Damariscotta Baptist Church

 

 

This passage is the epitome of the response of those 

who know they have done wrong and 
therefore give a negative response 
to God’s proclamation 
that He is sending a Servant to redeem them. 
Talk about stubborn! 

Many of you know this type of person. Maybe you are one, maybe you live with one, maybe you are like me and you are teaching one. This week in my fifth grade class I had a student defiantly argue with me. I asked him if he wanted to continue to argue with me. 

He said, “Yes.” 

I told him I would not argue, that the conversation was over. Do you think that was the end of it? Nope. He continued to argue, even louder. At this point, I quietly explained that he lost the privilege of receiving a cupcake that was being passed to the students. 

When the birthday boy and I reached his desk I said, 

“I will accept an apology and that will allow you to receive a cupcake.” 

Upon which he stated, “No one ever accepts my apologies.” 

I quickly responded, “You must not have heard me, as I said I would accept your apology, and I will give you a cupcake.” 

Upon which he stated, as he walked away, “No you won’t.” 

His stubbornness resulted in him not receiving a very delicious cupcake. 

Isaiah experiences the same results from the Israelites as he proclaims that God is on their side. 

Our passage opens with Zion moaning that the LORD had forsaken them, forgotten them. To which the Lord replies with, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast…?” 

And the next part has been a solace to me, Isaiah writes, “Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” It’s like God knew there would be mothers who would forget, who would have issues and not be able to be the way mothers were supposed to be, so even though your mother may not have done what mother’s generally do, still,  

“God will not forget you.” 

In fact, God proclaims He has engraved us on the palms of His hands. The very evidence Jesus used to demonstrate to doubting Thomas that He was the Messiah, and had risen from the grave, John 20:24.

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The men who were chosen to be disciples were just like you and me. And just like you and me, some have to see the holes in His hands to believe, and others of us, just believe. 

In verses 17-21, Isaiah goes on to say that God will prove His love by providing an abundance of “descendants” that will be born to them, when they thought they were barren. In fact, He will cause the nations to bring their lost children home, vs. 22-23.

Yet, in verse 24, again there is doubt, the question arises, “Who can break the grip of their captors?” 

And again, God responds that He is capable of doing that very thing. 

At this point, the Israelites seem to return to blaming God for putting them in the position they are, in the first place. God does not become disgusted with them, He doesn’t raise His hands in despair. Instead, God reminds them that He has not cast them off and at will, He is able to restore them. 

At this point I would like to point out that although the words here can be seen as literal, they were certainly meant to be figurative. Historically, the actual return of the Israelites out of Babylon was relatively small. Isaiah was speaking figuratively of not only the Israelites, but a worldwide response to God’s reconciliation of sins through the work of the Savior. God promised Abraham he would have more children than the stars in the heavens, or the sand on the seashore. We are some of them. 

Humans have difficulty seeing past their circumstances, and from the world’s perspective things look impossible but for God all things are possible. From the human perspective, we read v. 21, 

“And you’ll say to yourself,

    ‘Where on earth did these children come from?

I lost everything, had nothing, was exiled and penniless.

    So who reared these children?

    How did these children get here?’”

Not only will God provide descendants, the very Gentile nations that have His people captive and will come to take them out of Exile, will be the ones who will assist Israel in being the stars and sand, the answer to God’s promise. The Savior will be the “the banner” God uses to raise all nations to himself.

Yet, here is the stark realization, God can do none of this unless people give Him the opportunity to do so, by putting their trust in Him.  Trusting God. 

Like my student could not trust that I would forgive him, even though I had a cupcake in my hand trying to give it to him, we often don’t recognize the grace God offers. 

At this point in our passage, the Israelites seem to recognize their sin is what is in the way of their being able to accept forgiveness. Yet, look at God’s response, chapter 50:

Do you think I have divorced you? Where is the certificate of divorce? There is none.
Do you think I will sell you to pay off your debt? Nope.
God has the power to save them from other nations and He also has the power to save them from their sins. His arm is not short nor is it weak. Then Isaiah reminds the Israelites with whom they are dealing. God is able to  “dry up the sea,” and turn off the sun, He is certainly able to defeat sin. Throughout this entire passage, God has been trying to convince His people to believe what He has said. 

Last week’s scripture ended with verse 13 stating, “For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.” And the next verse, the first verse we read today states, “But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”

This isn’t the first time we have seen the Israelites demonstrated this attitude. Remember back when the people of Judah had been offered deliverance from the Assyrian army, if they would only wait? Well, they didn’t wait, they trusted everyone else around them. They didn’t learn much from their history, again they were in exile, and since God hadn’t saved them when they wanted to be saved, well, the figured He wasn’t coming, so while in Rome, do as the Romans do, so they acclimated themselves into the Babylonian culture.  

You can read about it in the book of Daniel. Which demonstrates that not everyone succumbed to the peer pressure around them. But let’s face it, remaining faithful and waiting for God to fulfill His promise was not easy. 

If it were, more people would have done it. If you read Daniel you’ll discover that king Nebuchadnezzar thought he was king of the universe and certainly wasn’t about to allow the captives to worship another king that they thought was mightier than he. 

So how long did the Hebrews have to wait? 

Well there were two things they were waiting for: 

They were waiting to be exiled from Babylon
 They were waiting for the Messiah, to be freed from their sins
Being exiled from Babylon took a little less than seventy years. But it took hundreds of years before the Messiah arrived. Why so long? Why is it taking so long for the Messiah to return again? For those who received these promises, they never lived to their fulfillment. Yet, not everyone gave up, there was and still is a remnant. 

 

At the time Christ was born and brought to the temple, we have the story of two individuals, who were part of a lineage of people who remained faithful and trusted that they would see the Messiah, both Anna and Simeon, and their story can be read in Luke 2. 

What about us today? We are called to wait and keep the faith and trust that God will return. Seems to me there are two groups: Those that wait and those who don’t. Which group do you find yourself in? 

If you find yourself in the losing hope group, you are not alone. Part of the reason some of the exiles lost hope was that they did not really believe God loved them. There may have been reasons for this: 

1 – Some may have felt that God had treated them unfairly. They looked around, they weren’t that bad, there were certainly people around them that were worse, check out Habbakkuk chapter one. And if one really wanted to get down to the truth, it was their parents that had been so bad that got them exiled in the first place. Why were they having to take the punishment for their parents? Isaiah recorded their thoughts in chapter 40:27 – “God has lost track of me. He doesn’t care what happens to me”?

2 – Another reason for not believing God really loved them could have been the exact opposite. There were those who knew they were bad and that they deserved punishment. They had failed God so miserably there was no way they could imagine God could ever love someone like them. 

3 – And then there were probably those who were in the middle and said, “So what!” Whether they had gotten themselves into their predicament or someone else did was irrelevant. Basically there was no way out, and God could say whatever He felt like saying, it was useless. 

 

I still hear these type of arguments today.  

I present the Gospel, demonstrating just how much God loves them, and just how much He wants to give them an abundant and fruitful spiritual life. In essence, even today, people have the same excuses. “If God really loved me He would not have placed me in an abusive family.” or “If God really loved me, I wouldn’t be so poor.” I’ve had people sit in my office and tell me, that if I knew all the terrible things they had done, then I would understand why God couldn’t love them. Or the person who believes they are worthless, and everything they do isn’t worth a thing, how could God love them? And what about the person who believes their situation is hopeless, so hopeless even God couldn’t fix it. 

My responses to these people go something like this:

To the person who believes they are being treated unfairly, I remind them that the only person they can change is their self. We live in a world that allows free will so both good and bad things happen to the good and the bad. 

We are to take an inventory and correct the things we can and pray for the things we can’t. And when we find ourselves looking to God for the answer to the question, “Why?” we need to turn it around to the question, “What now?” and seek God for the resources to go on and trust Him to make good out of the mess. That is what He does best. 

For the person who thinks they have done such horrible things God couldn’t forgive, I share how self-centered and proud that belief really is. Do they really think they are greater than God? What they have done is too much for God? Or, more often, it represents the inability for that person to forgive themselves They are disappointed in themselves and recognize that they have done something that would disappoint God and they don’t have any way to fix it. Of course God is disappointed, but that doesn’t mean He stopped loving them. If they can humble themselves enough to realize theirs is not the worst sin, 

and that being disappointed is not the issue, then there is a possibility of realizing that God really wants to forgive them, if only they will let Him. 

For the person who has succumbed to doom’s day, it is much like the previous person. If we are to experience God’s love, we need to be willing to surrender to it. As soon as we think, “Our situation is hopeless.” then we are basically stating that something is greater than God. What God really wants is for us to give Him a try. He asks us to test Him in faith, not in doubt. When we do, we offer the opportunity for God to show us the love He has for us. And for those of us who have done so, we have testimonies that reveal there is no obstacle God cannot conquer. His arm is indeed, not too short and He does not lack the strength to rescue us. 

Amen. 

Let’s pray.