The Jews were in exile in Babylon. They had turned their backs on their God, and they were, you might say, in a state on national depression. You only have to, for example, look at the words of Psalm 137:
How could we sing
the Lord's song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.
Yet: if they had abandoned their God, he surely had not abandoned them. They were his people; people with whom he had made an everlasting Covenant. It was in God's covenant with Abraham that he would give the land as an everlasting possession. Their desparate words in the psalm surely reflect their question: ˜Why aren't we there?" From Isaiah they hear the message: ˜DON'T LOSE YOUR FOCUS.
For the prophet begins with words of clear promise; words offering hope, words bidding them not to give up under their present distress and depression. "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad...it shall blossom abundantly".
What I think these words, and all that follows them in this passage are words for God's people for all times and ages. The God of Abraham is the God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We live in times that could easily make us to despair, to give up hope. Do I need spell it all out: economic hardship, Afghanistan, climatic threat- and that's all without whatever personal hardships we may have to face, and words indeed to us if we have personally turned our back on our God. To the Jews of the 6th century BC; to us the message is: ˜DON'T LOSE YOUR FOCUS.
"They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. (v3)
And notice it's all ˜shall"; not maybe.
The Jews in exile desired a restoration to their own land- the land their God had given them. And God is a God of restoration; a God of putting all things right. That, indeed, is salvation's story.
Everything went wrong when sin came in. God came down to the Garden and placed a curse; man and woman made in his image had marred that image, and his creation was out-of-synch. Yet God's first curse was on the Serpent, and in the words "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel". God's desire was to restore. God commits himself from the very start to, as John puts it in his first episle: The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.(3:8)
The Jews desire to return to their land was eventually fulfilled, and the soundness of Isaiah's advice vindicated.
But this principle doesn't just reply to the Jews of 2,500 years ago. God's deeper purpose, as God declared in Eden was restoration: restoration of fallen, sinful mankind. If we fast forward 500 years, let's recall the message that the seventy took with them: "The Kingdom of God has come near to you" (Luke 10:9). This is the ultimate restoration: the coming of God's Kingdom. That will be the ultimaate, final restoration.
So, this is God's word to people of the New Covenant. It is the coming of God's Kingdom, of his putting all things right. That is his word to us, and it is then for us in all the difficult time and personal difficulties I mentioned earlier. It's a message that says Don't despair, don't give up, look to what I will do and know that must be good! In verse 4 of Isaiah the prophet says "Say to those of a fearful heart,˜Be strong, do not fear". And its just because of God's pledge that we can lift our heads.
˜DON'T LOSE YOUR FOCUS.
If things seem to be overwhelming you the word is “Keep your eyes on what I WILL do. In verse 5: [God] will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you†God is a God who must recompense evil, but the message of Jesus on the Cross is that he wreaked his vengeance on his Son, for those who believe the promise is of salvation. And verses 6 and 7 show that there will be a practical issue. Of blind eyes opened, the lame leaping like a deer; of springs of water in the thirsty ground. The miracles that Jesus wrought were sure signs of the nearness of God's kingdom. It is God's declaration, too, that he is concerned with the whole person. God's healing, where it occurs is just that: the sign of the Kingdom.
But Isaiah doesn't end there!
Verse 10, we have this: And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away". Everlasting joy; sorrow and sighing flee away, and in verse 9 we had “the redeemed shall walk thereâ€
I believe that here Isaiah has a glimpse forward to that future day spoken of in Revelation 21:3-4.
˜See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples,and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. Revelation 21 began with the promise of a new heaven and a new earth" (v1) Restoration: mankind set free from sin; a fallen creation set right;God's earth not abandoned, but rather a new, pristine earth (and heaven). Our eternal destiny is not to sit on clouds plucking harps. It is to live on a gloriously renewed earth, with God as our God, and we as his people (Rev 21:3)
God's promise is that he will restore humankind to his image in all its beauty (God in Genesis 1, declares man and woman to be ˜very good"), and also his creation will be restore to its original harmony and pristine beauty. And there, as we mentioned when we looked at verse 1, [we] shall see the glory of the Lord and the majesty of our God.
So, when we feel oppressed by the situation in the world around (and if our vision is earth-bound, then there is in all honesty plenty to makes us downcast and fearful of the future; if we are all to aware of our own fallibility, the call is not to be fixated by all that seems to wear us down. NO: It is to keep our hope rooted in God’s ultimate victory, and what he has planned for the future of those who are his.
These are God's promises and he bids us not to drown in our sorrows, but to look forward in hope to that final day of restoration! "DON'T LOSE YOUR FOCUS"
