Damariscotta Baptist Church

 

 

Today’s Scripture begins with a call to Praise! The heavens and the earth are to “Sing for Joy,” over the salvation promised. The mountains, forests, trees are called to join in the praise. Isaiah is reminding us again that the Creator of the world, is the only One who can redeem the world.

Verse 24 begins a very long sentence which ends in verse 28 with the declaration of who God plans to use to redeem Israel. A while back in chapter 41, verse 2, Isaiah told us it would be “one from the east.” Today, in verse 28, we find out his name is Cyrus. This Cyrus was the pagan, Persian king, who would conquer Babylon and would see to it that Jerusalem’s temple was rebuilt.

Prior to this revelation Isaiah uses a succession of participles that define the phrase, “I AM the LORD.”

Isaiah repeats this phrase, 4 times in today’s Scripture reading. When you think about it, the entire premise of the whole Bible is for us to get to know who the LORD is. The word LORD is not immediately understood in its translation from Hebrew to English. The all capital letters L-O-R-D, are to represent the Hebrew’s personal name for God, which was revealed to Moses as the tetragrammaton, YHWH, four Hebrew consonants, understood to mean, “I am that I am.” Although the Jews did not actually say this word, as it was considered too Holy to do so, scholars agree that Yahweh would have been its pronounciation.

The phrase, “I am Yahweh” means, “I cause everything to be.” That is, God is the origin, the foundation, the basis, and the end of all things. This statement does not just relate to the world and everything in it, this statement is one each of us can take personally. To know and accept that God is the origin, the foundation, the basis and the end of all things for me, personally, changes everything! This means He is not merely my LORD; He is my everything, including the next breath that I take!

God uses this word to demonstrate His lordship by what He does. Check out verses 24-26 and all the things He did.

He….

Made all things
Stretched out the heavens
Spread out the earth, by himself
Foils the signs of false prophets
Makes fools out of diviners
Overthrows the learning of the wise by turning it into nonsense
Carries out the words of His servants
Fulfills the predictions of His messengers
Is the Redeemer, v. 26b-28 who is able to rebuild the ruined “Jerusalem” and its surrounding towns

He is Yahweh, the Creator, the LORD of history and the Redeemer and able to do things which ever way He sees fit to do so. Which includes using a pagan emperor to accomplish His purposes. In fact, we read in the next verse that Cyrus was called “his anointed” Even though Cyrus does not acknowledge God, God still “bestows on him “a title of honor,” and “strengthens” him.

Did God do this for Cyrus’ sake? No.

God did this so, “humans may know there is none besides God,” verse 6.

Verse 7 sums this all up with the understanding that nothing on earth occurs apart from God. Isaiah was making this point in contrast to the pagan understanding around him that good and evil, or dark and light were two eternally coexistent principles, battling things out in the universe.

Evil is not eternal.

There is only one eternal principle,

God,

and He is light and He is good.

Darkness and evil exists because God permits them to do so. So in a sense, He is responsible for their existence.

Verse 8 shows us that God cares deeply as to how His creation will proceed. “Righteousness will rain down,” and “salvation spring up.”

But how can this happen if God chooses someone who doesn’t even know Him,

to save His people that

 do believe in Him?

I can just see the Pharisees holding onto their kippah, exclaiming, “Yih, Yih, Yih! How can this be true?

 

Surely God would choose a religiously pious man to deliver His people, someone like Moses (who by the way, was not that pious at the time he was chosen by God), someone who knew God and loved God, not some pagan king.”

Beware.

God responds to this type of thinking with strong words. Verse 9-10 pronounces, “Woe” or doom to anyone who challenges the rightness of God’s activity. Does a pot have the right to question the potter? Do children have the right to question the way in which they were born?

God’s response seems rather strong, doesn’t it?

Why would that be?

We will notice that not only does God become more specific in His predictions, He also challenges the hearers more.

As we continue to read through to chapter 48, we will see that should the exiles not let God deliver them in His own way, they will not have learned the lesson of God’s lordship.

They still have God in a box, to do with as they so choose.

When God is given lordship over our lives, He is free to do whatever He deems best, whatever means, it may take.

Hmmm.

Our Scripture today ends with God,

once more asserting Himself,

as not only Israel’s “Holy One” and “Maker,”

but with the reminder that He is the “Maker”

of everything within the cosmos,

including humans.

 

Therefore, if He does not have the right,

as an expression of His “righteousness,”

to set His “exiles” free,

in the manner in which He chooses,

then,

Who does?

None of us likes being placed in a box.

As for God, not only does He challenge the Israelites in Babylon in regards to their unbelief,  Jesus did the same for the Pharisees in His day. The times when Jesus said harsh words were the times He was talking to the Pharisees. How ironic? The Pharisees were supposed to be some of the most devout Jews that existed. They were in direct contrast to the Sadducees, who were more devoted to their personal power and position. Strangely enough, the Gospels has Jesus saying almost nothing to that group.

There’s a pattern seen here. Those who thought they were the most faithful, seemed to be in the greatest danger of “putting God in a box,” and because they think they know God so well, they ended up limiting Him in what He could do in them and through them.

There went the possibilities.

The potential for serving God and making a difference in the world was lost, because they couldn’t break beyond the limitations that their own study and involvement placed upon them. Maybe God’s harshness comes from His ability to see potential and how it was being wasted. By being harsh, God may have helped to shake them out of their dangerous confidence that they knew the almighty Creator so well that they could tell Him what He was going to do next.

Are Isaiah’s words directed at me?

Are they directed to you?

We evangelical Christians need to be careful that we do not fall into the trap the Pharisees did. Don’t be too quick to exclude yourself from being a Pharisee.

Should we describe a Pharisee as someone who believes that he or she can make himself or herself acceptable to God by right behavior, well, hopefully most of us can exclude ourselves from being a part of that group. We know that it is by grace that we have been saved, not by works. We’re safe.

However, should we describe a Pharisee as one who passionately studies the Scripture and zealously desires to know and please God, well, that’s a horse of a different color. Many of us hope we fall into that category. Yet, wasn’t it those who zealously studied the Scriptures who were the ones who couldn’t believe that the man, Jesus, was the promised Messiah.

It was the very people who sought only to please God that could not wrap their heads around the Messiah having friendships with notorious sinners. Why Jesus was down right violating the very laws God had given, like working on the Sabbath, for example. We could easily divert this discussion by stating that the Pharisees were more concerned with justifying God’s ways to themselves, then they were about applying them to human hearts. But I’m going to suggest, rather than speculating what the Pharisees were up to, we question whether this behavior is descriptive of who we are and how we act.

Do we have God in a box?

Are we quick to assume that because God has yet to do something a particular way, He may not choose to do so now? What law or rule do we hold on to so tightly and expect others to obey, as if we are protecting the holiness of God?

When we look back at what God has done in the Old Testament, such as

using Cyrus, a pagan king to free His chosen people from captivity, and

a small, young lad, David, and a smooth stone to slay, Goliath, and

then in the New Testament where Jesus talked with a Samaritan woman and

ate dinner with sinners,

from the outside,

we would not look at those people and consider God using them for the tasks they were given.

Yet, who are we do tell God what He can and cannot do?

Let’s pray.