Praise God When His Help Comes (Isaiah 44:24-28; 45:1-8] Series

There is a short list of people in the church who are responsible for proclaiming a message from God to his people. Apostles, teachers, prophets, and evangelists, basically. That's the list.

Now, sometimes the specific word from God that needs to be communicated is controversial. If you're the prophet, or teacher, you know that your words are not going to be received very well. People are going to struggle to believe that this message is actually from God. Other times, you know that this message isn't one that fits people's theology, or beliefs. They will refuse to believe it's a word from God because of what they "know" about God, or Christianity, or whatever.

If you're a prophet, or teacher, and you know your target audience, you'll often have a pretty good idea of when things are going to be controversial. How do you handle that?

One option would be to simply pass over that issue. You refuse to tell people God's word (Jeremiah 20:9; contrast Isaiah 50:5). You might do that because you're a pastor with a spouse and kids, and it feels like the church (and not God) is the one keeping food on your table every month. You're scared, basically, of upsetting your "employer." Or you might do it because you value keeping the peace, more than speaking the truth. Church becomes like family holidays, where everyone kind of quietly agrees to not talk about those flash points like vaccinations, or Trump, or transgenderism.

If you want to avoid those flashpoints, as a pastor or teacher, it's often not that difficult. You can teach topically, and make sure to stay away from those things. Or, even if you teach through books of the Bible, it's not that hard to very slightly skip over the tough verses. Most people will never realize what you're doing. Who notices when your passage has 15 verses, and the teacher only talked about 5 of them? Does it register that the other 10 might be controversial, or that the teacher is possibly skipping over the really challenging, interesting stuff?

But let's say that a prophet, or a teacher, isn't willing (or can't; Jeremiah 20:9) to pass over the controversial thing. What's the best way to give that tough message?

Everyone might think I'm the wrong person to give advice for something like this, but I imagine that the best way to teach controversial things is to start by slowly preparing your audience to receive it. You push them, just a little bit, and stretch their thinking. And then right at the point when people's hackles are ready to come out, you back off. You leave them space to sit and think about it. Then, a couple weeks later, you bring it up again. Maybe you push it a little farther. Maybe, you don't. But you signal to people that this is something important, that isn't going to go away.

In Isaiah 40-55, there's a super controversial thing that God, through his prophet, wants to tell his people. God and his prophet know that this message isn't going to go over well. They've been trying to warm God's people in exile up to this idea slowly. They've introduced the tough thing, and then backed off. They reintroduced it, and then backed off again (and John Goldingay is the one who I found most helpfully presented this, although Christopher Seitz and Whybray also touch on it). The controversial thing has to do with how God will rescue them from exile. Specifically, with who God is planning to use. Who will be the new Moses, who will free God's people from their bondage?

Let's read those verses, and remind ourselves of them:

Isaiah 41:2-5 (NRSV updated no reason):

2 Who has roused a victor from the east,

summoned him to his service?

He delivers up nations to him

and tramples kings under foot;

he makes them like dust with his sword,

like driven stubble with his bow.

3 He pursues them and passes on safely,

scarcely touching the path with his feet.

4 Who has performed and done this,

calling the generations from the beginning?

I, the LORD, am first

and will be with the last.

5 The coastlands have seen and are afraid;

the ends of the earth tremble;

they have drawn near and come.

Isaiah 41:25-26:

25 I stirred up one from the north, and he has come,

from the rising of the sun (=from the east) he was summoned by name.[b]

He shall trample[c] on rulers as on mortar,

as the potter treads clay.

26 Who declared it from the beginning, so that we might know,

and beforehand, so that we might say, “He is right”?

There was no one who declared it, none who proclaimed,

none who heard your words.

Isaiah 43:14: