ISAIAH 51: 1-8
LISTEN TO GOD!
[2 Peter 3:3-13]
Chapter 51 of Isaiah follows on the heels of what is known as “the third Servant Sermon.” In chapter 50, we heard the Servant speak of the suffering, pain, humiliation, and death He would suffer in order to bring light to the world.
Now, at the beginning of chapter 51, we hear an exhortation from God. It is a call to the faithful remnant, to those truly of Abraham, to listen to God. It is a message of hope, of joy, of redemption, of salvation to the righteous, to those who seek the Lord. Even in difficult times, listening to God and remembering our history with Him renews our confidence in His promises and His eternal salvation. Hearing God instills hope for the future.
I. LISTEN YOU RIGHTEOUS, 1-3.
II. PAY ATTENTION WORLD, 4-6.
III. HEAR YOU KNOWING, 7-8.
[THE RIGHTEOUS SEEK THE LORD] In verse 1 we learn the identification of the righteous listeners are those who are seeking God. “Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness, who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.
With emotion Yahweh cries out, “Listen to Me (50:10).” The Lord is now speaking to those who pursue righteousness (Deut. 16:20; Prov. 15:9; Mt. 5:6) and seek Him. (The Hebrew term tsedeq with its related term tsadiq and tsedeqah refer to loyalty and faithfulness which bring benefit -to a community of people. Righteousness indicates right behavior. Righteousness is what brings about well-being for the world (Bulter, Isaiah, 287). The Lord is addressing His faithful servants, the remnant that truly seek to obey and follow God’s will.
The believing remnant in Israel is to think back, reflect on their background. God is calling them, not to look at their present day situation and give in to despair, but to remember the promises that He made to their forefather Abraham. Look where you came from, who you came from. Find encouragement by looking back in to the beginnings of their history. God brought them forth from those who remained faithful. God will also keep His promises to those who remain faithful.
Those who are seriously pursing God, those seriously pursing righteousness, are person particularly prone to discouragement. Those whose hearts are hardened (46:12-13) are not troubled by the slowness with which God fulfills some of His promises. They never expected Him to fulfill them in the first place. For those though who trust God, who seek Him, delayed promises can be a hard trial.
The figure of the rock from which they were cut is explained in verse 2 as Abraham and Sarah. “Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain. When he was one I called him, then I blessed him and multiplied him.”
God started with only Abraham and Sarah, the ”founders“ of the nation. It seemed physically impossible that they would have child but they believed God (Gen. 15:6). God thus blessed him and made him many [that is, gave the patriarch many descendants as He had promised (Gen. 12:1-3; 13:16; 15:5; 17:5-6; 22:17; Ezek 33:24).] If the hallowed ancestor could accept God’s promise and trust Him through all the long wait, how much more should you who have seen the fulfillment of the promise believe this new message of hope.
These people are to believe Him too. Though they have not yet seen the fruition of God’s promises about Israel being a nation in the land (Gen. 15:18-21) they do have His sure word that God’s kingdom will be established on the earth.
God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. God blessed him, and from one, he became many. He promised him that he would become a multitude, a great nation, then made Abraham and Sarah wait until they could no longer conceive children before He ever gave them one child. Even that child he was asked to sacrifice. God promised him Canaan and Abraham never received it. Yet his descendants had become a great nation and inherited the promised land, They had lost the land and many blessings, but the remnant had not lost God. He said that I would be their God and they would be His people. Remember, “Listen to God…”, because regardless of your current circumstances, you, as His faithful remnant will be lifted up. You will be restored.
The remnant faithful to God felt so alone because they were so few. God reminded them of their ancestry, the source of their spiritual heritage. Abraham was only one person, but much came from his faithfulness. If they, the faithful few, would seek God, even more multiplication would come from them. If we Christians, even if we are a faithful few, remain faithful, believe that God will also do great things through us! [Application Bible, 1257]
In verse 3 God offers comfort to those who listen to Him. Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places and her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and sound of a melody.
God promises to transform the wilderness of rocks and dry river-beds (Joel 2:3) into a paradise, a new garden of Eden (35:1-2; Gen 2:8-10). Because of the Lord’s compassion (Isa. 49:10,13,15) the land will someday be fruitful like Eden . . . the garden of the Lord in contrast between the barren wilderness in which they presently found themselves. Because of God bringing this rehearsal the results of this lush spender will abound among the believing remnant. God’s renewal would bring a new atmosphere dominated by joy (51:11), gladness (25:9), thanksgiving and singing.
[Can you imagine a howling wilderness, a great and terrible desert like the Sahara. You are surrounded by hot and arid sand which is covered with ten thousand bleached skeletons of wretched men. They have expired in anguish, having lost their way in the pitiless waste. What an appalling sight! A sea of sand without end and without an oasis, a cheerless graveyard for a forsaken race! But behold and wonder! Suddenly, springing from the scorched sand, sprouts a green plant. As it grows, it buds, and the bud expands. It is a rose, and at its side a lily bows its modest head. As the fragrance of the flowers is diffused, the wilderness is transformed into a fruitful field. The desert begins to blossom as the glory of Lebanon is given to it. Where the skeletons lay bleaching in the sun, behold, a resurrection is proclaimed. The dead spring up as a mighty army, full of eternal life.
Jesus is that plant in the desert. His presence makes all things new. The wonder of life springing from death is no less in each individual’s salvation. The Father describes you as an infant, naked, unwashed, and defiled with blood, left to be food for beasts of prey. (See Ezekiel 16:3-6.) But you have been pitied and rescued by divine providence. You are washed and cleansed from your defilement. You are adopted into heaven’s family, the fair seal of love is upon your forehead, and the ring of faithfulness is on your hand. Oh, how precious is the matchless power and grace which changes deserts into gardens and makes the barren heart sing for joy. [Spurgeon, adapted]
II. PAY ATTENTION WORLD, 4-6.
[THE LORD’S JUSTICE TO EXTEND OVER THE WORLD]
In verse 4 God commands His people to stop listening to their own frustrations and heed His new edict. “Pay attention to Me, O My people and give ear to Me, O My nation. For a law will go forth from Me, and I will set My justice for a light of the peoples.
The address is now expanded even more. The LORD’s people and nation are to pay attention. The reason (ki) they should pay attention is because of the Lord’s ability and willingness to save His people from their sins. His law or instruction (tora) is going forth. His just rule (mispat) is going forth by means of His instruction so that all the peoples of the world will have His light. [The peoples seems to include all the nations.] The revelation of God’s will through His word gives light to all who will pay attention.
Verse 5 affirms the power and extent of the gospel light. “My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, and My arms will judge the peoples. The coastlands will wait for Me, and for My arm they will wait expectantly.
The nations are told to wait for God’s righteousness will be known (2:3) and justice will be established for the peoples and the islands (41:1) by His arm (His power; 51:9; 40:10). Why should the islands or the ends of the earth wait (60:9) for God’s deliverance? Why should they expectantly hope for it? Because God’s Servant would deliver the world from the clutches of sin just as Cyrus was to deliver the Israelites from the clutches of Babylon. It is a promise of salvation for the world.
Notice it is the arm or the delivering power of the Lord that is our hope. We long for someone who is both strong enough and good enough to rule.. . . in justice. Given the realities of human nature, order requires rule, and rule requires power. But power of what sort? [Here is the truth God has been trying to get His people to hear throughout the book of Isaiah.] It is the power of self-denial, the power of self-sacrifice, the power of innocence, the power of faithfulness, the power of holy love. This is the power for which all the world should wait in breathless anticipation. Does it know that is its great need? Hardly! Yet when the Servant/Messiah, the arm of the Lord (33:2; 50:2; 51:9;52: 10; 53:1), is revealed, there is often a sense of recognition, that satisfying click of a key fitting a lock, of a vague memory suddenly coming to full consciousness.
Again, all this is said to be imminent. Indeed, God’s salvation has already gone forth [another "prophetic perfect" like v. 3. The prophet sees the reality of what God is going to do so clearly that in his mind it is already done.] The fulfillment of God’s righteousness, His faithfulness to His own nature and promise culminates in human salvation. [Oswalt, Isaiah 40-66, 337]
Verse 6 compares scope of nature with scope salvation. “Lift up your eyes to the sky, then look to the earth beneath. For the sky will vanish like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants will die in like manner. But My salvation shall be forever, and My righteousness shall not wane.
In words reminiscent of 8:2l-22, God calls on them to look to the heavens and the earth. These are the places where the children of this world look for guidance and hope. There they will find none, for the heavens are no more eternal than smoke that whips away in the wind, and the solid earth is no more lasting than a threadbare old garment eaten by moths. But even more disconcerting is the truth that we who live on the earth and under the heavens are no more permanent than, they. If we are inclined to question the permanency of God’s promises, what would we like to put in their place? Certainly nothing created! If we think creation is permanent (Gen. 49:26; Ps. 148:3-6), it is as nothing compared to the permanence of what God in His righteousness means to do for the salvation of the world (see also 40:6-8; Ps. 102:26-27; 1 John 2: 1617).[Oswalt, Isaiah 40-66, 337]
The heavens and the earth will pass away, will vanish like smoke and wear out like a garment (24:4; Heb. 1:10-11); but the Lord’s work (salvation) and standards (righteousness) will continue forever (Isa. 51:8). For God’s salvation transcends time and the disappearance of the natural order. His salvation will last forever.
III. HEAR YOU KNOWING, 7-8.
Verse 7 is a call to those who love and obey God. “Listen to Me, you who know righteousness, a people in whose heart is My law. Do not fear the reproach of man, neither be dismayed at their revilings.
The call to listen combines something of the calls from each of the previous two. On the one hand the people are described as those who have a concern for behavioral righteousness in the light of God’s revealed instruction (tora). But they do not merely seek for this (v. 1) - they "know" it. God’s instruction is in their heart. Truly, these are God’s people (v. 4). As John the Baptist was to say many years later, God could raise up children of Abraham from the stones (Mt. 3:9); the issue is not genetics but obedience (Isa. 56:3-5). These are people who know how to do right. Know and in their hearts are parallels, because the knowledge of which the Bible speaks is rarely abstract knowledge, but rather a knowledge born of personal experience and behavior. To take something to heart is not merely to feel warmly about that thing, but to live out because one is personally, deeply committed to it. Thus these are listening persons who have "internalized" the teachings of Scripture, persons for whom the whole of their lives is shaped by a glad determination to live out the life of God. [This is also the language of the new covenant (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:27; Ps. 40:9).]
As 50:10 made plain, persons fearing God and listening to His Servant, will certainly find themselves at odds with a fallen world. The reproach and the revilings of the world are stated not as possibilities but as givens. It cannot be otherwise. To those who have rejected God’s light, the biblical understanding of life is not just foolishness - it is wrong (5 :20-21). Given that fact, how are believers to cope with it? When faced with the evil of the world, the seeming delay in the fulfillment of God’s promises, and the mockery and hatred of a sinful world, believers should remember the evidence of God’s faithfulness in history (vv. 1-3). They should recognize that God is the Creator whose promises of salvation will outlast the cosmos (vv. 4-6), and they should know that those who reproach and revile them, like all that has not partaken of the permanence of God, are doomed to the slow destruction from which none who have made this world their God can ever escape.
Therefore, knowing this fact, the remnant with God’s Law within them and eternal hope before them, should take courage and not be disheartened by their enemies insults (12-13; also note the Suffering Servant’s response in 50:6).
In 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, made history. For an amazing 12 seconds, a simple biplane flew several hundred feet.
People had said the Wrights must be crazy. Men would never fly like the birds of the air. But with determination and a goal of making a flying machine, they continued. For some, the reproach of others would have kept them from succeeding. Today, we honor Orville and Wilbur Wright as the fathers of our modern aircraft.
Does a fear of rebuke or reproach keep you from doing God’s will for your life? How long has it been since you witnessed for Christ? Are you comfortable in telling someone about the plan of salvation? If we allow others to control our freedom to follow God, we allow fear to rule our life. Pray that God will give you courage to share Jesus and conquer the fear of reproach.
Those who revile the Servant and accuse Him of wrong doing condemn themselves to a slow and certain destruction. Those who listen to and obey the Servant have come to partake of that righteousness which will be forever, and of that salvation which will be to every generation. Don’t be dismayed or be neutralized by the opposition of the passing away world.
The duration of God’s enemies is addressed in verse 8. “For the moth will eat them like a garment, and the grub will eat them like wool. But My righteousness shall be forever, and My salvation to all generations.”
Those who have chosen the god’s of time or the god’s of this world are likened to a garment and wool. The people that reproach and revile those faithful to God will eventually be destroyed. They will eventually perish like a moth-eaten garment, a metaphor the Servant used in an earlier promise (50:9).
Such people will be no more, but those who have gave God and His Servant their heart-felt obedience have chosen the way of permanence, certain, and joy. For God’s promised salvation will last through all generations.
God thus encourage those who followed His Word. He gave them hope when they faced people’s reproach or insults because of their faith. We need not fear when people insult us for our faith because God is with us and truth will prevail. If people make fun of you or dislike you because you belief in Jesus, remember they are not against you personally but against God. God will deal with them. You concentrate on loving and obey Him. [Application Bible, 1257]
CONCLUSION / TIME OF RESPONSE
Although the earth will be restored it will ultimately pass away. Scientist tell us that every second the sun burns 1,200,000 tons of mass. Now there is still enough mass to last ten billion years. But, the point is that everything is winding down, going from order into disorder.
Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.” Therefore even while the world is awaiting destruction, there is something solid, something unchangeable upon which we can build our lives; Jesus Christ and the Word of God the Word of God. The day of YAHWEH’S salvation will make your listening to God and your following of God worth all the effort your heart, soul, mind, and strength put into it.
