BEHOLD THE WAY OF GOD
Isaiah 43:19
19 Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert. 1
There is an interesting dichotomy that many people live with. On one hand the love of all things nostalgic is huge. There are small towns that otherwise may as well have rolled up the streets and closed shop when past industries or agrarian lifestyles stopped or left. Yet, they have begun a new life as purveyors of all things antique.
So, whether it’s the Antiques Roadshow, Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, or American Pickers, there has been an uptick from regular folks hoping to find a treasure in someone else’s junk heap or at a minimum, in their grandmother’s attic.
But, at the same time, there is a longing for the new. The latest and greatest of everything is desired and the marketing of such is intent on creating this longing in customers and potential customers.
Things do not last as long as they used to – case in point the washing machine we own versus the ones my parents owned while I was growing up. They may have been painted a green color, but they lasted about ten times longer than what is sold today.
Just a week ago we threw away some computers. They did work, but they were so old and the software so outdated that the time taken just to
boot up the system made the computers worthless. And with new options coming out regularly, the old is not even supported and becomes little more than reminders of a bygone era.
New and old.
Both loved and both reviled. Depending on what we are speaking of.
In the historic context of Isaiah 43, the prophet is giving God’s word to his people as they are in dire straits. They are captive to the Babylonians. They are facing the discipline of their loving Father due to their years of generational sin...yet God has not forsaken nor forgotten them.
There is a way to renewal. There is a way to life. There is a way that provides hope and a better gathering of circumstances. There is a way to revival.
And when I say revival, I am not referring to an organized set of weekly meetings featuring a guest evangelist and gospel singing group. I’m not speaking of an event-focused, attractional gathering intent on packing a pew. I am speaking of the biblical revival that reignites a fading flame among the hearts of God’s children.
Reforming our walk and reviving our hearts is the need of God’s people today as it was in Isaiah’s day.
A.W. Tozer spoke of this clearly:
A revival of the kind of Christianity which we have had in America the last 50 years would be the greatest tragedy of the century, a tragedy which would take the church a hundred years to get over.
Ouch! And Tozer died in 1963.
There is no value, no point, and no health in reviving something that is not biblical. Reviving the wrong kind of Christianity will not result in redeemed lives, reformed living, renewed prayer, or reignited passion for God’s glory. It may...as has been seen in the past, result in large crowds in the immediate, celebratory gatherings for a moment, and a feeling of mutual “doing good so that I feel better about myself” moments, but that is not revival. That is event planning with a smattering of self-help psychology wrapped in tried and true marketing techniques.
Marketing and business/leadership strategies are not sinful in my estimation but can be when return on investment quotas are the litmus test for godliness.
Through chapters 42 and 43, the prophet Isaiah address the core of the issue that God’s people are facing. The infection of sinfulness is rampant and at this point, simply treating symptoms is the equivalent of “making people comfortable” as they are dying when the cure for the ailment is available.
God is not offering hospice care for sinfulness, but a cure.
THE ISSUE
Isaiah 42:18-19
18 Hear, you deaf,
and look, you blind, that you may see!
19 Who is blind but my servant,
or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one,
or blind as the servant of the LORD? 2
Isaiah has been speaking of leading the blind nations into the light of God. Therefore, the logical thing in reading this is to believe the deaf and blind here in this verse to also be the pagan, unbelieving nations that surround God’s people.
No. That’s not who he is speaking to.
No – not the lost nations who act lost.
“Who is blind but my servant?” – ‘eved YHWH
My servant? Look back at the beginning of this chapter.
Isaiah 42:1
Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations. 3
Something has happened between the first verse and the 18th verse. The “servant” is not Cyrus or a pagan nation. It is God’s people – Israel – the servant of the Lord. Yet, in this timeline, the servant has gone from bringing salvation to all the nations to being blind and deaf to God himself. God’s messenger no longer can or will hear God himself. In the first few verses the servant of the Lord brings perfection to the world. In the last portion of the chapter, he fails.
What?
The clue is in verse 24.
Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk,
and whose law they would not obey? 4
Being God’s servant, but choosing to not see or hear him leaves God’s people fruitless and “deaf and blind” to the message they are to share. They fail.
The failure is deadly. It is serious. It is a really big deal!
So...now we see verses 1-4 as looking forward to Jesus Christ. The perfect servant, the suffering servant, the redeemer, the Son, God himself, the unfailing one.
Isaiah 42:1-4
Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged
till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law. 5
There is a sickness, an illness, a cancer of the soul that will only be remedied by One.
Isaiah 43:1-2
But now thus says the LORD,
he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
“But now” moves from the issue to the remedy.
The blindness of Jacob and Israel here in this chapter is no different than that of the “servant” in the previous, but now...but now...the grace of God is evident as the cure.
3a
For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I have redeemed you. I have called you. You are mine. Precious words to an undeserving nation.
Precious words to an undeserving people.
Precious words to me and you...the undeserving.
Isaiah reminds the people of his day of their journey of faith and rescue, of the journey of their long-dead ancestors from slavery in Egypt, from their current status in Babylon, from their dire moments of despair, of
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
their deserved destruction and discipline due to their sin and abandonment of God and his word.
But the grace of God prevails.
For the New Testament Christians (that would be us) the ease to being “blind and deaf” is evident. The Christianity that markets itself on branding and crowd-gathering often fails to see that revival desired is not the revival needed.
17 who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:18 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Who makes the way? Who defeats the enemy? Who is victor in the battles that matter? Who is sovereign over all?
The same God who always has been. Behold a new thing. Can’t you see?
Isaiah 43 16
Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,
You know who cannot see? The ones who continually clamor for vision of the future and growth in religious market share, but cannot perceive the new thing because they strain to hold onto to the old things that did not matter.
There is a way. A way to life.
And Jesus is that way.
John 14:6
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.9
Footnotes
1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 43:19). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
2 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 42:18–19). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
3 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 42:1). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
4 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 42:24). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
5 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 42:1–4). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
6 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 43:1–2). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
7 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 43:3). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
8 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Is 43:16–19). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
9 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Jn 14:6). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
