Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 111th episode. In this episode I want to continue in our study of the book of Isaiah. We are in chapter 44. This chapter shows us a continuation of God encouraging His people. They were exiled and held captive by the Babylonian Empire. In this chapter, God’s encouragement comes in the form of Him promising blessings for the people once they return home. These blessings would extend even further into the future and in much greater form with the gospel and the days of the Messiah. Part of God’s blessing to His people was to assure them that there was no other god besides Him. This chapter exposes the foolishness of idolatry. It discusses the delusional state of mind that possesses idol-worshipers. The chapter finishes with God ratifying and confirming His promises to Israel. His aim was to lift their spirits and show them that it’s okay to have joyful expectations of Him.
Perhaps you’re in a situation where you need some encouragement. Maybe a reminder that God is sovereign over your life and your future – it’s all in His hands. During times like these it can be tempting to turn away from God in favor of other shepherds. We can sometimes think that God doesn’t have our best interest at heart or that He has forgotten about us. I think this temptation to stray from God is in part why He was careful to highlight the foolishness of idolatry in this chapter. Your situation may be difficult, but the one thing that is sure to make it a whole lot worse is you departing from God in search of greener pastures. Through this chapter, the Spirit of God seeks to remind you that you belong to Him and you will never be forgotten. So let’s open with verses 1-8:
Israel the Lord’s Chosen
Isa 44:1 “But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen!
Isa 44:2 Thus says the LORD who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen.
Isa 44:3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.
Isa 44:4 They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams.
Isa 44:5 This one will say, ‘I am the LORD’s,’ another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, ‘The LORD’s,’ and name himself by the name of Israel.”
Besides Me There Is No God
Isa 44:6 Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.
Isa 44:7 Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen.
Isa 44:8 Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.”
We see in these verses that those who were in right relationship with God were joyous people. Their joy was comprised of three different sources. The first was their covenant-relationship with God, so this meant their proper standing with God. God referred to them as Jeshurun which meant the upright one. The upright among Israel were the ones who would share in the benefit of His everlasting promises. It’s interesting how in the previous chapter Israel was described as provocative of God’s wrath. Their behavior was obnoxious, and their rebellion caused them to be given over to curse and to judgment. But God’s grace was bigger than any of their shortcomings and as soon as repentance was found in them He stepped in with His mercy. Sin is the only thing that creates distance between us and God – and God is the only One with the power to erase our sins. He blots out our transgressions and allows mercy to flow back into us.
The pardon of sin is like the beginning of God’s other blessings on us. If we are reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ, Hebrews says that God will be merciful toward our iniquities and remember our sins no more. God told Israel to fear not because the pardon of their sin meant a shift in their relationship to God. This would have been very encouraging to the Israelites because they went from being enemies of God to being servants of God. Modern people attach a negative connotation to the term servant because of the atrocities of American slavery. But in Scripture, to be a servant of God was a joyous and desirable role. Christ even referred to Himself as God’s Servant – although He is coequal with the Father and the Spirit. Being God’s servant meant that He claimed you as His own. Being God’s servant meant that He protected you and took account for your eternal future.
Serving God also means that you are among God’s chosen people. God never makes mistakes in His choices and so He will always abide by them. God knows the state of each individual heart and He knows who belongs to Him and who doesn’t. He takes His chosen people under special protection – even if that protection is sometimes hard for us to discern in the present moment. The pardoning of Israel’s sins and the emergent shift in their relationship to God meant they could once again realize they were God’s creatures. He made them. He brought them forth into existence, He shaped them and He formed them. Psalm 139 says that God knit you together in your mother’s womb. The designation of being God’s special creation means that He will look after you and help you over your difficulties. God will assist you and give you what you need so that you might better serve Him.
The second part of Israel’s joy that emanated from their relationship with God was the covenant-blessings God had secured to them. This is about being aware of your spiritual desires and needs. If you don’t think you have spiritual needs then you’re just going to be stuck with an itch you’re unable to scratch. One of the characteristics of spiritual needs is that you’re unable to satisfy them on your own or through worldly pursuits. The answer to a transcendental craving is not to be found in the temporal. This spiritual thirst is what God promises to pour out living water upon, thereby giving you abundant satisfaction in Him.
There are other forms of drought you could be suffering as well. If you’ve gone a long time without the sense of God’s grace in your spirit then you are going to thirst for it. There is no alternative to God’s grace. The good thing is that He promises to flood you with His grace as He would flood a barren land. God’s grace has the power to transform your spirit from a dry desert to a lush valley overflowing with life. And He is the One who will provide increase in you. When I think of a spiritual desert or a spiritual wasteland, I think of someone who has walked through much of their life bearing immense guilt. They just get to a point where it overburdens them and makes them look haggard. These are people who are in desperate need of God’s grace and His forgiveness. And that’s the main reason we do this work in sharing the gospel.
So what exactly is this living water that God, by His grace, promises to pour out on those who seek it? It’s the Holy Spirit. God pours out His Holy Spirit without measure on Jesus Christ, and with measure on all who have faith in Jesus. And when I say faith in Jesus I don’t mean that you glide blissfully through life free of doubt or concern. The faithful are more like those who wrestle with God and seek Him in prayer. God called His people Israel and the name Israel literally means they who wrestle with God. 2,000 years ago the Father sent Jesus and upheld Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. His promise is to uphold you by the same power. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the preeminent blessing of God because through the Spirit all other blessings come. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and so to allow the Spirit to indwell you literally means to have God with you. God sanctifies you through the Spirit. God grows the church through the Spirit. God gives you an inexhaustible source of joy through the Spirit. And equips you to do all His good will through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The third aspect of Israel’s great joy was knowing that they were adopted into a covenant with God that would one day result in the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the multitudes. When they returned from Babylonian captivity they renewed their covenant with God. A particular point of their promise, as marked in Hosea chapter 14, was to repent of their idolatry and depend on God alone. The glory of God made evident in Israel’s salvation from Babylon caused many people from other nations to seek after them. They wanted to be a part of Israel’s covenant with God. They wanted to be called Jews. This desire to join God foreshadowed the Gentiles joining the church after Jesus ascended and the Holy Spirit was poured out on the masses. And God welcomed all of them into His Kingdom. Colossians chapter 3 says that here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all. The equality of opportunity for all life to be a part of God’s Kingdom is one of the attributes that makes Christianity distinct from every other worldview. The superordinate principles of God extend eternally beyond the primitive tribalism that’s endemic to humanity.
When it comes to accepting invitation into the Kingdom of God, the zeal of one has the power to invite many. When a person gives themselves entirely to God it has this contagious effect on those around him or her. I think this is in part why Billy Graham reached so many people around the world. Billy Graham wasn’t providing ground-breaking new ideas. He was simply preaching the gospel with conviction. His conviction was so strong that it gave you the sense he was just backstage hanging out with Jesus. He spoke and acted like Jesus was his best friend.
In addition to personal conviction, joining the Kingdom of God also grants you the ability to see past superficial differences. It is the antidote to all forms of identity politics. You can travel anywhere in the world and individuals who otherwise have absolutely nothing in common with you will be your brothers and sisters in Christ. This also works in intimate relationships. If the two of you belong to Jesus then He is in that relationship with you. So long as both of you are committed to Christ, you always have a common goal to strive for and a common Lord to keep you close to each other. Brothers and sisters in Christ have a common interest in seeking the general well-being of the church – along with the well-being of its individual members.
It’s important that you do your best to live and act out your relationship with God every day. But it’s also important that you are expressive about your commitment to God. Don’t be shy of it and fear not the reactions of people. It’s true of humans that they will poke, prod, and try to discourage you in order that they might test your convictions. When they do this it’s likely because they are interested in being a part of the blessing you enjoy through Jesus Christ – so they want to make sure it’s authentic.
So we discussed how Israel’s covenant with God was a source of great joy to them. In the same way, our relationship with God through Jesus Christ is a source of great joy to us. But another perspective on this great joy comes from examining the character and nature of God Himself. Let’s go over some of the aspects of God that bring glory to Him and comfort to us. God is trustworthy because of His incontestable sovereignty and irresistible power. You can trust God’s power over you in the same way that you trust gravity. The power of gravity is worldview independent. It doesn’t matter what you believe, gravity is still sovereign over you. The same is true of God’s power. God is self-existent and self-sufficient. He is the King over all that was, all that is, and all that ever will be.
Not only is God sovereign, but He also has a particular interest in His church. To accept God as your King is to receive God as your Redeemer. He is the only one who can save you. A lot of people hear that and have an automatic negative reaction. The misbegotten desire for moral relativism and radical subjectivism masquerades as love and tolerance. But it’s neither loving nor tolerant. That’s why you see champions of supposed tolerance eager to permanently cancel and condemn those who disagree with them.
The fact that God is the only source of our salvation is actually a really good thing. It means that you don’t have to risk trusting anything or anyone else with a thing of such magnitude. It’s very common for people to fear the vulnerability associated with loving someone. That’s because human beings betray each other. Betrayal is perhaps the worst pain you can experience. Imagine if a thing so great as your eternity could be betrayed. That betrayal is what we would have to fear if God shared His power to save with others. He keeps it all to Himself because He will never betray you – and there is comfort in that which goes beyond comprehension.
Another characteristic of God which brings us great joy and comfort is His eternal nature. He is the First and the Last. The Alpha and the Omega. Before anything ever was, He is. Without God nothing would have been created. Without God all that is would come to nothing. God is all and in all – He is the first cause from whom all things come and He is the final end to whom all things belong. To come under God as your King is to serve a Lord who is distinct from any other leader. Think of the wisest scholars you’ve ever read or listened to. There were always others who could match them. Think of world leaders who have had the largest audiences and most influence you’ve ever experienced. There have been and will be world leaders to match them. Such is the nature of idols. There’s always another idol to contend with and to match whichever one is the flavor of the month. This is particularly observable with the number of studies we see today. Every day we are faced with new polls on this or new studies on that. There’s so many of them that the value of each is diminishing. Without God all you are left with is this foggy haze of human opinion that changes all the time.
How are you supposed to build on a foundation that is liable to be turned upside down at a moment’s notice? This type of foundation is not even in keeping with the nature of reality. If tomorrow the laws of physics changed everything you experience would come apart. The physical constant of the universe is representative of God’s unchanging nature. The reality we experience is general revelation of God. Special revelation is His Word – or Scripture. His Word will never change and will never pass away, it is the rock you can build your life on. Scientific studies are helpful when it comes to navigating temporal reality, but temporal reality is not all that there is to you. When it comes to your eternal, transcendent nature human knowledge that is separated from special revelation will only confuse you.
This confusion, anxiety, and mental illness is exactly what the Israelites discovered when they tried their hand at idolatry. Nothing they could come up with was all-sufficient the way that God and His Word are all-sufficient. God allowed their affliction to do its work until they came to this realization and repented. Then He proved to them His all-sufficiency by saving them from Babylon. They were reminded that they need not hope in any other god. The power of God to do good far exceeded the power of their enemies to do evil. As long as they had the light of God they needed no other illumination to guide them.
God is one, God is eternal, and another characteristic of God is that He calls the future into being. He would challenge the idolaters to make accurate predictions about the future and they couldn’t do it. Not only did God have foreknowledge of the order of the future – but His dictation is the very thing that sets the order of it. The future lays itself out in accordance with God’s perfect will and abides by His omniscient counsel. From the moment He chose Israel to be set apart for Him He told them about their future. He made them aware of their impending slavery in Egypt, as well as the Exodus and their settlement in the land of Canaan. This is really important for us to remember today. The future is already laid out in the sight of God. You can feel incredible relief once you understand and accept that. It means that His purpose, His will, and His design will be accomplished in His chosen time. So you don’t need to be afraid of your ultimate destination being shifted or changed by adverse powers or policies. Let’s read verses 9-20:
Isa 44:9 All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame.
Isa 44:10 Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing?
Isa 44:11 Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together.
Isa 44:12 The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint.
Isa 44:13 The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house.
Isa 44:14 He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it.
Isa 44:15 Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.
Isa 44:16 Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!”
Isa 44:17 And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
Isa 44:18 They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.
Isa 44:19 No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”
Isa 44:20 He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
It wasn’t uncommon for God to declare the toxicity of idolatry and the foolishness of idolaters. But in this passage He really drills down on those who pursue worship of false gods – discussing some of the particular characteristics that make them so wrongheaded. He wanted to carefully outline the futility of idolatry so that His people would have something to hold onto against the temptations that came with being captive in Babylon. They were probably under a lot of pressure to abide by the customs of their exiled residency. They were also far from home and their own facilities of worship. Israel suffered the inclination to idolatry from the very beginning when God first brought them out of Egypt. It was the sin they were most prone to and was a primary reason for their exile. Notice how God uses judgments like the Babylonian exile to enforce His word, and then He uses His word to further explain His judgments. It doesn’t do much good to punish someone for something they are unaware of. God doesn’t mercilessly level punishment against you without allowing you to understand what it is that you need to correct.
This passage further encouraged Israel by giving them some answer to their Babylonian overlords. Being in exile, Israel faced a lot of derision and insult regarding God. If they understood the power and reality of God compared to the emptiness of idols, then they could take comfort in knowing that – while it felt like their God was absent – the Babylonian gods never even existed. Passages like this one assuaged their fears of foreign gods and reminded them that their own God – the true and living God – would certainly show up to answer any challengers for His throne.
It’s interesting how God opened this passage with an invitation for the idolaters to come and be put to shame. Effectively it was an invitation to repent and clear themselves. That’s one of the positive elements of shame – it helps guide us away from wrongdoing. But for these people their love for idols overpowered any sense they had. They set their minds and hearts on crafting them and they delighted in them. Such a thing should have been detestable but they had gone so far sideways that it became desirable. That’s kind of the end point for cultures that fully depart from God – what’s good becomes evil and what’s evil becomes good.
To convict the idolaters of their wrongdoing God told them that all who work to fashion such idols are nothing. They are lost in self-deception and they are doing great harm to those whom they make the idols for. Kind of how drug dealers rationalize the sale of illicit substances that tear apart families and destroy lives. Furthermore, all of the care and energy these people put into crafting idols would profit them nothing. There would be no return for their investment. The false gods would not supply them with any good nor protect them from any evil. And then there is an appeal to the sheer stupidity and nonsense of idolatry. This applies particularly well today.
Just think about what idolatry is for a moment. It’s you proposing to create your own god. But if you create a god how is that thing a god at all? You are its maker. You’ll hear a lot of modern people say that they are spiritual but not religious. What this means is that they are looking inside of themselves to determine the nature of reality and the nature of eternity. They are making their own god. And that really is the fundamental motivation for idolatry – it’s not the desire to bow down to a false god – rather it’s the refusal to bow down to the true God. It’s you wanting to be the author of your own life and your own eternity. What could possibly overrule a person’s common sense so badly that they fail to see such basic insanity in this? Pride. So much of it always comes down to pride. If this pride were changed to humility then the person’s conscience would come alive and alert them to their mistake.
And that’s why God wanted them to see the truth and be put to shame. How can transient, impotent, limited humanity create an eternal, omnipotent, and unlimited God? If they would spend just ten minutes of honest thought on this they would watch their claims crumble in their hands. Their eyes would be opened to the deception they bought into and imposed on others. But they don’t want to experience this and the main mechanism by which they prevent opening their eyes is the mob. We see a good example of this in Acts chapter 19. Demetrius and the other silversmiths made a lot of money crafting idols of the goddess Artemis. When the gospel came through Ephesus their wealth became threatened. I want to read a passage from chapter 19 and see if you notice any familiarity with the mobs we see today.
Act 19:23 About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way.
Act 19:24 For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen.
Act 19:25 These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth.
Act 19:26 And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.
Act 19:27 And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.”
Act 19:28 When they heard this they were enraged and were crying out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
Act 19:29 So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s companions in travel.
Act 19:30 But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him.
Act 19:31 And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater.
Act 19:32 Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.
Act 19:33 Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd.
Act 19:34 But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
As you can see, arrogance and greed shut the eyes of the idolatrous Ephesians and turned them into a blind mob. Our Isaiah passage gives us quite a bit of insight into the process of crafting an idol. Blacksmiths and tradesmen – probably the same who serviced carts and farm equipment – labored over the fires. It was difficult work and they were pushed to get it done rapidly. They ate no food and drank no water throughout the process. It’s not clear as to why but it may have been some misbegotten sense of reverence for the idol. The extraordinary care the smiths and carpenters put into fashioning the idols to exact specifications is a clear indication of how important they perceived their work to be.
What’s even more telling is the shape of the creation. It is shaped into the figure of a human. Relative to God, a human is a weak and dying creature. But if you don’t know God then a human is likely the most noble and most powerful being you’ve ever encountered. The idol was crafted in accordance with the beauty of humanity. God bestowed great honor on humanity when He made them in the image of Himself. But even the most beautiful human is fully unfit to represent the deity of God. So God honors humanity by making them in His own image, and humanity profanes God by making Him into the image of themselves. I think this is why there’s no real clear descriptions of Jesus in Scripture. I believe we are forbidden from making images of God. I mean just think of it for a moment. God is infinite Spirit. Even if we produced the most beautiful image within our capacity to imagine – it would still be a image that profanes, deforms, and diminishes the reality of God.
So we’ve gone over the foolishness of idolatry, we’ve seen the all-to-human process by which idols are made, and now let’s think about the inadequate materials the idols are composed of. In this case it was a tree trunk. It could have been some random tree with nothing special to delineate it from all the rest. Or it could have been a tree selectively planted for the purpose of producing an idol. Even so, the tree was nourished and made strong by rain and sunlight provided by God. So the idolaters are using the resource of the true God to produce false gods. It’s a display of the brazen attitude of the idolaters as well as the grace of God to nourish both the just and the unjust.
The branches and other parts of the tree that can’t be used in production of the idol are burned for warmth and used as fuel for cooking. It’s logically inconsistent to say that a tree trunk can be your god and yet you have no compunction whatsoever not to dispose of the parts of it you can’t use. If the wood is valuable enough to be your god, why throw any of it away like that? If the wood has any deity to it at all, why can it be burned just like any other tree? It doesn’t make any sense but then again there’s nothing that makes sense when it comes to idolatry. Ironically, it’s the parts of the tree the craftsman deemed worthless that he actually put to proper use. God gave him the wood to keep warm by the fire and to cook his meals – not to make false gods.
The next thing we see is just utterly bizarre. Once the log of wood is fashioned into the shape of a man, the idolater falls down before it and worships it. This means that he prostrated himself before it. So imagine putting yourself on the floor as low and as flat as you can possibly make yourself. He did this out of total reverence for the piece of wood. He honored it, fancied himself a servant to it, and he even prayed to it as to express total dependence on it. Everything up to this point was just a stupid waste of time. But the prayer is where things got deadly serious. To pray to something other than God is to elevate that thing to God’s place in your heart. An idol becomes an idol when you look to it for deliverance. If you hold a highest value that is not God, then that thing is going to enslave you right down to your very perception of reality. It’s going to morph everything into accordance with itself and you’re going to see the world from a pathological perspective.
I think at least part of this is driven by spiritual starvation. When you’re starving you’ll eat nearly anything – and if it’s bad enough you’ll eat things that aren’t even food. In the same way, if you’re spiritually starved you’ll worship nearly anything. Anything your eyes land on will become a prospective idol to worship. You’ll yearn and labor to fill that God shaped void in your soul and you’ll get a little bit more panicked and desperate each time that which you worship fails to satisfy.
The crazy thing about it is that this process takes place in human beings and not animals. Human beings are the most rational creatures on the planet and yet they rebel so sharply against rationality. And rebellion is the right word here. The heart of Demetrius and the silversmiths was not confused belief in the deity of Artemis – it was concern for their own personal wealth. God never tricks you into false belief or manipulates you into departure from Him. To the contrary, He does everything imaginable to bring you home to Him – even when you don’t deserve it. The basic formula of idolatry almost always begins with rebellion. The trouble is, across time this rebellion corrodes your rationality so much that it results in painful delusion and the inability to discern which way is up. But it’s never too late. The antidote to delusion is humility. If you humble yourself and accept that you don’t know then you can be in a position to seek. And if you seek you will find. Let’s finish with verses 21-28:
Isa 44:21 Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you; you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
Isa 44:22 I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.
Isa 44:23 Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel.
Isa 44:24 Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I am the LORD, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself,
Isa 44:25 who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish,
Isa 44:26 who confirms the word of his servant and fulfills the counsel of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited,’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins’;
Isa 44:27 who says to the deep, ‘Be dry; I will dry up your rivers’;
Isa 44:28 who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’”
Israel is called to remember and return in these verses. Now that God has laid out the foolishness of idolatry, they are to remember it the next time the temptation comes. They’ve been terribly afflicted by idolatry in the past and now that they are coming out of yet another affliction it would serve them well not to forget it. Their hearts have now been primed to sense the conviction of this sin and God wants them to preserve that sense so that they don’t make the mistake of bowing down to some other false master. God commands them to return to Him which means they are in a backslid state. It is of urgent concern for any who are backslid to return to God immediately. For Israel, God’s mercy is about to be extended to them and He doesn’t want them to abuse that mercy by forgetting all of their own sins and falling further away from Him.
There’s a very comfortable assurance made here. The assurance is that our relationship with God depends entirely on ourselves. We are called to remember and return to God. It’s never the other way around – He never forgets and He never leaves us. Often we can feel like God has forgotten us or departed from us. If that were the case we’d be doomed because how can we make God to come back into our lives? Thankfully that’s never the case. God never leaves you and God never forgets you. It’s up to you in the sense that you’re the only one who can leave and forget God.
In this passage, God describes several grounds upon which His favorable intentions were built for Israel. This is good to know because these grounds are the same upon which you can build your own expectations of God’s favorable intentions for you. The first is that they are His servants and so He protects them. God takes issue with anyone who detains the servants of the King of kings. They belong to Him and they serve Him alone. The second is that He formed them into the nation they had become. God has shaped you from the womb and designed you in accordance with His purpose for you. For Israel, His covenant was the charter by which they were incorporated to Him. For you, your faith in Jesus Christ is the link that binds you to God. So just like Israel you belong to God and He will save you.
The third is that God had always been Israel’s Redeemer. God never changes and so He continued to be their Redeemer. God’s redemptive nature is still the same today as it was back then, and so it’s true for us as it was true for them that He is our Redeemer. And it’s comforting to know that God was willing to pay such a high price for this redemption. The cost of Christ dying on the cross is incalculable. So we can rest assured that God will not lose us after redeeming us in such a costly purchase. The fourth is that God’s redemptive work is done to glorify Himself. Moses appealed to this fact while interceding for Israel during times of great sin. He called on God to deliver Israel for the sake of His own glory rather than the sake of Israel itself. God glorifies Himself in Israel and He glorifies Himself in you. So you can be sure that He will perfect your redemption in Jesus Christ because it’s already established that one day God will be glorified and admired by all His people.
The fifth is that God pardoned Israel’s sins and Israel’s sins were the only thing that stood between them and deliverance. The same is true for you. If you have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ then you have been pardoned of your sins and your sins were the only thing separating you from God. Your sins are like a thick storm cloud that forms a barrier between yourself and God. Instead of communion with God what you see are storm clouds that threaten to rain down wrath and tumult – which is the destiny of unrepentant sinners. But once your sins are pardoned through Christ, this storm cloud breaks up and is scattered. God looks down on your soul with delight and your soul looks upon God with joy. Comfort flows into your soul like the clear shining of the sun after a storm has gone.
The deliverance of God is attended by universal joy. The entire creation will rejoice at the redemption of God’s people. It’s like an assurance that humanity will finally be able to answer to the ultimate destiny for which we were designed. It’s like an assurance that the world – broken, unfair, and corrupt as it is – will finally be delivered and reformed into the way it ought to be. The creation itself recognizes the establishment of God’s Kingdom as the single greatest event in existence. This means that the created order – animals, forests, mountains, oceans, and all the rest – will breathe easy and rejoice at the return of their Creator. The angels in heaven will rejoice as well. The heavens wait with bated breath for the day that God finishes His redemptive work. There is great celebration in heaven when even one person is reconciled to God. In due time every living being will join in the praises and and share in the joy of God’s completed work.
Focusing on such things brings us encouragement that though we face seemingly insurmountable challenges – God will overcome all of it with ease. We were not here when God created the universe. He did it alone and He needed no help. There was nothing and no one to advise or assist Him. It was all done by God with His eternal wisdom and His eternal Word. He stretched out the universe by Himself and continues to stretch it. That act alone exemplifies His boundless power. Think about when you need to stretch something out like a big tarp or covering. You can’t fully do it without the help of someone else. You need someone or something standing on the other side pulling at the same time you pull. But God doesn’t need such things. Nothing is outside of His reach and nothing is too difficult for the One who made everything. His power really is incomprehensible.
The salvation of Israel from the grip of Babylon made a fool of Babylon’s oracles. Their diviners and religious practitioners predicted Babylonian dominance for many ages to come. When history unfolded contrarily to the future these idolaters were so confident of, they became vexed at the impotence of their skills and religious devices. Not only were their false prophets proven wrong, but their supposed wise politicians were silenced as well. All of their projects and designs on the future came to a screeching halt. When you come to Christ and gain knowledge of God, you look back on the things you thought were wise before and see the foolishness in them. Those who never come to Christ and remain adversaries with Him are caught in their own craftiness when their feigned wisdom is made into folly.
In contradistinction to the false prophets of Babylon, God’s actual prophets were confirmed by Israel’s salvation. At best the Jews distrusted God’s prophets and at worst enemies of the prophets despised them. But God confirms the word of His servant and performs the counsel of His messengers in due course. The Bible’s prophecies about the future the fulfillment of these prophecies attests to the divine origin and authority of Scripture.
God’s salvation of Israel and the rebuilding of Jerusalem were foretold long before Israel went into Babylonian captivity. So, ideally, the people would see reason for punishment but not an expectation of total destruction at the hands of Babylon. Events like these are hard to believe at every turn and require deep faith. Consider: Jerusalem and the cities of Judah were once so strong and populated that the thought of them lying in burned ruins was hard to believe. After Babylon sacked the city and carried the people into exile – it was a defeat so devastating that restoration of Jerusalem and salvation from captivity was hard to believe. But it’s only hard for us to believe if we fail to accept the faith-based presupposition that God is all-powerful and that God will see to the success of His church.
For the faithful among God’s people, the hardest part about watching Jerusalem fall was the destruction of the Temple. Consequently, the most joyful part of rebuilding Jerusalem was rebuilding the Temple. The Temple is what made Jerusalem a holy city and what provided for its beauty. Of course, the journey from Babylon to Jerusalem appeared to be extremely difficult. But it was by divine power that Israel would return home and so not even rivers and mountains could stand in their way. God would make dry the rivers and flatten the mountains if that’s what it took to bring His people home. This prophecy was fulfilled when Cyrus drained the Euphrates river into many channels so that he could make it passable for his army. God parted the Red Sea for Israel when He delivered them from Egypt, and in the same way nothing would impede their journey home from Babylon.
Israel could not escape Babylon on their own effort, so God would raise up a man to deliver them. He names him as Cyrus in this passage, which is quite remarkable because this passage was written long before Cyrus was even born or thought of. Couple this prediction with the fact that even while Cyrus was alive his ascendance to power was so unlikely that it could not have been foreseen and we get a glimpse of God’s omniscience. God’s plan was to use Cyrus as His shepherd to bring Israel home. For Cyrus – whether he recognized it or not – there was more honor in being an instrument of God then there was in being Emperor of Persia. That’s what happens with even the mightiest of humanity. We think we are doing as we desire and we may have our own motives – but God is using us in ways so incomprehensibly intricate in order that He will unfold His purposes through us.
When it comes to personal responsibility I think it is the key to accessing meaning and purpose in your life. You have to take up your cross and follow Jesus if you want your life to be imbued with meaning. You need meaning in order to stave off nihilism and make it through anxiety or depression. But in the grand scheme of things it’s not your responsibility that saves you. It’s Jesus. It’s important not to conflate your salvation with your quality of life in the here and now. The thief who died on the cross next to Jesus lived a terrible life of crime and disobedience. But because he called on Jesus before he died by the account of Scripture he was saved and went to heaven. So don’t allow your salvation to get tied up with your good works. But also understand that good works and voluntarily shouldering the suffering of this world is how you develop as an individual and is how you protect yourself from pits of misery. Most of all, allow yourself to experience joy, peace, and comfort at the fact that eternity is in God’s hands and He will bring it all together in the end.
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