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Isaiah: Book of Good News!

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Consequently, look at verse 22, the invitation goes out to all the earth.
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Look to me and be saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.
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In chapter 46, again, there's a little bit of sarcasm or mockery here, where it's pointed out that the gods of Babylon have to be carried, and they are therefore a burden to be borne.
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Bel, these are the two gods of Babylon, he emphasizes, Bel and Nebo. Bel bows down,
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Nebo stoops. Their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle. Your carriages were heavily loaded, a burden to the weary beast.
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They stoop, they bow down together. They could not deliver the burden, but have themselves gone into captivity.
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And in contrast to these gods that are such a terrible burden to the beasts that have to carry them,
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God says that He has carried His people, verses 3 and 4.
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Listen to me, again, you see what God is doing, He's showing a contrast between the folly of idolatry and the grace of God.
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Earlier on, He said, man in his foolishness crafts this dead
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God, this dead image that can do nothing. In contrast, God says, I have crafted you,
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I have created you, a living image of me. And here, He says, man in his folly makes these idols that have to be carried, and they are a burden to be born.
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But in verses 3 and 4, God says, listen to me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by me from birth, and who have been carried from the womb.
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Even to your old age, I am He. Even to gray hairs, I will carry you.
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And I look out upon our congregation this morning, and look in a mirror, and I say, thank the
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Lord. Even to the gray hairs, I will carry you, He says.
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I have made, are you seeing the connection here, right? I have made, and I will bear.
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Even I will carry, and will deliver you. So God has carried
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His people. And it's no wonder, therefore, that in verse 9, God can declare His absolute uniqueness.
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He says, remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other.
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I am God, and there is none like me. All the other gods have to be carried.
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I am the God who carries. In chapter 47, verse 5,
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Babylon, this empire that's going to destroy Judah, is portrayed as a great queen.
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The end of verse 5, He says, you shall no longer be called the lady of kingdoms, a great queen.
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And in verses 6 and 7, He points out, God points out that He uses Babylon to punish
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His people, is what He says in verse 6, I was angry with my people, I have profaned my inheritance, and given them into your hands, speaking to Babylon.
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You showed them no mercy. On the elderly, you laid your yoke very heavily.
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So He used Babylon to punish His people, but Babylon didn't learn the lessons that she was dispensing, in verse 7.
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And you said, here's the arrogance of Babylon, I shall be a lady forever, so that you did not take those things to heart, nor remember the latter end of them.
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You failed to learn from the lessons that you taught. Consequently, the
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Lord says of Babylon, Babylon is going to fall in disgrace, especially in verses 10 and 11.
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It says, you have trusted in your wickedness, speaking to Babylon, you have said, no one sees me.
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Your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you, and you have said in your heart, I am, and there is no one else besides me.
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By the way, I'm not going to emphasize this in the morning service, I probably won't even mention it at all, but I want you to get the connection, draw the lines between Babylon and what
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Babylon is saying, and what we're going to read in 2 Peter 3 about the scoffers who scoff at the notion of the coming day of the
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Lord, all right? Babylon was doing the same thing. Verse 11, therefore evil shall come upon you, and you shall not know from where it arises.
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It will come, here's a phrase you're going to want to remember later, as a thief in the night.
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You shall not know where it rises, and trouble shall fall upon you. You will not be able to put it off, and desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you shall not know.
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So, in contrast to God, just chapter 47 also emphasizes, and verses 13 and 14, in contrast to God, the
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Babylonian astrologers, I mean, this destruction is going to come upon Babylon, and Babylon's astrologers are going to be clueless, they're not going to see it coming.
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But in contrast to them, God can predict the future. Look at verse 13.
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It says, 13. You are wearied in a multitude of your counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from what shall come upon you.
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Behold, they shall be as stubble, the fire shall burn them. They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame.
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It shall not be a coal to be warmed by, nor a fire to sit before.
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It's a flame of destruction. And then in chapter 48, chapter 48,
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God's people have repeatedly called on the name of the Lord.
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They have practiced their religion, but they have done so without true faith.
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Look at verses 4 and 5. He says, 14. Because I knew that you were obstinate, and your neck was an iron sinew, and your brow bronze, even from the beginning
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I have declared it to you. Before it came to pass, I proclaimed it to you, lest you should say, My idol has done them, and my carved image and my molded image have commanded them.
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So earlier in this passage, the earlier verses talk about the sacrifices that Judah has offered and all the rest of this, but clearly their neck was obstinate and so forth, and neck was iron sinew, etc.
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They were not worshiping the name of the Lord in true faith.
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Now in verses 14 and 15, God predicts the defeat of Babylon through Cyrus, His chosen ally.
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He says in verse 14, 15. All of you assemble yourselves and hear who among them has declared these things.
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The Lord loves him. He shall do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the
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Chaldeans. Even I have spoken. Yes, I have called him, I have brought him, and his way will prosper.
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Speaking of Cyrus, He's called
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Cyrus, He's brought Cyrus, and his way will prosper in destroying Babylon. Now in verse 17,
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Isaiah says, 16. If God's people would have paid attention to his teaching, then they would have enjoyed his peace.
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Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am the Lord your God who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go, but, oh, that you had heeded my commandments, then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
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They would have enjoyed his peace. Nevertheless, go back to verses 9 through 11, and notice
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God says, you're going to be punished, but I'm not going to destroy you completely. For my name's sake,
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I will defer my anger, and for my praise, I will restrain it from you so that I do not cut you off.
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Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
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For my own sake, for my own sake, I will do it. For how should my name be profaned, and I will not give my glory to another?
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So in these chapters, 43 to 48 here, there are some key themes that are recurring, and chapter 43 really contains the basic message, the basic themes that run through this section.
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And that is, that basic theme or idea is that God will reveal His glory and redeem
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His people through His servant. So that's the big picture.
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God will reveal His glory and redeem His people through His servant.
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Now, chapter 43 adds the promise that God is going to do this,
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He's going to redeem His people through a new exodus, through a new exodus.
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And this chapter, it bounces back and forth between the exodus in the courtroom, there's the new exodus in the first seven verses, and then in verses 8 through 13, there's a courtroom scene.
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And then verses 14 through 21, it goes back to the subject of the exodus, the new exodus, and then the chapter closes, verses 22 through 28, with a courtroom scene again.
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So let's look at this new exodus in verses 1 through 7. Isaiah, in his writing here, looks back at the first exodus, when thus says the
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Lord, Who created you, O Jacob, so He's speaking of making a people for Himself.
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He who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you,
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I have called you by your name, you are Mine. He redeemed His people in the first exodus from Israel, the nation of Israel from Egypt, God redeemed
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His people. And what was the ransom price? Look at verse 3, I am the
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Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior, I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Saba in your place.
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So He redeemed His people and Egypt was the ransom price. Again, alluding to that first exodus,
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God created a people for His name. Before going to Egypt, Jacob and all his sons were a family.
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When they came out of Egypt, they were a nation named by God that He created.
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And it was when Israel, the nation, was in Egypt, forming itself as a nation, being formed,
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I should say, as a nation, is when God first called Israel His son.
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Let me show you that. In Exodus 4, Moses is speaking before Pharaoh, Exodus 4, verses 22 and 23.
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The Lord tells Moses, then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the
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Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. So I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me.
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So the idea here is that God speaks of this people as His son or His sons and daughters.
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Now, look here in chapter 43, verse 6, at the end of the verse,
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He says, bring back my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.
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So in talking about the new exodus, He's alluding to the idea of the offspring of the first exodus.
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He created a people for His name. And the first part of verse 2, again, an allusion to the first exodus,
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God brought them through the waters. He says, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
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He's looking forward to the new exodus, but He's using the terminology and the allusion to the experience of the first exodus, right?
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And the people pass through the waters, they pass through the waters of the Red Sea, and then through the
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Jordan River into the Promised Land. So this section, verses 2 through 5, really look forward, though alluding to the first exodus with terminology and experiences, it's looking forward to a new exodus.
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All the language is in the future tense. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.
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The rivers shall not overflow you. You pass through the fire, you will not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.
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The end of verse 4, I will give men for you and people for your life. I will bring your descendants from the east and gather from the west.
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All in the future tense. God is going to bring His people through water and fire.
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You say, well, how did He bring His people through fire in the first exodus? I would suggest the fire of the
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Passover flames, right, and the roasting of that Passover lamb that was exchanged for the firstborn.
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So He's going to bring through fire and water, and He's going to bring
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His sons and daughters home. It's the point of verse 6. Bring my sons, my daughters from the ends of the earth.
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The question is when, right? I mean, this is a prophecy. This is Isaiah speaking into the future.
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When is He going to do this? Well, there's a partial fulfillment of this in God's use of Cyrus.
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So we pointed this out at the end of chapter 44, on into chapter 45.
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Cyrus is chosen, he's anointed by God to bring the people out, to bring deliverance to the people of Israel.
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He's the Persian king, Cyrus is, who is going to defeat
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Babylon in 539 BC. And when
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Cyrus defeats Babylon, he is then going to allow the Jews to return back to Judah.
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And Isaiah proclaims this fall of Babylon in chapter 47 and chapter 48, and I want you to notice, look with me at chapter 48, verse 21, okay?
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So Cyrus is going to, the Persian, Cyrus, the Persian, is going to bring the defeat upon the
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Babylonians, which will allow for the exodus of God's people to go back to Judah, all right?
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And chapters 47 and 48 talk about this fall of Babylon, and in verses 20 through 22, you see the call to leave
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Babylon, go back home. But what I want you to notice is the exodus experiences, all right?
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He says, What did
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God say He did when it came to the first exodus? I have redeemed you in that first exodus.
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The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob, verse 21. And they did not thirst when
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He led them through the deserts. He caused the waters to flow from the rock for them.
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He also split the rock and the waters gushed out. And so He is revisiting the experiences of the first exodus to allude to the new exodus when
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God's people will be brought back home. And they did. The people returned from the
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Babylonian captivity under the ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah.
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Got old books of the Old Testament that talk about that, right? However, we say this is a partial fulfillment because even when the people returned to Judah and they were able to rebuild the temple and rebuild the walls, they still considered themselves, to be slaves.
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And we see this in Nehemiah 9, and verses 36 and 37.
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Nehemiah 9, 36, Nehemiah says,
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Here we are servants today. So even though,
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I mean, they're back home. They're not in the Babylonian captivity any longer, they've been released from that, they're back in Jerusalem, they've been rebuilding the walls, the walls are built, the gates are set up.
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He says, Here we are servants today, and the land that you gave to our fathers to eat its fruit and its bounty, here we are servants in it.
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Doesn't sound like they feel like they're at home, right? He goes on to say in verse 37,
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And it yields much increase to the kings that you have set over us because of our sins.
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Also they have dominion over our bodies and our cattle at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.
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So yes, the partial fulfillment of this prophecy of the new exodus comes under Cyrus as God's people are delivered from the
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Babylonian exile and are able to return home, but they are still sensing that they are slaves.
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They're still not feeling like this is home. And that feeling and thinking persisted even to the time of Jesus, right?
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People still thought of themselves, the Jewish people still under the dominion of the
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Roman Empire still persisted in their thinking of themselves as slaves and not truly at home.
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So that's a partial fulfillment. The complete fulfillment of this is found in Jesus.
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You see hints of it in the prophecy itself. Look at verses 5 through 7.
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Verse 5, he says, I will bring your descendants from the east and gather you from the west.
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I will say to the north, give them up, and to the south, do not keep them back.
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Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, whom
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I have created for my glory, I have formed him, yes, I have made him.
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Now, the thing about the Babylonian exile is all the people who were taken captive in the Babylonian exile were taken north, and they were coming from the north.
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When Ezra and the people who came back with him and Nehemiah and those who came with him, when they came back to Judah, they came from the north.
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And here Isaiah prophesies that the redeemed people are going to come from everywhere.
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They're going to come from everywhere. Now, I don't have the time to go into all the ways in which the
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New Testament writers were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, were influenced by Isaiah and Isaiah's prophecy to interpret what
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Jesus would accomplish as the true exodus, as liberation from sin and death.
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But just think with me for a moment about the New Testament language of exodus,
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New Testament exodus language. We are a redeemed people.
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We have been redeemed from our sin. We have an inheritance.
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When on the Mount of Transfiguration, and we pointed this out several weeks ago now in our study of Peter and also in the study of Mark, on the
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Mount of Transfiguration, when Elijah and Moses showed up, they spoke to Jesus, spoke about Jesus' departure.
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And the word departure is literally His exodus. They spoke of Jesus' exodus.
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We're talking about exodus language in the New Testament, right? Jesus declared
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Himself to be the I Am. Where did you first read of this? Where God discloses
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Himself to His people as the I Am when He appeared to Moses.
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Jesus is also the Passover Lamb, the true Passover Lamb.
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Israel departed from Egypt, and when they did, they left without yeast.
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They couldn't put yeast in their dough. They had to have unleavened bread. And New Testament Christians are exhorted to leave out the leaven of the old life.
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Israel passed through the waters of the Red Sea in the exodus. You and I passed through the waters of baptism.
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Jesus is the true manna from heaven. He is the true water from the rock.
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Also, the Lord dwelt in the exodus experience.
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He commanded Moses, craft for me a tabernacle, a tent to dwell in.
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So the Lord in the Old Testament in that exodus, He dwelt in the tabernacle. Jesus came and tabernacled among us.
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He dwelt among us. That word is actually used of Jesus. He tented among us.
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And remember how we've read, we read here in chapter 43, verse 1.
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The Lord says, I created you, O Jacob. I formed you, O Israel.
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And we read in 2 Corinthians 5 .17 that we are a new creation.
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We are new creatures, a new creation in Christ Jesus. Now, Tim Chester, in speaking of this, concludes this way.
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Let me read this paragraph for you. He says, the New Testament portrays Jesus as the
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Redeemer who sets free and leads us home to God.
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In this way, Isaiah is a bridge between Exodus and the
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New Testament. He takes the language of the Old Testament from Egypt and uses it to promise a bigger, better Exodus from slavery and death.
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And Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah's promise.
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So we move from that discussion of the New Exodus in verses 8 to 13 here in chapter 43 of God being on trial.
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He puts Himself on trial. And in verses 9 and 10, God summons the nations to this court case.
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He says, let all the nations be gathered together. Let all the nations be gathered together.
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Let the people be assembled. Who among them can declare this and show us former things? Let them bring out their witnesses that they may be justified.
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Or let them hear and say, it is truth. It is truth. In this trial,
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God is the plaintiff. He brings some accusations against the gods of the world.
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And in this trial, only one party can be vindicated, God or the gods of the world.
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The New Exodus, verses 1 through 7, this New Exodus is going to put God to the test, just as the first Exodus did.
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Remember that first Exodus was a contest, right? It was a contest between the gods of the
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Egyptians and the God of Israel. And what was the outcome of that?
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In Exodus 9, 16, God said to Pharaoh, I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
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And God demonstrated that the gods of the Egyptians were absolutely worthless.
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In that first Exodus, the question is, who is God? Followed up with, who is worth following?
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Who is the true God? And who is worth following? The New Exodus is no different.
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It's no different. We can ask that question in 2 Peter 3 of the scoffers. Who is the true
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God? Who is worth following? Now, God's claim in this trial is that all the other gods are imposters, that He alone is
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God. And in providing evidence for this case,
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He says that He alone can predict the future because He determines the future.
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And in the next several chapters, 44, chapter 45, chapter 46, He emphasizes that over and over again, that He alone can predict the future because He determines the future.
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But look at verse 9, the other gods, the imposter gods can't do that. Who among them can declare this and show us former things?
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In other words, things that are yet to pass that will be former things, that can show us prophetic truth.
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So God then presents His evidence. And let's just look at this very quickly.
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He says, all right, I am the creator, verse 10. The end of verse 10,
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He says, before me, there was no God formed. No, wait a minute, I'm sorry. You are my witnesses, my servant whom
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I have chosen. You may believe in me and understand that I am He. Before me, there was no God formed, nor shall there be after me.
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And you compare that with chapter 45, verse 12, where the Lord says, I have made the earth and created man on it.
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I, my hands, stretched out the heavens, and all their hosts I have commanded.
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I am the creator. Other gods are created. Remember that?
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They had to be put on the backs of beasts to be carried. In verse 11, God declares as His evidence,
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I am the Savior. He says, I, even I am the Lord, and besides me, there is no
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Savior. In verse 12, He declares that He is the revealer.
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I have declared and saved. I have proclaimed. And there was no foreign
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God among you. Therefore, you are my witnesses, says the Lord. I am God.
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So He has, God has revealed. He has spoken through His prophets. When we get to the
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New Testament, we read in Hebrews that in various ways, various times, He spoke through the prophets.
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And now in these last days, He has spoken through His Son, and He has spoken through His inspired
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Word. He is the revealer. And verse 9, only God can reveal the future.
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You ask that question, who else can do this? And then finally, we'll end with this.
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Who are the witnesses in God's behalf? His people,
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His people. Verse 10, He says, you are my witnesses, says the
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Lord. Speaking to His people, you are my witnesses. You know that this is true. You are my witnesses and my servant whom
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I have chosen that you may know and believe in me and understand that I am He. You testify to this.
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And the last part of verse 12, again, He says, therefore, you are my witnesses, says the
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Lord, that I am God. So when God goes on trial, the question is who is the true
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God and who is worth following? And the answer is that He is.
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He is, as an answer to both questions. We'll have to stop here and we'll have to pick this up next week and carry it on.
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It's an exciting passage of Scripture, speaking of this new, wonderful exodus.
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Thank you, Father, for your word and the encouragement from it, the blessing of the exodus from sin and death accomplished by the