In Chapter 48, the prophecy turned back to Israel and Judah but God speaks about those who use the name but not truly or rightly.
"You have heard; now see all this; and will you not declare it? From this time forth I announce to you new things, hidden things that you have not known. They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, 'Behold, I knew them.' You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel.
Isaiah 48:6-8
In this verse God accuses Israel of a mental blindness as they hear and see but will not recognize and declare His works. God even says that He is doing a new thing so that they can't simply say that they saw it coming. They would have attributed God's judgment to "natural causes" if they had a chance.
"For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.
Isaiah 48:9-11
Here is another spot in which we see that Israel has failed to keep the Sinai Covenant (which was conditional) but God is honoring His covenant with David and with Abraham. God's salvation here is not based on Israel. Israel, like each one of us, deserved nothing but the wages of sin. That debt we owed was impossible for us but it must be paid. God must act based on His sake because we clearly don't want it based on our merits. It must be clear in our hearts and minds that God's work in our lives, like His work in Israel 2700 years ago, is going to reveal His glory for His sake and not to glorify us. We glorify Him.
"Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together. "Assemble, all of you, and listen! Who among them has declared these things? The LORD loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans. I, even I, have spoken and called him; I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.
Isaiah 48:12-15
The omnipotent God of the universe asks which of the idols has seen this ahead of time. God saw it ahead of time and prepared Cyrus (the one He loves) to deal with Babylon. Once again, God will use a wicked man according to his wicked nature to accomplish God's righteous purposes.
Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there." And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit. 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 in the way you should go. Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me."
Isaiah 48:16-19
All the blessings promised at Mount Sinai would have been theirs had they done what God commanded and they had promised to do. However, they are not forsaken. God still calls Himself the "Redeemer" and the "Holy One of Israel" so they have hope and reassurance from God that they will not be left and that God will free them from the Babylonian captivity.
God is both the Redeemer who pulls us out of our sins and failure and the Holy One who will not tolerate sin. As a recurring theme from Isaiah we look for some way to be cleansed from our sins. We have that in Christ and we see it foreshadowed in Isaiah.
Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, "The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!" They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out. "There is no peace," says the LORD, "for the wicked."
Isaiah 48:20-22
The response, when the call came to leave Babylon, was not as strong as it should have been. So, in context, God had a purpose in redemption, He provided, and He continued to discipline the wicked because hearts hadn't uniformly become conformed to God by the captivity (that is understatement of course).
God doesn't redeem in order to abandon His servants. He redeems and He provides in the desert. So even where there is no natural provision God can provide and we should always recognize that provision. But God doesn't redeem and then abandon His work in your life. I'm persuaded that He who began a good work in you will complete it (Philippians 1:6).
Completing that work in your heart will mean that those sinful parts of your life will not be left in peace. You should rejoice that God will not leave sin in your heart but you may not feel like rejoicing.
I started to wonder about the "end of the earth". I was wondering where that was if you were in Jerusalem or Babylon. Turns out it puts you in the ocean but it is not too far from the Pitcairn Islands. That was where Mr. Christian landed and hid with others of his band of mutineers from the HMS Bounty. It appears they kidnapped the Polynesians they had with them so they would have women. They landed in an unoccupied paradise with food and water and lots of land. So they were treasonous mutineers who had kidnapped for sex. Then they started fighting and killing and it continued through drunkenness so bad that the women tried to build a raft and leave. After suicides, murders, and fighting, peace came when Mr. Adams became the leader and began regular Sunday services and began teaching Christianity in the settlement. One man left (Mr. Adams), 9 Tahitian women, and dozens of children. The Bible from the HMS Bounty is still in the church there, under glass.
Apart from the Grace of God in our lives we would end up in just the same predicament when we are given paradise. In a sense, the angel guarding Eden is protecting Eden from us. Be sure to rightly value God's Grace in your life.
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