Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 120th episode. In this episode I want to return to our study of the book of Isaiah. We are in chapter 51. This chapter was meant to provide comfort and hope for the people of Israel. It’s likely referring to their time spent in Babylonian exile. But the words of encouragement set out in this chapter shouldn’t be confined to any particular time or place. These words are aimed at any and all Christians who fear God and keep His commandments. These words give you hope even if you are walking through a dark season where light is limited. This chapter reminds us that God raised the church up from nothing and He is the one who will protect it. God’s righteousness and His salvation are certain and not far away. Even if Christ doesn’t return for a thousand years, His righteousness and His salvation are very close for you. The truth is we just don’t know when our last day will be. This chapter confirms that those who persecute the church are ultimately impotent and fading. The enemies of God have no chance against Him. Imagine the vast power God must have to create the cosmos. That same power stands behind the church to protect it and to deliver it from evil. Isaiah was not only sent to warn Israel of judgment but also to give them words of comfort they could hold on to during their trials.
The state of faith for Isaiah’s audience was not good. You could say the same of the church today. But Isaiah promises that, though the condition of the church might be bad, its persecutors would soon be worse off. An interesting element of this chapter is how God repeatedly called His people to listen to Him. It wasn’t unusual for Israel to turn away from God because of their spiritual anguish. Are you walking through a season where God is trying to comfort you and encourage you but your pain is so great that you refuse to listen? We see Israel pleading with God to wake up and help them. His answer is for they themselves to wake up and see that He already is. Have you been calling out to God day after day with no answer? Have you found yourself drowning in the same pathological routines all the while wondering why God won’t wake up? His answer to you is clear through the words of Isaiah. Maybe God’s not the one whose sleeping after all. Maybe it’s you. Maybe He’s calling you to shed your spiritual blindness so that you – like Israel – can see that He’s been with you all along and He continues to help you. Let’s open with verses 1-3:
Isa 51:1 “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.
Isa 51:2 Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him.
Isa 51:3 For the LORD comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.
If we’re going to begin by suggesting that the onus is on you to wake up and receive God’s comfort – then we need to talk more about what that entails. We can learn from the description of Isaiah’s target audience here. God’s comfort is for those whose desire is to search after righteousness. There are two major things that happen when you become a Christian. The first is that you are justified by your faith in Jesus Christ. Justification secures your salvation. You are saved by grace through faith alone. But if you wish to experience God’s blessing, comfort, and providence in this life then the road can’t stop at justification. As a Christian it should be your heart’s greatest desire to be sanctified or made holy. Sanctification is the process by which the Spirit of God shapes you into an ever-increasing likeness of Jesus Christ. Sanctification takes place when you read, hear, and obey the word of God. But it’s crucially important to remember that you don’t sanctify yourself. The religious elite whom Christ condemned believed themselves to be sanctified by their own effort. They were so badly blinded by their arrogance that God stood right in front of them and they couldn’t see Him. The point is that you should not view Christianity as a set of laws you follow to make yourself holy. You should seek after God Himself through your relationship with Jesus Christ and by the power of His Holy Spirit you will be made holy. The difference is similar to how when you love someone you try to do what pleases that person. You’re motivated to please that person because of your love for him or her – not because of your desire to elevate yourself as pious or holy. So those whom God is calling to comfort are people who desire to be righteous because they love God.
The next quality of those whom God calls to comfort are people who remember how far they’ve come. Israel was challenged to remember the humble beginnings God lifted them out of. Their heritage sprang from Abraham, a man who came from an idolatrous family in Ur of the Chaldeans. Then their forefathers suffered for generations as slaves in Egypt. If you can remember back to the time before you came to faith in Christ it’s likely that you’ve experienced vast improvements to your character. For myself I didn’t even comprehend how bad I was until I got a glimpse of Jesus. I’m still very much a fallen person – but the path I was mapping out for myself was not a good one. A couple things happen when you reflect on how far you’ve come. First is that you remember to be humble and gracious to the people around you because you’ve been there too. Second is that you really start to feel astonished at the magnitude of God’s grace for you. Seeing how far God has brought you makes you grateful and inspires you to walk in faith. The Israelites were imprisoned in Babylon. Their population was dwindling and for the faithless it appeared that the means by which God could advance their civilization were fading away. Undoubtedly many of them thought Babylonian exile was a death sentence for Israel. But God reminded them that He was able to give rise to their civilization by calling Abraham alone to follow Him. Just one man of faith can change the course of history. Through Abraham and Sarah Israel emerged.
The people whom God calls to comfort are also the ones who understand that the tears of today bring the harvest of tomorrow. There are many churches today that sit empty and disregarded. There are many pastors who’ve worked for decades only to see minimal if any reward. When you’re in a wilderness like this it’s very important that you trust God to restore you. You might think, well, if I just sit around and hope for God to restore me what good is that going to do? That’s not what I’m saying here. What I’m saying is that you need to develop good habits that are pleasing to God and practice them each day with the anticipation that God will restore you at His appointed time. Think of it as if you’re a professional athlete who is waiting for the call to perform. If you’ve stopped practicing and sharpening yourself because you’ve lost the faith that God is going to call on you, then when He does call on you you’re going to be a schlubb. God isn’t going to use you if you lack the faith to develop yourself. In contrast, if you keep the faith to continue in good habits, practice, and development then you’ll be razor sharp and ready to be deployed in service of God. There is no greater comfort for the church than to be serviceable to the glory of God and to be the garden in which He delights.
If you’re a well-adjusted individual whose made it your practice to pursue righteousness then you’ll naturally do a lot of good for those around you. You’ll be a positive influence that elevates the conduct of your family and your entire community. This new way of life will bring things into alignment under God and the toxic effects of sin will stop permeating your existence. Perhaps the most meaningful way to walk through life is by shining the light of Christ into the dark places and partnering with God in His effort to redeem them. To live in that way is to imbibe the only durable source of joy and gladness. The peace, joy, and love that you feel will further inspire you to thank God and honor His name. So God’s call to comfort is for those who seek after Him, who remember how far they’ve come, and who practice good habits to develop themselves out of faith that God will make the call on their life at His appointed time. Let’s read verses 4-8:
Isa 51:4 “Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples.
Isa 51:5 My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait.
Isa 51:6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.
Isa 51:7 “Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings.
Isa 51:8 For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool, but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations.”
God’s comfort is directed at God’s people. These are people who take ownership of God and are owned by God. God’s people are set apart for Him, they pay allegiance to Him, and therefore they come under His protection. All of us have God’s law written on our hearts to some extent. That’s why even wicked people are capable of doing good things. God’s people understand righteousness and they seek to improve upon the righteousness they already know. They’re able to make accurate judgments of truth and falsehood as well as good and evil. These judgments aren’t perfect because we remain fallen human beings. But we strive to improve the accuracy of these judgments with maturity, wisdom, and growth. God’s people surrender to the good that is in their heads and in their hearts. They can be said to have good hearts because they are answering the call of God’s law inside of them. Following the righteous law that God has written on your heart may lead to distress and sorrow – particularly if you are surrounded by evil people – but God will bring you comfort in the peaceful security of knowing you are doing the right thing.
God brought comfort into the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. By God’s providence the gospel took hold and has endured to this very moment. The gospel has been a light to guide God’s people all across the world and throughout history. The norms of morality have been governed by this law of liberty ever since. Indeed it is authoritative and we neglect it at our absolute peril. But it’s so much more than that. The comfort of the gospel of Jesus Christ lies in knowing that God has reconciled humanity to Himself. The gospel imputes God’s righteousness and God’s salvation onto us. God takes ownership of His righteousness and His salvation and He’s given them to us of His own good will because He loves us. The only righteousness that is acceptable to God is His own. He covers us with His righteousness so that we can be in His presence. It is this righteousness that He will continue to work and shape in you by the power of the Holy Spirit. Without righteousness there is no salvation. Since none of us can be fully righteous all the time we have no hope of salvation apart from Christ. We need forgiveness, we need grace, and we also need the righteousness of God. Wherever there is the righteousness of God there will also be His salvation. Our faith in Christ allows us to put on His righteousness which justifies us in the sight of God. Being justified in the sight of God allows for His Holy Spirit to reside in us and teach us to be more like Him.
God’s righteousness and God’s salvation are not hidden secrets that we must journey long and hard to find. They have already gone forth into the world and are readily available to us. Our salvation through Jesus is so certain that it’s as if it’s already happened. This good news brought great comfort to God’s people because it assured them that multitudes would be added to them. The increase of their number meant the increase of their strength and beauty. These blessings are not confined to Israel but are poured out onto all the world’s people. All across the world despite our ethnicity, our politics, or our history – we all may stand united in Christ Jesus. But the gospel doesn’t mean salvation for everyone. For those who reject Christ the gospel is an alarm of judgment. God’s arm that saves the faithful is the same arm that brings judgement on unrepentant sinners. In this regard our relationship with God is exactly what we make it – He is either our Savior for eternal life or our Judge for rightful death.
God’s righteousness and salvation are eternal. The everlasting redemption authored by Jesus Christ will never be abolished. As certain as the gospel has spread throughout the entire world it will also last through all the ages of the earth. The righteousness and salvation of Jesus makes up the most permanent thing you will ever experience. All of your possessions, everything you own will fade away from you in time. Even your relationships evolve and some of them end. But Jesus never changes. His word is everlasting and will never fade away, therefore we should not look to anything else for our eternal life. There is no other covenant by which we can establish peace with God. There is no other guideline or rule that can result in durable righteousness.
The permanence of God’s word means that each individual’s eternal state is predicated in reference to it. The amount of money you die with means nothing as to your eternity. The condition of your body when you pass away means nothing as to your eternity. The legacy you leave behind in your collection of work means nothing as to your eternity. The number of people who loved you or hated you means nothing as to your eternity. The sole point upon which your eternal trajectory is authored is whether or not you trust in Jesus and accept His redemption of you. The perpetuity of the peace and blessedness that the gospel brings extends on into forever. If our scientists are right then the cosmos has existed for a very, very long time. The earth you see around you has as well. Even if we accept the incomprehensible age of things, compared to God’s word it all vanishes like smoke and rolls up like a scroll. All of us feel a sense of this when someone we love dies suddenly and unexpectedly. It is like an interruption of eternity. What was supposed to go on forever just stops and is just gone. It feels wrong and maybe that’s because it is wrong. Maybe ultimate reality is inconsistent with the notion that what was supposed to be forever comes to an end. If you’re listening to this I implore you to bind your happiness, your joy, and your peace in Christ – His righteousness and His salvation. If you do that then God will comfort you through the end of even time itself.
Armed with God’s everlasting comfort you can embark on a journey into the world without fearing the scorn of humanity. Miserable people will aim to make you miserable and will rejoice at your suffering. When tragedy strikes you they will challenge you as to the goodness or the reality of God. Humanity will level false claims of evil against you because they seek to ruin your reputation or your honor. Here’s the antidote to that: you never had a reputation or any honor to begin with. You’ve never been a credible representation of God. You are a fallen and corrupt human being just like everyone else. The reality of God and the veracity of His word does not at all depend on your reputation. Jesus Christ is the only one to ever walk the earth who could speak of God’s perfection without being a hypocrite. So don’t fear the slander and allegations of humanity. Never allow the accusers to cause you to compromise on the truth of God’s word. Go forth and boldly proclaim the perfect message of God even though you are an imperfect messenger.
As for those who seek to make you miserable for it, God will silence them in short order. From dust they came and to dust they shall return. The moth will eat them up like a garment. Don’t allow the mutterings of temporal men to steer you away from the edicts of the living God. Those who wage war on God are consumed from the inside by their own malice. The Babylonians spoke harshly against the Israelites until the writing was on the wall and Cyrus came to put them down. In the same way the ungodly and unrepentant will be effectually destroyed. The finite nature of their falsehoods will be exposed in light of the eternal truth. Eventually every individual person comes to an understanding that the struggling cause of Christianity was in fact righteous and true. All the noise that has swirled around it in an attempt to drown out the gospel will pass away like a tempest and God’s word will remain shining like the sun. Let’s read verses 9-16:
Isa 51:9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?
Isa 51:10 Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?
Isa 51:11 And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Isa 51:12 “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass,
Isa 51:13 and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor?
Isa 51:14 He who is bowed down shall speedily be released; he shall not die and go down to the pit, neither shall his bread be lacking.
Isa 51:15 I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name.
Isa 51:16 And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”
There were times during the Babylonian captivity that Israel was desperate for God to act and rescue them. They felt so abandoned that they thought God was sleeping and prayed that He would wake up. We can experience this same sense of abandonment today as we are walking through difficult seasons in life. Theologically we know that God never sleeps but it can still feel like He’s not paying attention. The arm of God is said to be awake when He expresses more power than what we’re used to in day-to-day occurrence. Of course, God doesn’t need us to plead with Him in order to watch over us. He is always faithful and vigilant even when be fail to be so. But it’s not necessarily a bad sign when you come to the point where you are desperate for God to wake up. It means that you’ve accepted the gravity of your situation. It means that you see the impossible nature of the mountain you must climb. It means the other resources you were putting your faith in are failing you. And all of that means you are ready to depend on the power of God alone. Sometimes God waits for you to exhaust your other options so you won’t prioritize them over Him. This isn’t to say that if you sit around and do nothing but pray then everything will work out for you. You still need to take action and do what God is calling you to do. The difference is simply that you’ll credit God’s grace for your success instead of crediting your own power or the power of someone else.
The Israelites recalled precedents of God extending His arm on behalf of their forefathers. They remembered how He acted to defend them in the past and they knew His arm had not weakened since then. Why not rescue them now? This was almost like a way of reasoning with God in their prayers. During the Exodus God decimated Egypt with plagues when Pharaoh refused to let Israel go. He had even done wonders so great as parting the Red Sea so that Israel could walk through it unharmed. When you’re in a difficult situation it’s useful to remember all the ways in which God came through for you in the past. Remembering past events can also be effective in motivating your prayers for this moment. But if God hasn’t answered your prayers – one thing is for certain – it’s not because He can’t. I realize this is hard to hear for many people. It means that God could have given you want you wanted and chose not to. This painful problem requires a shift in perspective. Scripture teaches us that God works all things out for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them. So we know by the word of God that He has planned the best possible outcome for you. This means that if he denies you what you want in the moment it’s likely because this denial is necessary for you to reach your highest possible outcome. We fail to understand it in the same way a child fails understand when you refuse them something you know is wrong for them. We know what we want, God knows what we need.
We know that God is benevolent and all-loving. His promise to the Israelites was to redeem them from Babylon and bring them home. His promise to us is to redeem us from our sins and bring us home. We can trust that in time God will fulfill this promise to each of us. If God’s grand design is meant for our good then it’s reasonable for us to plead for His goodness in the mean time. If He’s designed an eternal home for us in His presence doesn’t it make sense that He would want what’s good for us now? The reality we live in is that God is good even when life isn’t. This world is a vale of tears and each moment threatens to thrust us away from joy and into sorrow. But when we get to heaven and enter in to the joy of our Lord our hearts will be filled with eternal satisfaction. Heaven is a place where sadness and grief are gone forever and never again will we taste death.
God responded to the Israelites’ prayer by comforting them with His grace. This is a massively important point to understand about God. Most of the time we find ourselves praying for God to take action in our favor. We want Him to solve our problems or help us achieve our goals. Often God’s response is not to take action but instead to comfort us in our afflictions. The comforting grace of God is functionally equivalent to Him taking action – but only if we’re willing to receive that comfort. It’s one thing to be comforted and consoled by a human being. It’s quite different to have this treatment from God Himself. Unlike humanity, God is able to reach directly into your heart and He knows exactly how to ease your pain. When it comes to your heart He doesn’t delegate this work to His ministers – He takes on the responsibility Himself. This is not burdensome to God, He glories in it and for Him it is cause for delight. He takes great honor in being the One who comforts those who are cast down. And you can be certain that God’s comfort is infallible just as He is – so it’s critically important that you don’t shut yourself off to it.
One emotion that makes us feel especially tormented is fear. The Israelites had great fear of Babylon as they grew in strength and cruelty. The problem with fear is that it can cause us to act irrationally or to lose faith. We can start to panic and think that we need to take whatever action will end the fear. Rather than becoming fearful and disquieted, God wants us to remain calm and faithful. In order to push the Israelites back to calm faithfulness, He simply asked them why they were afraid. If God is in your corner how could you possibly fear humanity? Even the most frightening and formidable human beings are simply animated dust compared to God. God is the One who gave them life and in a relatively short amount of time they will wither and die. This is something to keep in mind when you look at any person. If someone terrifies you try to remember that you are a servant of the living God and they are merely mortal. Keeping this perspective is even more important when it comes to those we love and admire. Christians all over the world make the mistake of viewing their pastor as more than human. Anytime you admire another person you must guard against creating an idol out of them. Always remember that they have the same sins, insecurities, and issues as you do. Keeping proper perspective will allow you to depend on God instead of humanity. This will prevent extremely painful feelings of betrayal when humanity lets you down.
In addition to the absurdity of fearing mortal human beings, God also suggests that it’s improper to constantly walk in fear of life in general. There are moments where danger is imminent and a little fear has utility. But to be afraid of danger every day is simply to enslave yourself. God doesn’t want us to live each day in fear of death. He doesn’t want us to tremble at the slightest things and look for danger where there is none. God wants us to be at ease and to enjoy each day as the gift that it is. The Israelites feared the wrath of Babylon as their oppressor even when God promised Israel salvation. So God simply asked them: where is the wrath of your oppressor? He wanted Israel to recognize that Babylon was just as helpless as Egypt compared to the power of God. We can think of death in this way. Death is our enemy and we should fight for life as long as we can. But we should not fear death knowing that God is with us. Egypt and Babylon faded away as threats to God’s people – and death will also fade away when we pass on into glory.
Fearing humanity or fearing the dangers of life is often a consequence of forgetting God. To look upon any man with fear is to forget that whatever power he has is given to him by God. To feel trapped in the painful circumstance of life is to forget that God is the One in charge and He ordains every event that carries forth into being. Even when evil people carry out sins against us, God has the power to overrule their designs and use them for His own good will. What’s more is that God has already promised to work things out for our good. So to be trapped in fear is to forget the many instances of God’s providence throughout our lives. Think of all the times He came through for you when you felt certain you were doomed. Jesus commanded us to fear God and not to fear mere mortals who can do nothing more than kill your body. Proverbs says that blessed in the man who fears God. Fearing God is how you dispel the many fears of this life. Fearing God is the foundation of wisdom and is prerequisite to any durable quality of life.
God brought comfort to the Israelite captives, but they were still eager to escape their bonds. God ensured them that they would not die as prisoners and their food supplies would not fail them. It’s possible to view the impatience of the Israelites as a form of faithlessness. Like they were worried because their supplies were dwindling and they still had not been set free. But I think it’s also likely that they were just excited to go home. They were ready to embark on the dangerous journey back to Jerusalem without hesitation. After all, they had God’s word that He would watch over their path and keep them from danger. God has the power to quiet the raging tempest and make sure that we are brought safely into harbour. Comforting the Israelites and reminding them that He is the Lord their God accomplished two things. First it soothed their panic by promising them they wouldn’t die in the pit of imprisonment. Second it encouraged them to launch forward with readied faith once they were set free. The same is true for you today. God’s comfort shows you that He is with you and He will not allow you to be permanently lost in your trials. God’s reminder that He is your Lord encourages you that if you strive to help yourself He will certainly help you as well.
God sent His prophets to both warn and comfort Israel. When God’s salvation didn’t come soon enough or came in a way that was different from what they expected, the Israelites could sometimes be crestfallen. They might wonder whether the prophet told the truth. On this point God encourages us to see that the prophets are speaking the very word and truth of God Himself. We have access to these same comforting words in our Bibles today. I speak a lot about the immeasurable value of knowing Scripture for walking wisely through life – but sometimes Scripture just makes you feel better as well. Everything written in Scripture is breathed out by God. He owns what the prophets and the apostles have said. Reading the promises of God soothes the pains of life and relaxes your stress. Chief among these promises is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the promise that if you trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior you will pass from death to everlasting life.
We can be at peace by knowing that the words of God are true and safe. His prophecies and His promises anchor us like a rock and protect us like a fortress. By faith we know that God’s word will not pass away and will withstand all the powers that seek to extinguish it. For thousands of years God has preserved the Scriptures and by His providence we have them today. Israel thought the fulfillment of God’s prophecy might mean something like a new city or a new nation. But God meant so much more than that. God meant a new heavens and a new earth. He was looking forward to the work done by the gospel of Christ and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. God first made all creation through Christ. He formed the Old Testament church through Christ. And through Christ the heavens and the earth will be founded anew. The creation we reside in was cast into disorder by sin. Christ took the sin upon Himself so that He will put it back to order again. He already established the church and by way of the gospel has brought the Gentiles in among His people. When His work of salvation is finally complete we will see that the humble, faithful followers of Christ – as poor as they were in life – are counted among the people who He loves. Let’s finish with verses 17-23:
Isa 51:17 Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering.
Isa 51:18 There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne; there is none to take her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up.
Isa 51:19 These two things have happened to you— who will console you?— devastation and destruction, famine and sword; who will comfort you?
Isa 51:20 Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of every street like an antelope in a net; they are full of the wrath of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.
Isa 51:21 Therefore hear this, you who are afflicted, who are drunk, but not with wine:
Isa 51:22 Thus says your Lord, the LORD, your God who pleads the cause of his people: “Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more;
Isa 51:23 and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who have said to you, ‘Bow down, that we may pass over’; and you have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to pass over.”
Israel’s captivity in Babylon was meant to wake them up from the delusions of their idolatry. Once they were humbled, God called them to wake up from their despair and be ready for salvation. One of the problems of despair is that it can tend to narrow your field of vision. Being in great pain can cause you to focus entirely on that pain. This means you won’t be paying attention to the many ways in which God is trying to comfort you. If all you can see is your own pain then you won’t be very empathetic to the needs of others and your struggle will only get worse. Satan seeks to blind you by lulling you to sleep so that you fail to notice God moving in your life. It’s also possible to be asleep inside of destructive habits. If you’re doing something that continuously brings harm to yourself and others then it’s likely you’re also missing out on some good thing God is trying to bring to your attention. God calls His people to wake up and mind the things which belong to their everlasting peace.
None of that is to say that Israel’s pain was simply a self-inspired illusion. It was very real. Their captivity was a very real consequence of defying God. He was angry with them and they tasted a measure of His fury. The same thing can apply to us today. It’s a mistake to think of God as some harmless old man who won’t punish us. The wages of sin is death. If we choose to imbibe a cup of idolatrous defiance then we certainly will be given a cup of fury. For those wicked sinners who reject reconciliation through Christ, separation from God will extend on into eternity. By far the best approach is to stand in awe of God and refrain from sinning. I understand that some sins are harder to break than others and may take a lifetime of sanctification to overcome. But arrogant expressions of sinful rebellion in word, thought and deed is a recipe for disaster.
In the depths of Israel’s despair they had no human beings among them who were able to provide comfort and guidance the way God did. When a population of people gets far enough away from God, even their previously wise counselors become radically confused. And it’s not as if Israel was a poorly educated or weak nation. They had individuals throughout their history who were very famous for their wisdom and power. But even the counsel of the wise begins to deteriorate the more a society departs from God. Our relationship with God is the only sense making apparatus that allows us to understand reality accurately. Science can give us wonderful technologies. Science can tell us all about the cosmos and how things work. The scientific method is so powerful in describing how things work that we can use it to predict events with staggering precision. But science itself gives us absolutely zero guidance as to what we should do with this knowledge. Science gives us insight into what is, but it falls silent in the domain of what ought to be. Without God there was no one to take Israel’s hand and lead them out of trouble. Without God there was no one who could comfort them. The same is true for us. If we walk away from God there’s no one left to guide us away from the cliff because without God we no longer know which direction is away from the cliff.
It’s very dangerous to put all of your eggs in a human basket. Even if the person is the wisest of the wise, the fact remains that they are only human. You really don’t want to experience the empty void of elevating another person to God’s spot in your heart only to see them fail to live up to it. Israel’s disappointment in their own people was aggravated by the fact that they suffered the brutality of Babylon’s sword and the vicissitudes of famine. I think the best analogy here is to think of a married couple who are codependent. First let’s define codependent because I think there’s some modern misunderstanding. Codependency does not mean two people who become one. So if a married couple sacrifices their individual independence to promote each others’ well-being this does not make them codependent. Sacrificing some individuality for the benefit of your partner is actually the optimal thing to do despite what the third wave feminists think. True codependency is when one or the other occupies the position that is meant for God. If you have no space in your heart for God because of how you view your partner, then you are walking in dangerous territory. Your partner will never be able to live up to your God-like expectations. Your partner will become resentful because of his or her inability to fill the God-shaped space in your heart. As the marriage disintegrates you will lose the one person who you were depending on to provide your life with meaning and purpose. If you were truly codependent, it’s likely that you will suffer a loss of material provision as well – making things go from bad to worse. This is why it’s a good analogy for Israel in their captivity. Israel went through a time of spiritual despair with no one to comfort them because they chose to depend on each other instead of on God. Being taken captive by Babylon, they also lost their wealth and had to suffer with inadequate provision. You don’t want to make the mistake of seeking transcendent meaning in temporal things because when these things are taken from you there will be nothing left but empty chaos.
When things went from bad to worse for Israel they found themselves disquieted and driven to despair. They had lost all confidence in God’s promise and so they just writhed in pain. They were vexed by their troubles and when panic set in they began fretting and raging like a wild bull. This reaction caused them to become even more tangled up in their condition. This is something that’s really worth knowing. If tragedy strikes you and you’ve shut yourself off to the comfort of God then you’re all the more likely to make things worse. And sometimes people want to make things worse as a statement of rebellion against God. I want to be careful here. I’m not saying that you should be able to walk with stoicism through the hard parts of your life. It’s okay to cry and it’s okay to break down with grief. It’s okay to go out with friends and let them support you. What’s not okay is to use the pain as an excuse to wage war on being itself. It’s not okay to take revenge against humanity and revenge against God. Israel was pictured at one point as a raging and writhing bull. How much energy did they expend in these ill-fated efforts? This is analogous to you going on a careless bender or flying into a rage in an effort to quiet your pain. It just doesn’t work, it makes everything worse, and it wastes precious energy that you could be using to put your life back together.
So what’s the proper reaction when you find yourself in the chaotic mess like Israel? The godly remain meek and quiet of spirit when under affliction. This is the idea when God says, be still and know that I am God. He is with you in your afflictions so your situation is not as chaotic as it feels. If you make your cause in life the same as God’s cause, then you can rest assured that He is the One who fights for it. So even when you feel broken and alone God is never broken and you are never alone. No matter how powerful they become those who fight against God are fighting for a lost cause. If you remained focused on God and on His mission then you are part of a design that He has personally espoused. You won’t need to find the strength inside yourself because this design was never dependent on your strength. All of it rests on God. He is the source of your strength.
Maintaining God as the source of your strength means that you don’t have to fight and struggle to make it through the dark season of your life. Yes, facing the pain and walking through it can feel like a fight – but so much of your real fight is simply not doing stupid things. So much of your fight is being still and having faith in God’s comfort because He will bring it. When Israel could no longer drink from the cup of suffering they patiently submitted to God and waited for Him to take it from them. And He did. He took away their judgment and He promised them that He would not revive it. God comforted His people and He removed His wrath from them. Now it was Babylon’s turn to face judgment for their own sins. Long had they persecuted Israel and made their oppression worse than it needed to be. Babylon forced Israel to lay in the dirt, wanting no less than to break their spirits and force them to worship idols. The tyranny of Babylon put Israel on the racks of torture and sought to trample over their souls with delight. If you don’t think human beings are capable of doing this to each other then you haven’t witnessed the black hatred that engulfs the hearts of those who wage war on God. At the deepest level they seek to torment their neighbor merely because God commands them to love their neighbor.
But God never allows their evil out of His cross-hairs. The mercy that you extend to others is the mercy that will be extended to you. Wicked people can force your body to do things in this life but they can never force your soul. Babylon trampled Israel into the ground in an effort to break their fidelity to God but the effort was unsuccessful. All the oppressors accomplished was to further incur God’s wrath upon themselves. Thousands of years ago Israel found peace and comfort in God during the most difficult parts of their captivity. This same peace and comfort is available for you today. If you’re life is good right now and you don’t need comfort then remember to praise God for that. If you’re going through a dark time understand that Jesus is walking with you. We live in a broken world and certain things have to happen in order for God to bring out the ultimate good of redemption. But never will God abandon you to your pain or your struggle. Never does God wish that you stagger on in torment. God desires that you look up to Him and seek out His gracious actions in your life. Allow the peace of the Lord, which goes beyond comprehension, to wash over you and hold you tight during times of trial. The Creator of the universe – as vast as it is – and as incomprehensibly wonderful as He is, He loves you. And if you have the faith to open yourself up to Him He will set to work inside your heart to straighten your paths and to bring you comfort.
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