In our last study we read of the restoration of God’s bride – Israel. With a promise of no more punishment. But the rules had changed, instead of ‘you must obey me’ the new rule was much simpler: ‘you must love me’. Perhaps only possible with the coming of Jesus.
As we finished our last study, we were left with a warm glow of God’s love and provision for those who love him. Unfortunately, there is another side to the coin.
Isaiah 56
9 Come, all you beasts of the field, come and devour, all you beasts of the forest!
Here the invitation is not literally for ‘wild animals’ to attack those who ignore God and his warnings. Here it will be Satan and his angels that will attack.
10 Israel’s watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep.
Who are Israel’s watchmen?
Officially the King and his court, together with the army – they were the rulers.
But actually the Temple priests played a significant role in the government. They advised the king, collected the taxes, (the Temple treasury doubled as the nations reserves), and ran the Judicial system.
But what about leading the nation spiritually? Those without a living faith would see no need. Even when God himself stepped in and sent them his prophets, they would be ignored.
11 They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough. They are shepherds who lack understanding; they all turn to their own way, they seek their own gain.
12 ‘Come,’ each one cries, ‘let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer! And tomorrow will be like today, or even far better.’
When people are given authority over others, how often is it misused? I remember an English MP who claimed gardening expenses of £30,000 including £1,645 for a floating duck island for his pond.
Isaiah 57
1 The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.
2 Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.
Here again we are seeing with God’s eyes. The safest place for the righteous in this corrupt society, was for them to be taken to Heaven. ‘How sad’ say those left behind. ‘Surely they should have been given long life?’ But is it not kinder to save them from what had become for them ‘hell on earth’?
3 ‘But you – come here, you children of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes!
4 Who are you mocking? At whom do you sneer and stick out your tongue? Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars?
5 You burn with lust among the oaks and under every spreading tree; you sacrifice your children in the ravines and under the overhanging crags.
6 The idols among the smooth stones of the ravines are your portion; indeed, they are your lot. Yes, to them you have poured out drink offerings and offered grain offerings. In view of all this, should I relent?
They were dissolute: The word dissolute means lacking moral restraint. A dissolute person lives a hedonistic life of wild partying, heavy drinking, or chasing physical pleasures while ignoring rules of good behaviour.
But even that is not what God disliked most. Verse 6 is the clue, again they were offering the worship that belongs to God, to idols made by men’s hands.
Tell me, says God, ‘In view of all this, should I relent?’
7 You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill; there you went up to offer your sacrifices.
8 Behind your doors and your doorposts you have put your pagan symbols. Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed, you climbed into it and opened it wide; you made a pact with those whose beds you love, and you looked with lust on their naked bodies.
9 You went to Molek with olive oil and increased your perfumes. You sent your ambassadors far away; you descended to the very realm of the dead!
10 You wearied yourself by such going about, but you would not say, “It is hopeless.” You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint.
For an outside observer it was obvious that their lives were truly ‘hopeless’, but they could not see it. Even when they became weary of this way of life they found strength to carry on, blind to what the consequences would be.
11 ‘Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have not been true to me, and have neither remembered me nor taken this to heart?
Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?
12 I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not benefit you.
13 When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you! The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away.
What were they so afraid of that they turned from God to Idol-worship? Or have they ignored God because he has let them get away with it? Well there is coming a day when any righteousness they may have had will be ignored, and they and their idols will simply be blown away.
But whoever takes refuge in me will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain.’
14 And it will be said: ‘Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.’
15 For this is what the high and exalted One says – he who lives for ever, whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
For those who trust God there is a wonderful future. Yes God is High and Holy, yet he is also approachable – there are no obstacles in the way of those who humbly seek him.
16 I will not accuse them for ever, nor will I always be angry, for then they would faint away because of me – the very people I have created.
17 I was enraged by their sinful greed; I punished them, and hid my face in anger, yet they kept on in their wilful ways.
18 I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel’s mourners, 19 creating praise on their lips. Peace, peace, to those far and near,’ says the Lord. ‘And I will heal them.’
It was right that God should have been angry with his disobedient creation, but his love is greater still. He will heal, guide, restore and give his peace to those who repent.
20 But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud.
21 ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’
Isaiah 58
1 ‘Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
God had sent his prophets but the people seemed to be unaware of their rebellion. So God gives his prothets new instructions – you’ll have to shout louder!
What exactly was the problem? What haven’t they understood?
2 For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 “Why have we fasted,” they say, “and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?”
All seems fine, outwardly they appear to be doing the right things, so what’s the problem? Why has God ignored them?
‘Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. 4 Your fasting ends in quarrelling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
That was the problem. Their worship was only skin deep. They happily showed off their religiousness ‘lying in sackcloth and ashes’ knowing that come evening, and the start of their new day, a feast was waiting, and they could indulge again.
6 ‘Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
How about treating your slaves (employees) as if they were equal human beings for a change? And rather than leaving your meal in the fridge till later, how about taking it and giving it to those less fortunate than yourself? And the clothes you would change back into after you’ve taken off your sackcloth – how about giving them away too?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: here am I.
If you at last understand, and repent with true fasting; if your attitude shows that at last you are truly seeking your God, Then the Lord will instantly respond. He will be a light before you and his glory will protect you. He will always be quicker to answer your call than you are to answer his.
‘If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
This is now directed to the exiles as they return to rebuild Jerusalem. They will have to be a changed people, a holy people. Their attitude to others must demonstrate that they have learnt their lesson. If so the Lord will reward them with a whole new start.
13 ‘If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honourable, and if you honour it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14 then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.’
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Now who is the Lord speaking to? We are happy to smugly read about those other people who had been punished by being taken into captivity, but look again at verse 13 and check if it might be speaking to us too. Could we also possibly be in some form of captivity?
Isaiah 59
1 Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.
Sometimes we are in danger of imagining there are some people who are so far gone the Lord is incapable of saving hem. And are we tempted to imagine that sometimes he is deaf to our requests (demands?).
2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Not that he can’t hear, he choses not to. Note it is ‘Your sins . . .your iniquities’ that have forced him to turn away.
3 For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things.
The hands that would make offerings to God are stained. The lips that should offer praises have too often been used to speak lies – and worse. Then God looks into the heart and what does he see?
4 No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.
5 They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched.
6 Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands.
7 Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes; acts of violence mark their ways.
8 The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks along them will know peace.
If you build your life on a fabric of lies, you will find it is as substantial as a cobweb.
There are no longer any straight paths, they are as crooked as those who travel on them.
Now we have a ‘them and us’ moment. We are quick to judge others, perhaps we must look at ourselves again.
9 So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.
10 Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead.
11 We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves.
We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away.
Perhaps we are not so squeaky-clean as we would like to imagine. Is that why we find it so hard to make headway?
12 For our offences are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offences are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities:
13 rebellion and treachery against the Lord, turning our backs on our God, inciting revolt and oppression, uttering lies our hearts have conceived.
14 So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter.
Again, viewed with God’s eyes we too do not have a leg to stand on.
15 Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.
The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him.
God was appalled that no-one was on the side of justice, so he himself had to provide a Saviour. This reminds me of the passage in Revelation 5:2-6
2 And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?’ 3 But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. 4 I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. 5 Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.’
6 Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain
17 He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.
18 According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes; he will repay the islands their due.
19 From the west, people will fear the name of the Lord, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the Lord drives along.
20 ‘The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,’
declares the Lord.
When everything appears hopeless, God reveals his plan. His son Jesus will enter the field of battle and like a mighty flood will sweep everything before him. Some for destruction, others for salvation.
21 ‘As for me, this is my covenant with them,’ says the Lord. ‘My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants – from this time on and for ever,’ says the Lord.
This is his guarantee. His Spirit will be our constant companion. Leading, guiding, even guarding our lips! And that’s not all. In the following chapter there is much to encourage the returning exiles, but even more for those looking towards the ‘new Jerusalem’.
