Isaiah Chapter 46 – Carry or be Carried

A sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan KS, 07 Oct 2007

English Translation by Beni, Josh, Peter, and Amos Wilson (Edited by Nate Wilson)

1. Bel fell; Nebo bent over.

Their idols were on beasts and on cattle.

Your gifts were carried as burdens on the weary.

2. They bent over; they fell down together.

They were not able to be delivered of the burden,

and their soul walked into exile.

3. "Listen to me, house of Jacob, and all the remainder of the house of Israel,

the ones who were carried in my bosom and were lifted from my womb;

4. Even until old age I am He,

and until gray hair I myself will carry you.

I, I made you,

and I, I lift you up,

and I, I will carry,

and I will deliver.

5. To whom will you compare me and cause to be equal,

and liken to me, that we will compare?

6. Those who pour out gold from a bag and silver in weight

will weigh it and hire one who refines, and he will make it a god,

and then they will bow down; indeed they will worship it!

7. They will lift it over a shoulder, carry it,

and they will set it down and it will stand. It will not leave its place.

Also, he will call out to his god,

but it will not make a sound

nor will it cause him to be saved from his distress.

8. Remember this and be a man.

Turn [it] over [in your] heart, sinners.

9. Remember the first things from the ancient times,

for I am God and there is no other God and none besides me,

10. telling the latter from the former things,

and from the beginning things which were not made,

saying, ‘My plan will stand, and all my delight I will do.’

11. calling from the East an eagle, a man of my plan from a far land. Yes I have spoken, I will also bring to pass,

I have decided, I will also do it.

12. Listen to me, you stout-hearted that are far from righteousness:

13. I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off,

and my salvation will not be late; so I will place salvation in Zion,

for Israel my glory."

Introduction

In chapter 45 of Isaiah, we saw the future of the people who trust God; now Isaiah turns to the future of Babylon in chapters 46 & 47. This prophecy is addressed to the “house of Jacob and all the remainder of the house of Israel.” The fact that it was addressed to the whole “house,” indicates that the prophecy is not only for the people of Judah in Isaiah’s day but also to their descendents who would go into captivity in Babylon and their spiritual descendents who would struggle with faith in God.

This chapter encouraged the Jews during the captivity in Babylon when it seemed that the Babylonian idols Bel (a.k.a. Nimrod or Marduk) and Nebo (after whom Nebuchadnezzar was named) would win the day and prove the God of Israel to be powerless. “Nope,” says Isaiah, “God will have the last laugh.” Those mighty gods of Babylon will be toppled. Cyrus may not have literally toppled those idols, but he certainly overthrew Babylon, the domain of those false gods, thus proving them to be powerless.

In the last chapter (45:23) God promised that every knee would bow. Just as the Philistine fish-god Dagon fell at the feet of God’s ark of the covenant some 300 years earlier, so the gods of Babylon would also fall before the one true God according to His sovereign plan, throughout all of history, to glorify Himself above all other gods through His people.

The Contrast between God and idols (v.1-7)

Idols have to be carried – on the backs of oxen (v.1), and on the shoulders of men (v.7)
handout – Photos of Nebo statue in British Museum and Assyrian carving of men carrying idol. (Statue of Nebo http://www.christiansofiraq.com/godwisdom.jpg)
     - imagine how heavy that stone statue was to carry!
     - no wonder the oxen grew weary of the burden in v.1
    - Idols take your energy, they slow you down.
God, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be carried. In fact, He carries us!
     - (vs. 3-4) You “were carried from my belly and lifted up from my womb, and until old age I am He, and until gray hair, I myself will carry you. I myself made you, and I myself lift you up, and I myself will bear” you as a burden.

“Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows…” Isa 53:4
Deuteronomy 32:9-12 For Jehovah's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. 10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; He compassed him about, He cared for him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. 11 As an eagle that stirs up her nest, That flutters over her young, He spread abroad His wings, He took them, He carried them on His pinions. 12 Jehovah alone did lead him, and there was no foreign god with him.

Idols “fall down” (v.1&2) Idols are temporary:
     – the pop star will walk off the stage someday never to be seen again,
     - the awesome technological gizmo you imported from China will break all too soon,
     - all my records and tapes are going the way of the 8-track - obsolete.
     - That lifetime warranty you bought for your appliance doesn’t include shipping or labor,
          and the nearest certified repairman is in another state...
But God’s “plan will stand” (v.10) God is there for your entire life, as it says in vs. 3-4 - from birth to the gray hairs of old age. God has been there forever and He will be there forever. We can trust Him. He will hold us into the future just as He has carried us from our birth.
Idols are “unable to deliver” themselves (end of v.2). They go wherever they are carried, and that is eventually into captivity.
     - Nebo now sits in a closed room in the Iraq national museum! He won’t run away.
     - And if they can’t deliver themselves, they can’t deliver you – v.7
        “it will not cause [you] to be saved from [your] distress.”
     - That piece of chocolate candy, or that relationship will never deliver you from the emptiness
          and discouragement you feel.
God, on the other hand, is a deliverer. V.4 ends with God saying, “I will deliver!”

John Calvin once said, “It is excessively foolish stupidity which causes men to worship a god made with their own hands… The only remedy for our distresses… is to hang on His mouth and to be attentive to the promises of grace.”

Idols have to be made by humans
     – we already saw previous chapters in Isaiah that described the making of an idol (ch. 44).
     - Here in v.7, they hire a blacksmith to mold the idol out of metal.
     - We make all kinds of metal idols in Detroit. Those gleaming cars come off the assembly line
          and everybody wants one, but the product of human work will never satisfy our souls.
God, on the other hand, is self-existent and personal.
     - The word “I” or “me” occurs over 30 times in this little chapter!
     - He has been God from eternity, it says in v. 9. “I AM God and there is no other!”
     - In fact, He creates us! Most translations render v.3 as though the belly and the womb were that of your mother and picture God as being present at your conception and birth, but the Hebrew wording is literally “carrying from me belly, lifting from me womb” as though God Himself is the one who gave birth to us.

James 1:18 Of His own will He begot us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.
I Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…

Idols cannot speak, cannot answer you (v.7b)
- Have you ever tried telling your problems to your cat? Your cat doesn’t give a fig for your
problems, all it is thinking is how to get you to scratch its neck in just the right place…
God, on the other hand, has been in the business of communicating to His people ever since the beginning when He walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

He had prophets and apostles write down His communications so that we could read His word in the Bible.
He hears our prayers and “always lives to make intercession for” us (Hebrews 7:25b).

Idols impoverish you – they drain money from you.
     - V.6 talks about “pouring gold out of a bag, then [putting] silver in the balance scales”
          to measure out just the right amount.
     - You know, I thought when I finally got around to buying a house that it would be more economical than renting. Now I’m not so sure. I no longer have a landlord to do repairs and keep the property up; I have to pay for it all myself, and it is a money pit! Those guys at the hardware store are starting to get a gleam in their eyes when I walk in!
    - Whenever we raise any hobby to the level of an idol, seeking to get fulfillment out of it which it is incapable of giving to us, our tendency is to pour more and more of our resources into it, in a frenzy, in order to try to get enough fulfillment out of it.
     - Drug users find out pretty quick that this is a deadly cycle.
God, on the other hand, although He requires that we give to Him the firstfruits of our labor and 10% of our increase, does not drain us, but rather fills us with blessing:

Malachi 3:10 Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
Psalm 145:16 You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.

Therefore, v.5 “To whom will you compare me?”
ILLUSTRATION: Call Chris up with a blueprint and compare the construction manager with the blueprint. Do you go to the blueprint and say, “Wow, you will make a really nice building; I choose you!?” No, you go to the construction manager and say, “Wow, you will make a really nice building; I choose you!”
Same with God: Don’t go to any of the things He created to get what you need out of life, go to the source – to God Himself.

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Mt. 6:33 (The blueprint comes with the architect!)

The Commands of God - in the context of a culture filled with idols

Today we live in a modern-day “Babylon” filled with idols. How does God instruct us to live in this context? He gives two basic commands: Listen and Remember.

Listen to me (v.3)

Have you ever walked out of the grocery store and been accosted by group of girl scouts shouting and waving to get your attention so that you will buy their cookies? I hate running that gauntlet because they’re cute and they are raising money for their organization and I don’t want to hurt their feelings, and I like their cookies. Sometimes I just have to look away an act like they’re not there.
Every TV channel, every radio show, every magazine, and every good Internet page is working hard to catch and keep your attention.
As we read a couple of weeks ago in Proverbs 9, the foolish woman and the wise one are both calling for you out in the street.
Who are you going to listen to?
God says, “Listen to me – and here’s why, (v.3) because I gave birth to you and I have carried you all this way to this point in your life. You owe it to me. ”
Furthermore, God tells us to listen to Him because He’s the only one worth listening to – all the other voices vying for your attention are powerless to help you!
How do we listen to God?

i. He speaks to us through the Bible, so we need to read from the Bible every day – this is very important!

ii. He speaks to us through Godly friends, too, so make friends with the kind of people who love Jesus and who make you uncomfortable with sin and compromise in your life.

iii. He speaks to us through the Holy Spirit in our thoughts, too. Take the time to pray and bring your problems and anxieties to God. God really does answer prayers for help and wisdom. Every sermon I preach is the result largely of God helping me organize my thoughts – speaking does not come naturally for me, so I pray and get lots of people praying for me… and God helps me!

iv. Be purposeful in the entertainment you listen to as well. Choose movies and music that will remind you of God; far too many movies and songs totally ignore God as though He didn’t exist!

After listening to God, we must respond. Isaiah frames this response in terms of “remembering.”
He uses the command to “remember” in v. 8&9 twice because there are two key parts to responding to God: the first is repentance, and the 2^nd is faith. Watch how this plays out:

(v.8) “Remember this and be a man; turn it over in your heart, sinner.”

The first “remember” has to do with a realization of your sin.
Remember that those idols are powerless to answer or save or help.
Remember that you are a sinner who has indulged in looking for your help from sources other than the one true God.
The second verb in v.8 is somewhat uncertain in meaning:

i. Most English translators assume that the root is “ish” which means either “man” or “foundation” so they translate it as standing firm or being manly.

ii. In this sense, it could mean to bravely fight against sin,

iii. or it could mean that we should act in accordance with the fact that we are a created being in God’s image, so we should conform to His image rather than other human or brutish images.

iv. However, several other significant translators – including the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and John Calvin’s translation – render this from a different root which means to turn red.

v. In this sense, it would mean to blush over our sin – to be ashamed.

Likewise the last phrase could be interpreted as “Turn away” from your sin, or “turn this thought over in your heart” – I’m inclined toward the latter because it is a closer parallel to the command to “remember”
“Sinners whose love can ne’er forget the wormwood and the gall.
Go spread your trophies at His feet and crown Him lord of all.”
So the first “remember” in v.8 has to do with repentance. The second “remember” in v.9 has to do with faith:

Remember (v.9) the first things

God’s past actions – such as The Exodus - that show His power to save

i. “The solution to all earthly problems is a firm confidence in the providence of God” (B.B. Warfield)

“for I am God, “

i. telling the plan from first to last,

1. God has a plan for world history. He is working out His will according to His divine purpose. History has meaning because it can be seen in terms of God working out His plan.

2. Does this preclude free will? I may not agree with all of Herrman Bavinck’s theology, but he came up with a pretty good illustration of how God can work out His plan without turning us into mindless robots. He compares it to a novice playing chess against a grand master. The master chess player has the entire game mapped out in his head and he can play in such a way that every choice the novice makes is exactly what the master wanted. The grand master is really in control of the game, although the novice is quite unaware of it. Every move plays into the master’s plan to win the game.

3. His plan was revealed to Abraham in Gen. 12 – I will bless you, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

4. Because God is working out His plan – because history is teleological, He can give prophetic messages about the future.

5. “Predictive prophecy is proof of divine omniscience” (E.J. Young)

6. v.11 is an example of this kind of predictive prophecy to bolster our faith:

ii. calling eagle from the East handout on eagle symbol

1. eagle denotes swiftness – a characteristic of Cyrus’ war campaigns.

2. Xenophon wrote that Cyrus used an eagle as his symbol

3. East is Persia – also found in chapter 41 speaking of Cyrus who would conquer Babylon and release the Jews from exile in Babylon.

4. As we saw in chapter 45, God is calling the shots, and He takes the credit for raising up Cyrus 150 years after giving this prophecy to Isaiah.

Listen to me (v.12-13) b/c I bring my righteous salvation to you, but you tend to be stubborn:

Don’t be “stout-hearted” and exercise strength in hardening your heart against the grace of God (Young)
“by murmuring or fretting, [poor distressed persons] shake off the fear of God and thus throw themselves into despair, so that they openly rage against God.” (Calvin)
All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) – that’s why we’re “far from righteousness.”
Notice that God doesn’t bring just any righteousness and salvation; He says its “my righteousness… my salvation.” Politicians have told us recently that we have to look inside ourselves to decide what’s right, but that is a bunch of malarkey. We are naturally far from righteousness; what we need is not to look into our own deceitful, wicked hearts, but look to God, to the Bible, for His righteousness!
We can’t save ourselves. That’s why Jesus came to us 2000 years ago and died for our sins and rose from the grave and ascended to the Father to intercede for us.
God “brought near” His righteousness by bringing Jesus to earth. He initiated our salvation.
God’s righteousness and His salvation and His glory are all related: He saves us by making us righteous, and He gets glory that way.

i. When we trust in Jesus, our sin is nailed to the cross back in history with Jesus, and His perfect righteousness is given to us.

ii. Once we are made righteous, God does not have to punish us for our unrighteousness,

iii. Thus we are saved from His punishment for sin - which is hell.

iv. This, in turn brings glory to Him as we praise Him for our salvation and as the world sees God’s goodness and justice in saving His people.

v. God’s “glory is most illustriously displayed when He rescues His people…” (Calvin)

Conclusion

So Listen. Keep listening to God’s word.

And Remember. Keep remembering the impotence of idols and keep turning away from them.

Keep remembering that God is in control and Jesus alone can save you.

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