Isaiah 48b - Hope for Starting Over

A translation and sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 28 Oct 2007

 

Translation

12. Hear me, Jacob, and Israel, my called one.

I am He;

I am the first,

also I am the last,

13. also my hand founded the earth,

and my right hand spread out the heavens.

When I call to them, they stand together.

14. Assemble yourselves, all of you, and hear. Who among them has declared these?

Jehovah loved him;

He will do His purpose in Babylon,

and the Chaldeans are His arm.

15. I, I myself have spoken,

also I called him,

I caused him to come,

and his way will make a profit.

16. Draw near to me; hear this:

It was not in secret from the beginning that I spoke,

from the time it happens, there I am!

And NOW the Lord Jehovah has sent me – and His Spirit.

17. Thus says Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

I, Jehovah your God, am teaching you to profit, leading you in the way you should go.

18. Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!

Then your peace would be like the river

and your righteousness like waves of the sea,

19. and your seed would be like the sand,

and offspring from your body like its grains.

It would not be cut off

and its name would not be destroyed from before my face.

20. Go out from Babylon,

hurry from the Chaldeans with a noise of shouting,

declare,

cause this to be heard,

cause it to go out unto the end of the earth!

Say, “Jehovah has redeemed His servant Jacob,

21. and he did not thirst in the dry places that He led them;

He made water flow from the rock for him;

He even split the rock and water gushed out!”

22. “There is no peace,” says Jehovah to the wicked.

 

Introduction

If sin has led you into a bad place in life and you have not been able to stop doing that sin, is there any hope for you?

 

This was the place Israel was in. They had rebelled so thoroughly against God that He had determined they would have to go into exile. They were out-of-control idol-worshippers. Isaiah addresses a people that was about as low as you could get, who had no reasonable hope of making a come-back, and he tells them that there is still hope if they will even now draw near to God, listen and obey Him.

 

As I mentioned last week, this 48th chapter of Isaiah concludes the first part of the second half of Isaiah and it recaps themes from this whole section. One of these themes is that of listening to God. We are picking up at verse 12, where we once again have the command to hear God.

 

Why listen to God? (7 reasons)

  1. Because he is ABSOLUTE & ETERNAL (v.12)
    1. “I am He”

                                                              i.      “This was the fundamental clause of the Old Testament credo since Deuteronomy 32:39 “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge…? See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me…” (Delitzsch)

                                                            ii.      This phrase indicates” that Jehovah is the actual, true, living God” (Young)

                                                          iii.      ILLUSTRATION: If I could give you a choice of either bringing President Bush to speak to you tonight or a George Bush impersonator, which one would you want to listen to? The real one, right?
That’s why we should listen to God. He’s the real one!

    1.  “first and last”

                                                              i.      Isaiah 44:6  Thus says Jehovah, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.”

                                                            ii.      Revelation 1:17-18  When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last,  18  and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”

                                                          iii.      “God is always like Himself… does not undergo change… He will be to us the same as He has always been… The Jews waver and even fall away in consequence of not estimating sufficiently how extraordinary a blessing it is to learn from the sacred mouth of God all that is necessary for their salvation.” (Calvin)

  1. We should listen because He is the CREATOR. (v.13)
    1. He made heaven and earth - and therefore made you. Therefore you are to be His servant v.20; listen to your maker!
    2. That voice is authoritative too, with all of creation at His beck and call. “when I call to them, they stand together”
    3. By simply speaking His word, God created matter, causing the material of the heavens and earth to stand. That spoken word also causes the events of history to come to pass:
  2. We should listen because God is SOVEREIGN (v.14-16)
    1. I’ve mentioned before that one of the main points of this section of the book of Isaiah is God’s ability to prophecy events and make them come to pass - unique among all gods. The coming of Cyrus is the main prophecy showcased in this section of Isaiah as an illustration of God’s sovereignty over future history (41:2; 44:28; 45:1&13; 46:11).
    2. For this reason, every scholar I’ve read interprets vs. 14-16 as a prophecy that God would raise Cyrus up to bring the downfall of Babylon.
    3. There are two main weaknesses, however, to this interpretation:

                                                              i.      Cyrus hasn’t been mentioned for 30-something verses, so it is odd to have the word “him” refer to such a distant antecedent, and

                                                            ii.      The word “upon” or “against” has to be added to the end of verse 20 in order to make the verse read according to this interpretation. A more natural reading of the Hebrew Bible would be, “Chaldeans are His arm.”

    1. I want to cautiously offer an alternative interpretation that I believe is more faithful to the text before us. Looking only two verses back, I see that the word “Israel” (“my called one”) could be an antecedent for the word “him” in v.14. My interpretation then would be that God loves His called one/Israel and will use Babylon to work His purpose with Israel and therefore “the Chaldeans are His arm.” Continuing into v.15, then God has called Israel, and will control the going into exile of Israel, the coming out of exile of Israel, and its prosperity.
    2. Either way you take these verses, the emphasis is on God’s sovereignty over the future in history, the only difference being which exact future event is being referred to. “[E]ven those things which are supposed to be accidental are governed by His sovereignty” (Calvin)
    3. Note also that God is called a “lord/master” in v.16 (different from LORD=Jehovah)

SUMMARY: God is Absolute and Eternal, He is the Creator, He is Sovereign

  1. We should listen because God is IMMINENT (v.16) – He is not distant, but is right here.
    1. This is demonstrated by the fact that He is speaking plainly: cf. Isa. 45:19 “I have not spoken in secret, In some dark land; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, 'Seek Me in a waste place'; I, the LORD, speak righteousness, Declaring things that are upright.”
    2. God’s imminence further underscored by claim that, “from the time it happens, I am there
      cf. Proverbs 8:27a “When He established the heavens, I [wisdom/Jesus] was there
      God is always there. He is Immanuel – “God with us” (Isa. 7:14)
    3. In addition to God’s continuing presence, there is some sort of new development of His presence mentioned at the end of v.16. The omnipresent Lord Jehovah sends a person, designated as “me.”

                                                              i.      Although most non-Christian scholars agree that “me” is Isaiah, most Christian scholars (with the notable exception of Calvin) agree that “me” is Jesus.

                                                            ii.      This “me” shows up in the next chapter again pretty clearly as the Messiah, and the Messiah is spoken of in 19:20, 42:19, and 61:1 as being “sent.”

                                                          iii.      This contrast between “from the beginning” and “and now” strongly suggests the beginning of the book of Hebrews “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son…”

                                                          iv.      and coincides with other N.T. teaching that God the Father sent His Son Jesus:
Gal. 4:4 “When the appointed time had come, God sent forth His only-begotten son”
1 John 4:14 “We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.”

    1. V. 17 ends with “and His Spirit” – After Jesus came into the world, the Holy Spirit came upon Him and upon His disciples in special ways (Mt. 3:16, Acts 1&2)
    2. God not only is present spiritually, but has sent prophets and His own Son physically into the world and has sent His Spirit to reveal Himself to us and help us understand the Bible. What more reason do we need to listen to Him?! Yet Isaiah gives us more reasons:
  1. We should listen because God REDEEMS in HOLINESS (v.17)
    “I am your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel”
    He takes unholy people like you and me & redeems us. If you want to be redeemed, then listen to Him!
  2. We should listen because God TEACHES us to PROFIT (v.17-19)
    1. If I were to say, “Everyone who listens to this entire sermon this morning can have a $100 bill at the end of the service, would you listen? This is essentially what God is saying: “Hey, listen to me and you will be blessed!”
    2. God is a God who teaches – almost every verse in this passage mentions speaking:
      v.12 He “called” His people,
      v.13 He “calls” to His creation
      v.14 & 15 God refers to Biblical prophecy, “Who has declared?... I have spoken”
      v.16 God implies that He has been speaking plainly since the beginning, asserting, “It was NOT in secret from the beginning that I spoke.”
      v.17 presents God as a “teacher”
      v.18 mentions the “commands” God had given
      and in v.22 He even has a word to say to the “wicked”!
    3. God’s teaching brings profit

                                                              i.      The word “profit” has been used twice before in Isaiah to indicate what does not bring profit, namely idols (44:10) and political alliances (30:5).

                                                            ii.      The profit is described in vs. 18-19 as peace like a river, righteousness like ocean waves, numerous descendents, and having their name in the Lamb’s book of life, never to be erased or removed from His presence (Isa 56:5).

                                                          iii.      There is an allusion in v.19 to the Abrahamic Covenant with the descendents being multiplied as the sand on the seashore. Such blessings are unmerited gifts of God but conditional upon a faith that gives heed to the word of God and appropriates its promises of redemption to itself. The sin of Israel interrupted the fulfillment of the covenant blessings, but they are fulfilled in time in the Gospel era and realized in the book of Revelation. (Delitzsch)

                                                          iv.      He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s Sake (Psalm 23)

                                                            v.      If you defraud yourself of the benefit of this teaching, don’t blame God if you encounter calamity! “Treat the Holy Scriptures with piety and reverence.” (Calvin)

  1. Finally, we should listen because God PUNISHES those who don’t listen (v.14-15? 18-19, 22)
    1. The flip side of God’s covenantal blessings and teaching to profit is that not listening and believing leads to the opposite of blessing and the opposite of profit. Vs. 14-15 indicate that God sent Israel into foreign exile as a result of their rebelliousness and stubborn refusal to listen and submit to God.
    2. vs. 18-19 teach that the consequence of sin is a loss of peace, loss of descendents, and loss of relationship with God and the church.
    3. If you find yourself missing these things, earnestly ask God for restoration. There is hope, for He is a Redeemer (v.17&20).
    4. Not only should we listen because God is Absolute and Eternal, the Creator, the Sovereign one, Imminent, the Redeemer, and a profitable Teacher, we should also listen to Him because He will punish us if we don’t listen. God has raised the stakes high to give us every motivation to listen to Him.

 

Application:

1.      How to Listen: Listening to God means not listening to other voices.

a.      The command is not just “Listen” but “Listen to Me!”

b.      There are many voices seeking to influence our lives:

                                                  i.      the newspaper journalists are screaming “Listen to me” with their headlines,

                                                ii.      all kinds of teachers at the university are lecturing for you to listen to them,

                                              iii.      Internet editors are working hard for you to find and read their pages,

                                              iv.      the TV flashes its lights for you to listen to it,

                                                v.      but God exhorts us in Isaiah to listen to Him rather than all the other voices out there.

c.      This first person subject and object “me/I” occurs 15 times in five verses alone (v.12-16) – God emphasizes that it is Him that we are to listen to.

2.      Listening means not talking.

a.      ILLUSTRATION: How many of you have been told by a teacher, “Don’t talk while I’m talking!”

b.      Are you so full of yourself that your relationship with God is one-way – you telling Him all your plans and asking Him to do things for you?

c.      There’s a reason why Jesus taught us to pray, “Your name be honored; Your kingdom come; Your will be done…” as we pray, we are to consider what God’s will is, how He wants His kingdom to come, and how He wants His name honored.

3.      Listening means drawing near (v.16)

a.      How do we draw near to God?

                                                  i.      By turning away from the things that pull us away from God,

                                                ii.      and by drawing near through prayer, Bible study, and church fellowship.

b.      ILLUSTRATION: Mary drew near to Jesus and sat at His feet to listen; Martha missed out because she stayed busy with many things that were not bad in an of themselves but which kept her from drawing near to God.

                                                  i.      Mary’s choice to draw near and listen to Jesus was a choice not to prepare food.

                                                ii.      Our choice to conduct family vespers in the evening or to have a devotional in the morning may have to be a choice to skip some entertainment that night or to skip that TV show, or skip that sports game, or skip checking your email, or skip that hour that you hang out wherever-it-is, or skip that fancy dessert, or whatever it is that turns you into a Martha who is too busy to draw near to Jesus and listen at His feet.

SUMMARY: Listening to God means not listening to other voices, not talking, but drawing near to Him.

4.      Then we become communicators of God’s message.

a.      God’s speech highlighted in almost every verse above is the foundation for us to be speakers of His message; now in v.20, we find all these phrases spilling out about God’s people speaking, “Go out from Babylon, hurry from the Chaldeans with a noise of shouting, declare, cause this to be heard, cause it to go out unto the end of the earth! Say, ‘Jehovah has redeemed His servant Jacob…’”

b.      How do we “proclaim” this hope we have of redemption?

                                                  i.      First by our HOPE:

1.      If you are a child of God, then expect deliverance!

2.      When we seek deliverance from patterns of sin that hold so many people in bondage, it tells the world that we have hope in Jesus who can not only forgive but also redeem us from our sin, transforming us so that we no longer are in bondage to that sin.

3.      When sin leads us into Babylon (and it will!), our declaration to the world starts with hope – the confident anticipation based upon our God being a Redeemer – that we can step back out of Babylon and draw near to God and never go back.

                                                ii.      Then we proclaim it by our ACTIONS:

1.      This command to hurry out of Babylon was not just speaking to the Jews of the year 539B.C. This fits the pattern of God’s instruction to His people throughout history:

a.      Leviticus 11:45  For I am Jehovah that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.

b.      The Jews after Isaiah’s time actually did not have to physically flee hurriedly out of Babylon (cf. Isa. 52:12). The emphasis is on making an ethical and religious separation with great alarm and urgency. The Jews were not to sink into a comfortable acceptance of the paganism of Babylon while they were in exile in Babylon.

c.      Paul quotes a later verse from Isaiah in 2 Corinthians 6:15-18 “What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?  16  What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them,’ says the Lord, ‘and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me,’ says the Lord Almighty."

d.      Romans 12:2a  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…

e.      1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  14  As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance,  15  but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;  16  because it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." … 2:12  Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation… 3:14b Do not fear what they fear, and do not be troubled,  15  but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence… 4:3 For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries.  4  In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation…

2.      When we walk away from Babylon (the world) and its priorities, it means we are listening to another God rather than the ones the world around us is listening to.
When we chose not to indulge in certain forms of entertainment, it makes a statement to the world that we have another God that we want to listen to instead.

                                              iii.      Then what we believe and live will spill out into our WORDS:
I see four ways here that we can express ourselves in words:

1.      First with a voice of singing (KJV)/ shout of joy (ESV)/ joyful shouting (NAS). Expressions of joy should be coming out of our mouths if we are redeemed by Jesus.

a.      Whether it is singing praise choruses while you work, or letting out an occasional holy “Yeehaw!” or enjoying a good hearty laugh, we need to let the world know that Christians have it good! Let the world see you enjoying your redeemed life.

b.      The Tom Sawyer approach to evangelism (“I’m having more fun than you are!”) is a lot more attractive than the Aunt Polly approach (“Good Christians can’t smoke can’t chew and can’t go with girls that do.”).

c.      I remember Jr. High Bible teacher, Toby Yelverton saying that when he used to work on a factory assembly line, he would sing “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken.” He got it! His soul had left Babylon and was singing of its hope in the heavenly Jerusalem!

2.      Another way our message spills into words is with Biblical propositions. v.20 “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob.” This is a theological truth that must be proclaimed to the ends of the earth.

a.      This is what preaching is all about:
1 Tim. 1:15 “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners”,
Romans 5:8 “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
John 3:16 “God so loved the world that He sent His only-begotten son, that who­ever believes in Him may not perish but have everlasting life.”
Boldly speak these truths of scripture wherever you can.

b.      Paul describes this attitude in Colossians 4:3-6 “pray… that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ…  4  that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.  5  Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.  6  Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.”

3.      Thirdly – not only should our message come out in demonstrations of joy and in propositional truth from the Bible, but also from personal testimonies of God’s deliverance in your life. Verse 21 is part of the proclamation to the world, “They didn’t get thirsty when God caused them to walk in the dry places; He made water flow from the rock for them!”

a.      This is an allusion to Israel’s Exodus from Egypt. Exodus chapters 16-17 describe how the Israelites needed water in the desert, so God pro­vided miraculously for them by causing water to gush forth from a rock!

b.      Isaiah has mentioned God providing water for His people in the future in 35:6, 41:18, and 43:19-21  "Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert. 20 The beasts of the field will glorify Me, The jackals and the ostriches, Because I have given waters in the wilderness And rivers in the desert, To give drink to My chosen people. 21 The people whom I formed for Myself Will declare My praise.

c.      Is there some story that you can share about God’s deliverance? What God-story do you want to become legendary to your grandchildren so that they will beg you to tell it again and again to them? Tell that story now so that it will become a guiding star towards the glory of God in the lives of people around you!

d.      In the last month, I’ve had a couple of occasions to tell the story of when I was homeless. In 1996, I had to move my family out of the place we were renting and into our car because I could not afford to pay rent anymore. We prayed to God to take care of us… and He did. Immediately someone offered a few extra days they had paid for in an executive apartment for us to stay in for the rest of the week, then one friend took us in for a week, then another, and another for a period of months. God blessed us wonderfully through a year of living with friends in their spare bedrooms. God used that time to deepen relationships with friends, to provide for us to pay off all our debts, and to give me my next vocational direction of going to seminary.

e.      Don’t have a great story? Then use one from an ancestor – that worked for the Jews leaving Babylon – they told about the Exodus that had happened hundreds of years before their time! But whatever you do, tell personal stories that point to God’s glory!

4.      Finally, we should deliver warnings. God’s message is not just that there is joy for His people but that “there is no peace for the wicked,” as it says in v.22. There is no good news if there is no bad news!

a.      Obeying God leads to peace like a river (v.18), but disobeying God leads to a loss of peace (v.22)

b.      In the context of the Jews after Isaiah’s time, the message is, “Look, if you choose to stay in Babylon and not return to Jerusalem where the promise of the Messiah lies, then God has no promises that you will have peace.”
* Later, Malachi ends the Old Testament with “Remember the law of my servant Moses… lest I come and strike the land with a curse.”
* Jesus warned in Mark 9:43 “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.”
* This is why Paul ended Galatians “As for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God, but from now on let no one cause me trouble...”
* This is why occasionally your Mom’s last words to you out the door were, “Don’t get into mischief or I’ll tan your hide!”

c.      Colossians 1:28  Him we proclaim, warning everyone & teaching every­one with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

d.      It takes courage to warn people because it confronts their sins and false hopes. However, warnings are part of God’s message to the world. We need to let people know that they will not find peace and happiness through their work or through alcohol or through relationships or through possessions or through sports, or whatever it is that they idolize.

 

Conclusion

God calls you to draw near and listen.

Stop talking, stop listening to other voices and listen to Him speak through the Bible every day.

Then, let the world know of your Redeemer, Jesus Christ,

through your hopes,

your actions, and

your words.

Show the world your joy,

Tell the world the truth of the Gospel,

Relate personal testimonies that illustrate God’s salvation,

and Warn people who are not trusting and obeying God that they are headed the wrong way. Tell them that there is hope for starting over because our God is a Redeemer!

 

 

Nate Wilson’s website – Isaiah Sermon Expositions

 

Christ the Redeemer Church website - Sermons