Listen, To Receive God's Best (Isaiah 48:1-22) Series

One of the hardest things to do in the entire world, is to listen when someone gives you good advice. Listening requires a lot from you. It requires an openness to unpleasant possibilities-- the possibility that you're wrong, that you don't know everything, that someone else knows more than you, that there is an easier and better path forward than the one you're taking. I remember one time at [my place of employment], I had done something in a particular way for over a decade, and a fairly new coworker let me know there was a trick to doing it better, and faster. I found myself responding by being kind of upset, and thinking about how I'd been doing this 12 years, and knew what I was doing. I managed to keep my mouth shut, except to thank him, and then I tried doing it his way. He was right. It was better, and faster. It was good advice-- but hard for me to take.

In the first 9 chapters in the book of Proverbs, we hear the words of a dad, instructing his son in how to live a successful, prosperous life. There are many lessons this dad wants to pass down to his son, to give him this, but the starting point for all of it, is that the son needs to be willing to listen, and to heed that advice.

Listening to advice is hard. And actually using that advice, and turning into something profitable, is even harder. Iron sharpens iron, but it's unpleasant when you're the one being sharpened (it's also unpleasant being the prophet or teacher or friend who is trying to do the sharpening, and we will actually see that next week in Isaiah 49).

What we've seen in our series on Isaiah 40-55, over and over, is that God's people refuse to be sharpened. They refuse to listen to God's prophet. The prophet has given oracle after oracle. There have been lots of fresh words from God (anticipating Isaiah 50:4). And the people have responded by changing nothing. Shockingly, they still are hanging on to their literal idols (Isaiah 48:5, most obviously). They refuse to change their perspective, and see their situation from God's eyes instead. And they refuse to believe that God is working through Cyrus to help them.

Our passage today is best understood as one last call from God, encouraging his people to listen. And, at the risk of giving spoilers, I'll just say that this call is not one that Israel immediately heeds. Next chapter, we will see God pivot, and change his approach (for a second time), in an effort to overcome his people's stiff-necks, and bronze foreheads. But this pivot comes at a cost to God's people. When you don't listen, you don't get God's best. You don't prosper.

Before we dive in, I should probably say that this is a big, complicated passage. There's a lot of debate about how it all fits together, and I'm probably not going to get everything quite right. But as we work through our passage, try to focus on two main themes. The first, is the idea of "listening." That's a thread that runs through the whole passage, and probably the one thing we need to hear most today. The verb to listen is found like 11 or 12 times. So listen for that-- it shouldn't be hard-- and as you listen, let me just encourage you to consider how well you listen to (1) God, (2) to God's Holy Spirit, and particularly, (3) how well you listen to the people God has sent to teach you his way. Listening is hard.

The second thing I want you to try to focus on is the contrast between what God has said and done in the past, and the new thing that God is now announcing, and now doing. In essence, God is telling his exiled people, "You've failed to listen to me, and trust me, all along. You blew it, and you've made life harder than it needs to be for you. Now, though, I'm giving you a second chance to listen."

Let's start by reading verses 1-2. God, through his prophet, calls his people to listen, and He then describes them in a lengthy, complicated way:

(1) Listen [to] this, House of Jacob!, [Hosea 12:3-4?; Jeremiah 9:4?]

The ones called/identified by the name of Israel [Isaiah 43:1],

while from the waters of Judah they have come out; (Psalm 68:27?; Genesis 38? ambiguity?)

The ones swearing oaths in/by the name of Yahweh (Deut. 6:13),

while the God/Elohim of Israel they mention (Gen. 40:14; Ps. 87:4)/invoke (Psalm 20:8; 1 Chr. 16:4; Joshua 23:7)--

not with faithfulness (Genesis 4:27),

and not with righteousness; [Isaiah 58:2]

(2) Surely, after the holy city (=Jerusalem) they are called, (Isaiah 43:7)