The Prophecy of Isaiah - Lesson 40

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Prophecy is an easy thing for God. God uses it as proof of His activity and engagement with the world. We may stagger in unbelief when God names Cyrus as His anointed shepherd before Cyrus "was". However, what about your salvation? God actually begins to address the salvation of the Gentiles (us) and once again God is saying what He will do long before it happens. God doesn't do this to "show off" but rather God does this to build our faith and confidence in Him and in His ability to work in our lives.

"Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: 'To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.' "Only in the Lord, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength; to him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against him. In the Lord all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory."

Isaiah 45:20-25

We see Isaiah using the courtroom picture again. This time it is survivors of the nations that are being spoken to. God's point is that He is the only one who spoke and explained what was going to happen long before it happened. He is both righteous and a Savior and here we have the call of John 3:16 to the entire world for repentance and salvation.
God swore a covenant to Abraham "in a righteous word that shall not return" when God took Abraham outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then He said to him, "So shall your offspring be." (Genesis 15:4-5). Abraham believed that his offspring would come from the impossible bodies of himself and Sarah. God says "By myself I have sworn" and in this covenant He has literally sworn by Himself. Remember the events described in Genesis 15:7-20 when God passed in the form of fire between the carcasses of the animal sacrifices. The custom is to swear by something greater but there is nothing greater than God and Abraham had asked how he would know or what sign he would have that God would fulfill this incredible promise and the "unchangeable character of His purpose" (Hebrews 6:13-20). So our anchor holds within the veil because of Christ and not because of us.

In part we see God's blessing of Abraham's children right now, 2700 years after the prophecy, as you are the offspring of Israel but in part this also waits for the end of time when all the offspring of Israel are present and the judgment comes and every knee bows and every tongue confesses. In Him is righteousness and strength for judgment day. For those who cling to their idols and reject Christ there will be shame and judgment.
 We must have "a righteous God and a Savior" together. God's purity and holiness are without compromise and must be since His holiness is a perfect holiness and compromise would put an end to perfect holiness. That puts us in dire straits and without hope. But God, who is rich in mercy, sent a Savior. Psalm 85 says:

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky. Yes, the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps a way.

Psalm 85:10-13

How can steadfast love ever meet up with us who are faithless? How can righteousness ever have anything but war with us who are sinful and caught up in a treasonous rebellion against a Holy God? God in His mercy makes faithfulness spring up from the earth by turning dead hearts into living hearts. He does that so righteousness can look down from the sky and not destroy the earth. So the righteousness of Christ is ours and He has become the Way. His walk and His life have made a way where there was no way.

Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity.

Isaiah 46:1-2

Once again God points out the futility and stupidity of placing faith in idols and here foreshadows the coming destruction of Babylon. God names two of the chief Babylonian deities. In fleeing before Cyrus, the "gods" become useless burdens. Even the pack animals are tired of carrying them around. Bel is another name for Marduk and Nebo was the name given his son. You see the honor given his name as it appears in "Nebuchadnezzar" and each year Nebo was carried from Borsippa to Babylon with pomp and circumstance for a celebration. God shows the coming picture here of the useless idols taking the role of baggage for those running from Babylon.

"Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

Isaiah 46:3-4

The contrast with an idol is that God carries you. Most of us have probably seen the "Footprints in the Sand" poem. It has been printed on about everything you can print a poem on. The point of the poem is that during difficult times there was a single set of footprints in the sand and God answers by saying that He carried the person during those times. I don't see that this Scripture allows for a time you can claim two sets of footprints. God doesn't just carry us in bad times (though we may feel His hand in a special way in the dark times). God carries us from before birth, from the womb, even to old age and gray hairs. I think I especially value God's ability to bear me up when I, in ignorance, walk blindly through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Of course I value Him carrying me when I'm in the Valley and know it too but there is no end to the care God shows for us and our limited minds have no idea what He does on our behalf.

"To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike? Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship! They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble. "Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,' a calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. "Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness: I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory."

Isaiah 46:5-13

The Babylonians will be running from Babylon and carrying idols. The blindness and madness (driven by our sin nature) in idol worship is that you bear the burden of your god. Anything you carry cannot rationally be considered a god of any sort. Even today we can place our trust in material things that may be meant to bless us and others. When we place trust in material things then they become a burden to us as we spend our lives on them. The Babylonians had a tremendous burden with all their useless idols. Cyrus is the "bird of prey from the east, the man of counsel from a far country".
 Cyrus was God's plan. Cyrus would not have acknowledged God and would worship all the Babylonians gods for political reasons. He trusted in himself and, in his experience, it must have appeared the right thing to do. In another context I mentioned the concept of a "post hoc" error. It comes from the Latin phrase "post hoc ergo propter hoc" and means essentially "after this then this". We are prone to post hoc errors and that means we reason that if something happens then the situation or our behavior caused it. I've spent hours trying to come up with a particular action that would explain a computer "glitch". I would think I knew what I did to cause the error (the first step in isolating and fixing the problem) only to find out that what I thought cause the problem had nothing to do with the problem. We see it when we fish and begin to think we need to hold our mouths right to get the fish to bite. All those who witnessed Jesus telling Peter to fish from the other side of the boat probably spent the rest of their lives only fishing from the other side of the boat. It had nothing to do with sides of the boat. It had everything to do with obedience.

The danger in post hoc errors in our life is that we forget that God is directing and blessing. We start to think that our lives are our own and our skills are the drivers in our success (with a little bit of luck). Think about how locked into this way of thinking that Cyrus was. Can you imagine trying to tell Cyrus that the God of the Jews was the reason he was in power? He thought that he was better than his opponents. His post hoc error was that he saw everything work out in his favor and he figured it was because of him. He thought he really was better than the enemy. He thought that he really was more skilled and worthy.

Even as one of the redeemed (or maybe especially as one of the redeemed) we don't want to fall into this kind of thinking. This is true when we consider our salvation and the unfathomable grace that God has given us. We can begin to think it was because of us. It would be better to think that it was in spite of us.