) The Lord will repeat this theme later in the book of Isaiah, saying, "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear." (Isaiah 59:1-2)

The people didn't go into captivity because the Lord wasn't powerful enough to rescue them. The people weren't conquered because the Lord couldn't see or hear what was going on. The fall of the nation happened because a majority of the people had fallen away from the Lord. He told them before He gave them the promised land that if they remained faithful to Him they would live in peace. They would never have to fear any enemy. But He also told them that if they fell into idolatry He would allow them to be removed from the land just as He removed their predecessors---the pagan tribes and nations---from the land.

The One who created all things and controls the forces of nature could never be too weak to save a nation from an enemy. "By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert; their fish rot for lack of thirst. I clothe the heavens with darkness, and make sackcloth its covering." (Isaiah 50:2b-3) He can bring calamities rather than blessing if the people turn away from Him. He told them they would have plentiful rain, abundant crops, enormous flocks and herds, healthy families, and everything else a person could want in the promised land if they did not fall into the idolatry of the heathen nations. He also said that drought, disease, famine, and other calamities would occur if they bowed to heathen images. It's not that the Lord can't protect them from the Babylonian invasion; it's that He won't because He intends to use the Babylonians as an instrument of correction.

Not every misfortune we experience in this life is a result of us living in disobedience to the Lord. Troubles can come for other reasons. But anytime troubles come, the first thing we should do is pray and search our hearts and submit to the Holy Spirit so He can reveal to us anything we are doing that brought our problems upon us. Sinning against the Lord never profits us. 

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 128, A New Covenant For The People, Part Four

The Lord has been promising not only to bring the people back from captivity in Babylon but also to make a new covenant with them. 

This next segment was partially fulfilled by the return to the land and the rebuilding of it. They will be helped by Gentiles, for several leaders of the Medo-Persian Empire will give them aid. But there is a bigger picture here in that many Gentiles will believe in Christ, who is of Israel, and the Gentiles of Christ's church will be a friend to the people of Israel. 

"This is what the Sovereign Lord says: 'See, I will beckon to the nations, I will lift up My banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their hips.'" (Isaiah 49:22) This verse symbolizes the way "the nations" (Gentiles) will aid Israel. Another occasion which may be in view here was when Israel was recognized as a sovereign nation again in 1948 by nations that were not Jewish.

"Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who hope in Me will not be disappointed. Can plunder be taken from warriors, or captives from the fierce?" (Isaiah 49:23-24) It is generally understood by Christian scholars that the phrase "lick the dust at your feet" is poetic language signifying that some of the leaders of nations and their people will give honor to Israel and will worship the God of Israel. Several Gentile leaders in the early church age and on up until now have been sympathetic to Israel. In the book of Revelation we are told that Israel was helped by others to flee from the wrath of the Antichrist. We are also told in the book of Revelation that there will be a great turning to Christ among the people of Israel. 

I think that the licking of the dust at their feet may also depict the way the Lord will judge the enemies of Israel. They will be forced to bow on their knees and acknowledge that God is Lord and acknowledge how much the Lord has loved His people. The Lord asked how plunder can be taken from warriors and captives from the fierce; it is because He is on their side that they will be rescued. "But this is what the Lord says: 'Yes, captives will be taken from warriors and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save." (Isaiah 49:25) 

"I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." (Isaiah 49:26) The phrase "eat their own flesh" may have to do with enemy nations that fall apart from the inside---nations with a lot of division that makes them easy prey for invaders or for economic, political, and military collapse. What we can take away from this is that the Lord knows His own, the Lord watches over them, the Lord sees every wrong done to them, and the Lord avenges those wrongs.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 127, A New Covenant For The People, Part Three

As we closed yesterday's study we found the people saying the Lord had forgotten them. While in Babylonian captivity, many may have wondered if the Lord had abandoned them, but they had the great promises of the book of Isaiah in which the Lord promised a return to the land.

In response to their fear of being forgotten, the Lord says: "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!" (Isaiah 49:15) 

It is not a common thing for a mother to have no compassion for her infant. The only reason we hear about such cases is because they are relatively rare compared to the millions of women who love and protect their infants. The Lord says something like, "I can no more forget about you than a mother can forget about the child she birthed. But even if a woman should reject her child, I can never forget you. I am not a human with human failings."

"See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me. Your children hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you. Lift up your eyes and look around; all your children gather and come to you. As surely as I live, declares the Lord, you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride." (Isaiah 49:16-18) 

Just as a person would see many times a day something they had engraved on their hands, the Lord continually sees these people. The "walls" are a reference to the walls of Jerusalem---the city that will be rebuilt after the time of captivity is over. The reference to their children being like ornaments likely has to do with how they will increase in number during the captivity. In the book of Jeremiah the Lord instructs them to continue getting married and having children so they will multiply and not decrease in number. (Jeremiah 29:6-7) You may recall how they greatly increased in number while in Egypt; they are to do the same in Babylon. They are not to give in to despair and think, "What's the point of marrying and having a family? We are doomed to die in Babylon. We will never see our land again."

"Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away. The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, 'This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.' Then you will say in your heart, 'Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up? I was left all alone, but these---where have they come from?'" (Isaiah 49:19-21) The way the Lord prospers them in captivity will seem too good to be true. They will be amazed at how the Lord brings this about. More people will return to the land than were taken from it.

When we are feeling discouraged or anxious it can be easy for us to think this is our permanent state. But the Lord has a way of using even those things to prosper us. He has a way of not only bringing us out of our tough seasons but also of making us better off than we were before.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 126, A New Covenant For The People, Part Two

In our current chapter the Lord has been speaking about the Messiah. He has referred to Him as the "Servant" of God and as a new "Covenant" for the people. This next section speaks not only of the captives' return from Babylon but of the return of many from all over the world during the eternal kingdom of the Messiah.

"They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill. They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside streams of water. I will turn all My mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up. See, they will come from afar---some from the north, some from the west, some from the region of Aswan." (Isaiah 49:9b-12) 

Throughout the ages since the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria and since the southern kingdom of Judah was conquered by Babylon, descendants of Jacob have returned to the nation. But not all of them have returned; in our day there are Jewish people living in various places around the world. In the book of Revelation we will see them returning joyfully to the land in numbers such as never before, an event which is often referred to as "the ingathering" by Christian scholars. The imagery in the verses above reminds us of how the Good Shepherd leads the sheep to green pastures and still waters. (Psalm 23) It is intended to depict the way the Lord will remove every obstacle from their path (turning mountains into roads).

This is to be a joyful occasion and a cause for celebration. "Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts His people and will have compassion on His afflicted ones." (Isaiah 49:13) When Isaiah's people from the land of Judah are captive in Babylon, such a time of celebration will be difficult for them to imagine. During the eras when the Jewish people have been persecuted by various enemies, such a thing was probably difficult to imagine. That is why we find them saying this: "But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me." (Isaiah 49:13)

Have you ever felt that way? During times of intense hardship, have you ever felt like the Lord didn't see your troubles or hear your cries for help? When we are overcome with sadness or fear, it can be difficult for us to feel the presence of the Lord. I know I have certainly felt that way when in deep distress. That is why it's so important for us to remember that we are not to live by our feelings but by what the word of God says. The word of God promises He will never leave us or forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5) The word of God tells us that He is close to the brokenhearted and rescues those who are crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18) The word of God tells us that His ears are always open to the prayers of His children. (1 Peter 3:12)