BEHOLD THE COMFORT OF GOD
Isaiah 41:10
10 fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
There are questions that people have sought answers for since the beginning of time. Questions related to meaning, to life, to eternity, and purpose. Questions that are fueled by doubt at times, but ultimately seek to find answers.
Even those who seemingly are satisfied with lethargic experiences, temporal issues, and simplified experiences based on immediate satisfaction, the questions remain. Some spend their entire lives wrestling intellectually with such questions, looking for answers in human-based philosophy while others appear to just give up their quest and throw their arms up settling for the pleasures of the moment.
Yet, on the heart of every human being there is a longing. A longing to know. A longing for answers. A longing to discover the right questions.
A longing to matter.
I believe that even those who discount those longing truly have them, though buried deep within their psyche and perhaps under years of empty answers, false answers, and perhaps relational betrayals.
But the questions remain. About existence.
About providence. About life.
Part of what we see when we read the Word of God, when we begin this portion of the service with a reading from Scripture is that there is a history to this existence. There is a timeline that has a then, a now, and moments to come. A past, a present, and a future.
History seemingly repeats itself at times as we study about people, read biographies, highlight kingdoms and empires of the past, and then watch the latest news updates of the goings on in the world.
But is history truly cyclical? Sure, there is nothing new under the sun, but is our human experience little more than a wash, rinse, and repeat of events, activities, and experiences?
Or...is this story that we are experiencing working toward a climax? An end? An ultimate destination?
What is this all about? What is the point?
The prophet Isaiah lived during a tumultuous time on the historic timeline. A time when God’s people, his chosen people, the nation of Israel now divided into the nation of Israel and nation of Judah, have more than drifted from the glory and goodness of God and his law, and have run full force into the darkness relying on their own intuition, own strength, own intellect, and their own cunning...but have come to the point where God’s judgment upon them (warned of for years) will come to fruition.
The prophet clearly understands the truth of God’s sovereignty over all – over nations, people, circumstances, and history – and he is declaring this truth to non-listening ears.
Isaiah 41:1
Listen to me in silence, O coastlands;
let the peoples renew their strength; let them approach, then let them speak;
let us together draw near for judgment. 1
In this passage, God is speaking to his people through Isaiah. He is turning to the coastlands and to the Gentile nations and is speaking beyond just the Israelites. They are invited to “draw near for judgment” and in this case, that is a legal image. It is also translated as “draw near in the place of judgment” as in a courtroom. God is challenging the nations...all the nations...to consider the evidences that declare him sovereign over all.
“Let them approach, then let them speak” – an invitation to all to consider the truth, for each to make up his/her mind.
What is the gain for engaging in this thoughtful debate or conversation with God?
“let the peoples renew their strength;”
Sound familiar? It points to a passage in the previous chapter – the passage that about half of the Christian schools in America have claimed in order to have an eagle as their mascot (I think the other half use lions.)
Isaiah 40:31
31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. 2
Fun fact: “eagle” is the same word for “vulture” here.
God said this to his covenant people and in chapter 41 is offering the same promise to all.
I like how Ray Ortlund puts it...
“From the beginning, the fullest expression of God’s purpose has been one multi-ethnic community of redemption in Jesus Christ.”
To the church in Ephesus, Paul reiterated this...
Ephesians 2:11-13
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.3
This was not a plan B, for from the beginning of time, this was God’s desire. The prophet Isaiah speaks of this God of history being sovereign over all time in this way.
So yes – the OT book of Isaiah, as all the books in the Bible, speak of Christ.
Yet even in Isaiah’s day there was a misconception about God. It is no different than one of the many misconceptions of him today. Many
believe that if there is even a God, he is uninvolved in the world’s events (thus how can evil exist is the argument.)
Yet, the prophet speaks God’s answer to this.
Isaiah 41:2-3
2
Who stirred up one from the east (This is the Persian king Cyrus the Great. God is the great stirrer of history. God is accomplishing his redemptive work in the world by all means he determines. Isaiah is writing to the Jews exiled in Babylon in the sixth century. Cyrus would overtake Babylon in 539 BC and repatriate the captured Jews to their homeland. God is not the God of abandonment. As Cyrus, this pagan conqueror, is intent on dominating the world, the prophet is saying “But God is truly at work here...even if he and no one else will recognize it.”)
whom victory meets at every step? He gives up nations before him,
so that he tramples kings underfoot; he makes them like dust with his sword,
like driven stubble with his bow.
He pursues them and passes on safely,
3
by paths his feet have not trod. 4
The question in verse two is a “who” question not a “what” question. This is vital. When the prophet looks at the stirrings of things throughout history, the growth of empires, the fall of sinful kingdoms, the natural world, the flooding, fires, winds, and storms, the peaceful moments, the mundane as it were, the question is “WHO?”
Why? Because things do not just happen. Either things are just happening or there is a God sovereign over all.
Humanity has sought to ban God from the questions of life for millennia. Dostoevsky spoke of this and the implications of such: “Immortality of
the soul does not exist, therefore there is no virtue, therefore everything is permitted.”
This is the push from naturalists to embrace the theory of evolution in full. Why? Because if there is no creator, there is no ultimate determiner of right and wrong. Truth is relative and not absolute. Sin is a construct of culture and governments and religions, but not a reality of God because there is no God.
The question then surfaces and remains the one continually at the forefront of humanity – What is truth?
G.K. Chesterton said, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.”
Truth matters. Worldviews matter.
If God is not sovereign over all – even the calendar, if we are just circling the wagons and not heading toward a divine destination, then all this is futile. All this is worthless. All our hope and purpose and love and meaning is circumstantial. And with the circumstances that we face in this world...we are doomed.
But...God.
God is Truth. He is sovereign. And he owns the timeline. The one true, biblical, God-created, God-honoring, God-designed, God- managed...timeline. No variant timelines here. No multiverses. Just one. The one. By God and for God.
And by his plans, we are on it. Here. Today. In this place. Not forsaken. Not ignored.
Just as God’s people have been throughout the ages. 6
We believe that Jesus Christ is the one that was foretold and promised throughout the Old Testament. That he was more than man, but the perfect God-man – Second person of the Trinity (the three-in-one Godhead) Son of God, God the Son and he is truth.
The Holy Spirit (third person of the Godhead) awakens this within us. Our lives are flooded with this reality. We then have to do something with this transcendent understanding. Either we see the cross as real, the resurrection of Christ as actual and needed, the love of God as lived out in the personification of the gospel in him, the redeemer and rescuer coming to save and pay the debt of sin we owe, or we miss the point entirely and define truth as situational and end up remaining on the self- made throne of the world that we have created to give us some semblance of meaning, all to ultimately discover that whatever we build, whatever we design, whatever we win, is temporal and futile.
And that leads to despair.
The verses that follow from four to eight speak of humanity’s continued push toward self-reliance, yet with the constant reminder of God’s heavenly hand guiding and controlling.
People do good deeds. Work well to create nice communities. Craftsmen strengthen the idols they create. Humanity longs for stability. They may call it peace, but it truly is stability. Every day normal is the desire.
As God moves, however, people longing for their own versions of peace avoid holiness and righteousness and cheer on their neighbors’ ideologies and their own created philosophies.
But God...
God sees the faithful. God knows his children. And God is moving humanity to a point of response.
7
God emboldens his children with strength, with courage, with true peace (not inner peace...but true peace.)
Isaiah 41:8-10
8 But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
you whom I took from the ends of the earth,
and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant,
I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
The conjunction “but” draws a contrast.
For centuries people have idolized their own created saviors. BUT God upholds his children by his powerful right hand. This is the assurance to the people of God as a nation and to the grafted in people of God (the Gentiles – you and I) in completion through Christ.
10 fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. 5
Fear not. Behold the comfort of the God who is. The Great I AM. The Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Your God who will strengthen you, help you, and uphold you.
To the believers this is great comfort. To the unbelievers, this is the invitation to come to him.
Footnotes
1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 41:1). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
2 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 40:31). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles
3 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Eph 2:11–13). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
4 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 41:2–3). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
5 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 41:8–10). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
