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December 19, 2007
Midweek Advent 3
Isaiah 43:14-21
Pastor Joel Zank

GOD’S PROMISE TO ISRAEL

(Isaiah 43:14-21)  This is what the LORD says-- your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "For your sake I will send to Babylon and bring down as fugitives all the Babylonians, in the ships in which they took pride. {15} I am the LORD, your Holy One, Israel's Creator, your King." {16} This is what the LORD says-- he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, {17} who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: {18} "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. {19} See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. {20} The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, {21} the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.

In Christ Jesus, who alone is the Way to heaven, dear fellow redeemed,

As a child, I would, from time to time, get my feelings hurt. Sometimes that would happen when I was playing with neighborhood friends. We might be in the middle of a football game or playing “Hide & Go Seek” or “Kick the Can” when suddenly I would decide that I was not getting my way. So I would let it be known that I was not happy and that if this did not change in the next minute or two, I was going to quit and go home. Now sometimes, if the numbers were in my favor, that actually worked. But more often than not, someone, usually one of the bigger kids, would holler back, “O yea? You’re going to quit? Is that a threat or a promise?” A threat or a promise – the two are related you know – a fact I was taught there on the playground at the “School of Hard Knocks.”  Maybe you went to that same school. The people mentioned in our text certainly did. Granted, they were a few classes ahead of me. For that matter they were a few classes ahead of Jesus, seeing how they lived and died the better part of 700 years before his birth. But the lessons God taught them about threats and promises continue to have a profound effect on us, so much so, that these lessons actually hold the key to our eternal life in heaven. So let’s give careful consideration to “God’s Promise to Israel.”

As you read through the words God speaks in our text, you quickly gather that he has a special place in his heart for the people of Israel. He even refers to them as “...my people, my chosen...”  You might wonder what they had done to earn such a distinctive honor. The answer–absolutely nothing. In fact, at the time God speaks these words, Israel had left her Redeemer for the arms of another, or should I say, for the arms of many others. You see, it had become politically correct in Israel to bow the knee to every false god of every nation in that part of the world.  And yet, when it came to the one true God, Israel and her leaders paid him no attention. Why would they? The false religions of the Canaanites encouraged greed and selfishness as a way of life. And as if that were not enticing enough, the worship services of their so-called “deities” were nothing more than drunken parties that regularly included the services of temple prostitutes. Without hesitation, Israel sold herself to one foreign god after another.

This is the backdrop against which God speaks the words of our text, promising to come to the aid of people who want nothing to do with him. We might wonder: “Is God so desperate for affection?” Of course not. Instead we should marvel: “How great is God’s love!” So great, that this love is willing to rescue the most vile and undeserving of sinners. But rescue them from what? Well, here is one of those places where a threat and a promise find themselves so closely connected.

In order to appreciate God’s promise to Israel, we must first understand God’s threat to Israel. Because God’s people have so willingly and so happily given themselves over to foreign gods, God has decided to give his people over to a foreign nation, namely the nation of Babylon, a powerful people who occupied the land we know as Iraq. For the first 39 chapters of his prophecy, Isaiah has issued warning after warning about the coming destruction. The people have been told in no uncertain terms that the Babylonians will invade their country, pillage their cities and take captive their people. They will lose their independence, their culture, and most importantly, their temple. I say most importantly for the temple is there one connection to God.

Now keep in mind, that at the time Isaiah records the words of our text, none of this has yet happened. In fact it will not happen for another 90 years. It won’t surprise you, then, to hear that Israel dismissed these threats as the ramblings of a senile prophet, and so nothing changed. The people kept right on indulging all their sinful desires as they kept right on worshiping all those false gods. No, I don’t suppose that would surprise you, but maybe this will. In spite of the fact that his people have laughed off his threats, in spite of the fact that they have not displayed a bit of remorse or repentance, nevertheless, God speaks the beautiful words of promise found in our text.

Again, for the vast majority in Israel, this promise means nothing. It is as laughable as the threat that preceded it, maybe even more so. But in time, all that will change. God speaks these words because he knows that in another hundred years, these are the only words that will keep his people from despair. A day will come when the Israelite captives living in Babylon will be consumed by sorrow and regret over their foolishness and sin. But it will be too late, or at least it will seem that way until someone recalls something about a promise in the scroll of Isaiah. With longing eyes the captives will search the prophet’s writings word for word until they find it – a sight for sore eyes: “This is what the LORD says-- your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "For your sake I will send to Babylon and bring down as fugitives all the Babylonians, in the ships in which they took pride. {15} I am the LORD, your Holy One, Israel's Creator, your King" (Isaiah 43:14-15). Could there be better news for a people in exile? God has not forgotten them. The one who created them to be his own, the one who rules them as loving LORD also happens to be the King of Kings. And as such, he will soon use his might and influence to take down the Babylonians. Soon the captors will themselves become the fugitives, forced to flee their homeland like rats fleeing from a sinking ship.

That’s quite a promise and there is more to it, but first a little reassurance from our God. Have you ever noticed how he does that? He builds every promise he makes on his perfect record of love. You can trust him because he has all the grace and power he needs to keep his word. For example, he reminds the captives in Babylon that their ancestors had been in a far worse situation in Egypt where they were slaves for hundreds of years. God promised to deliver them and we all know what happened. When all seemed to be lost, when Pharaoh’s army had the people of God trapped at the shores of the Red Sea, God made a way out for Israel. He parted the waters and brought his people safely through them on dry land. But when the Egyptians followed, God drowned them, “snuffing out” Pharaoh’s mighty army “like a wick.”

What a miracle! And yet God now says to the captives in Babylon: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. {19} See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:18-19). It’s as if God were telling Israel, “You thought that miracle at the Red Sea was something, hold on! You haven’t seen anything yet. Now I’m going to bring you back to the Promised Land. Rather than simply making a way through the sea, I will make a way for you through the entire Arabian Desert. I’ll see to it that you have food and water and protection. Even the animals that live in that wasteland will benefit from and celebrate my goodness to you!”

Christians, seventy years after God’s people were taken captive by Babylon, God kept his promise and freed his people, just as he said he would. Now maybe you’re thinking, “That’s a great story, but what does it all have to do with me?” It has everything to do with you. Setting his people free from captivity was just the beginning of the new and greater miracle God was performing. It was just a hint of the greater deliverance he was setting into motion–your deliverance. That’s right, way back then, God was already thinking of you when he resettled his people in places called Judea, and Galilee and Nazareth and Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Sound familiar?  He brought the people of his servant David back to their homeland so that at just the right time and in just the right place, great David’s greater Son would be born on earth for you and for all people.

Again, God did all this because of the threats and promises he has made. You are well aware of the threats; they echo through the canyons of your conscience all the time – “The soul who sins is the one who will die” (Ezekiel 18:20). “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). We can’t silence these threats for we were born captive to sin and Satan. Worse yet, because we were born with a sinful nature, very often we do not want to escape our captors. There are sins in life that we look forward to, temptations that we surrender to without any struggle at all. It all seems so enjoyable—for a minute or two, but, then, reality sets in. The great tempter, Satan, shifts into “torture mode.” He takes the very sin with which he has just enticed us, and now uses it to terrify us, reminding us that every one of sin’s short-lived pleasures always comes with an eternal price to pay in hell. And so we’re trapped in an unending cycle of temptation and terror, helpless to free ourselves, and hopeless because we cannot give God one good reason to come to our aid.

There is nothing in us or about us that could move God to help us. But thank God that there is something in him that moves him to save us. That something is pure grace–undeserved love that made and kept a promise to Israel, a promise that has freed even us from death and from the devil. When sin had us cornered, when its curse was breathing down our necks, God made a way out for us. He gave us Jesus who says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6). And so he is, my friends! Jesus has become our life, by giving us what we needed to live–his holiness. He has become our way to heaven, by taking away from us the sin that was killing us eternally.  What an amazing turn of events. God’s Son became the captive in our place so that we can live free from sin’s guilt and curse. On the cross, Jesus faced God’s anger as our Substitute; he took God’s punishment, he suffered our hell and did it all so well, so perfectly that there is not the least bit of God’s wrath or punishment left for us, not even a little resentment.