“The
Lord’s Victory”
[Isaiah
42:10-17]
June
28, 2020 YouTube
After showing that idols can do noting and know nothing,
last week we heard about the coming of the Servant – the Promised Savior –
which would happen some seven hundred years after Isaiah preaches. God makes the point that since He has prophesied
in the past and those prophecies have come to pass, He should be trusted for
prophecies He now makes for the future.
God continues by prophesying about what will happen after
the coming of the Servant.
First, the whole world will sing praise to God.
“Sing
to the LORD a new song, his praise from the end of the earth,”
Everyone
on earth is called to sing a new song to the Lord.
The
psalmists talk of singing a new song:
“Shout
for joy in the LORD, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to
the LORD with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! Sing
to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts” (Psalm 33:1-3,
ESV).
A
“new” song is not necessarily one that is brand new, but one that is sung with
joy and exuberance. You are singing this
song because you are filled with joy and a need to sing it.
And
the whole world is called on to praise the Lord – from one end of the earth to
the other – all are to make known Who God is and what He has done.
That
means – even as you are being taking off into captivity. That means – even as you are dealing with Covid.
Captivity is awful. Having Covid is
awful. Whatever bad thing you are going
through is awful. That does not make God
any less deserving of our praise.
Understand: Isaiah is not saying to shake off the sorrow
of exile, or the possibility of sickness and death from Covid, or whatever it
is that you are facing. These things are
real and can bring real-life terrible consequences. Even so, God is worthy of our praise, and we
should give it to Him.
Is
it easy? No. Whoever told you life would be easy? I don’t think it’s easy. Paul said it was like running a marathon or
winning a boxing match.
The
psalmist writes:
“Praise
the LORD! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise
him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!
“Praise
him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with
tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with
sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that
has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!” (Psalm 150: 1-6, ESV).
Always. Everything.
Everyone. Praise the Lord.
The
Creation itself gets caught up in the praise of God.
“you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the
coastlands and their inhabitants.”
The people who go down to the sea and the inhabitants of
the coastlands – those would be representative for the Gentiles – the non-Jews
– and all the creatures of the sea – praise the Lord.
“Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the
villages that Kedar inhabits; let the habitants of Sela sing for joy, let them
shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory to the LORD, and
declare his praise in the coastlands.”
Isaiah points to Arabia – more Gentiles – the praise of
God is not required just from the Jews – or Christians – it is required of
every person and every creature and all of Creation. From the sea to the mountaintops, God
commands that glory be given to Him – that praise be declared to Him.
Praise
is to be given to God and not to idols.
Why?
“The LORD goes out like a mighty man, like a man of war
he stirs up his zeal; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty
against his foes.”
The Lord is like one of the mighty men – strong and brave
– excelling in war. He is a warrior
whose zeal is great – He is focused on achieving the end of His warfare. He is enthused – full of energy and righteousness. He cries as a warrior with a battle cry – He
shouts His victory across the mountains.
He is mighty against His foes. He
is victorious – totally victorious against His foes.
What
are we talking about?
The
initial image is found in the Garden:
Speaking
to the serpent, God says, “I
will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her
offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis
3:15, ESV).
The
Servant – the Seed of the woman – comes as a warrior to crush the serpent’s
head.
We
see the first part of this work in the Incarnation – in God enfleshed – living
under God’s Law, taking on the sin of all those who will believe, dying,
physically rising, and ascending back to His throne. In this, Jesus defeated the work of the
serpent and secured salvation for God’s people.
When
the Servant returns, He will not come as a lamb to be slaughtered, but as the
victorious lion and warrior:
“For
the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice
of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in
Christ will rise first” (I Thessalonians 4:16, ESV).
Then,
Paul says, “because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in
righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given
assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31, ESV).
This
will be the end of the serpent – the dragon:
“and
the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur
where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and
night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10, ESV).
The
result will be that the whole world will sing praise to God:
“Then
I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many
waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, ‘Hallelujah! For
the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the
glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself
ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure’— for the fine linen is the righteous
deeds of the saints” (Revelation 19:6-8, ESV).
Thus,
second, the Lord is victorious.
“For
a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself;”
From
Adam until now – in Jerusalem’s hearing – and to our time as well, God has not
poured out the fullness of His Wrath.
God would have been well within His rights to pour out His Wrath on Adam
and Eve, or Noah, or any mere sinner throughout history – all of us. But God chose to show mercy for the sake of
His people – His elect.
Paul
tells us:
“What
if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured
with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make
known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared
beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but
also from the Gentiles?” (Romans 9:22-24, ESV).
God
holds back the fullness of His Wrath so that all we who believe savingly in the
Servant, Jesus, would better understand the riches that God has prepared for
us.
God
is not allowing the wicked to get away with their sin – He will bring justice
for all sin. But He waits until His
Son’s return so we would know how great the salvation is that He has earned for
us.
But
the day will come when God no longer holds His peace.
“now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp
and pant. I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their
vegetation; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools.”
God says He is like a woman in labor. Eventually, the contractions begin, and there
is gasping and panting. And God gives birth when His Son returns. In great violence, the child comes forth –
the whole Creation goes through a metamorphosis and is renewed as God makes war
on the idolaters and releases His full Wrath upon them.
We remember that Paul says:
“For
the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For
the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who
subjected it, in hope that the creation
itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom
of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been
groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the
creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan
inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies”
(Romans 8:19-23, ESV).
Just as God is in the pains of childbirth, the Creation
is in the pains of childbirth, and all we who believe are in the pains of
childbirth. In the end, Jesus will
return, the wicked will be defeated eternally, and we and the Creation will be
restored, and we will be in the Kingdom of God forever.
Like the parable of the sheep and the goats that Jesus
would tell some seven hundred years later, God says He will divide humans into
two groups:
“And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not
know, in paths that they have not known I
will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough
places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.”
The chosen people of God – all those who believe in the
Servant for their salvation – God, Himself, with no help from any of us, will
lead and guide us, as one leads a blind person through places he does not know. And God will turn the darkness into light –
He will give sight to the blind and make the rough places level ground.
This is imagery of our salvation – as we probably
recognize – although all infirmities and diseases will be cast away in the
Kingdom, God also opens our spiritually blind eyes and causes us to see that
Jesus as the fulfillment of the promised Savior. And we are never left alone, for God the Holy
Spirit dwells within us to lead us to places we do not know and to mature us in
the faith and to change us into the Image of Jesus.
God says this about the idolaters – those who never
believe savingly in Jesus:
“They are turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust
in carved idols, who say to metal images, ‘You are our gods.’”
The other group are the idolaters, and God will turn them
back – they will not go forward into the Kingdom but will take on themselves
the eternal Wrath of God. They will be
put to shame for putting anything in the place of the One True God.
And so, the Lord is victorious over wickedness and all
idols. He sends His Servant to save His people,
and the rest are allowed to continue in their sin and await Hell.
So, let us rejoice in the Lord, always. He has saved us through His Son, and we will
be restored and made holy and healthy for all of eternity when Jesus returns to
judge the world.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for the prophecy about the
Servant. We thank You for opening our
eyes and leading us to understand that Jesus is God the Savior, the Servant of
God. We thank You for Your Mercy and
Your leading us by God the Holy Spirit through this life. Help us to look beyond the trials and
troubles of this life and always praise You for Who You are and all that You
have done. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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