I Will Sustain You - Isaiah 46

                          

Adam and Heather, you chose this passage for the baptism of Richard and Rosemary. It’s a passage of hope and comfort that challenges us to follow and honour God in everything, and to focus our hearts on God so that our lives glorify God, especially in times of trial. 

It's near the end of Israel’s exile in Babylon for not being faithful to God. They always did the rituals and festivals but didn’t allow God’s laws to shape them to love God and to love their neighbours, especially those who are going through difficult times. It’s been a long 70 years in exile, but it’s almost finished. It’s been filled with times of persecution and times of God showing his power in the center of Babylon’s empire. We remember how God saved Daniel from hungry lions, saving Daniel’s 3 friends from a fiery furnace, and used the orphaned Jewish girl Esther to save his people during a particularly dangerous time for God’s people. With all of this in mind, Isaiah calls the people to remember who God is and reject Babylon’s idols.

The scholar F Kidner shows how Babylon’s gods were similar to the gods that Israel had chased after earlier. Bel was Babylon’s national god of fertility and agriculture, whose son Nebo was the god of learning. Their names are found in king’s names such as Belshazzar, or Nebuchadnezzar. Both gods were regularly transported in processions, weighing down the pack-animals. God, through Isaiah, shows how great the difference is between these idols who are just burdens the people have to haul around, while Yahweh carries his people throughout their entire lives.

These idols are nothing but creations, created by the creatures the eternal God has created. God tells Israel, “Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” With all the history God has with Israel, with all the covenants and promises that God has made and kept with his people, Israel is still constantly tempted by the gods of the nations around them. Idols promise you the things you desire, all you have to do is give them your loyalty. Idols demand your devotion in return for temporary pleasure. In doing so, you take away from God’s glory, making him less in your heart. God calls for a response from his people here. God reminds them that he is the only God who is always with them, who cares for them, sustains them, and carries them from birth to death. There’s an especially powerful word of hope here as God reminds them that he’s also their rescuer, echoing back to Egypt, and ahead to their upcoming return back to the Promised Land.

Israel, and we today, too easily fail to give God the glory he deserves and instead focus our hearts on our desires instead. We have our own idols. We allow ourselves to fool ourselves in believing that if we give God some, or even most of our devotion, we’re good and he’ll accept whatever we’re willing to give him. We forget that God is a jealous God and demands all our devotion, something God told Israel in Leviticus, and as Jesus later reminds his followers. Loving God with our entire heart, soul, mind, and strength is the foundation of our relationship with him; anything less takes away from God’s glory and we place ourselves in charge instead of God. God doesn’t like playing games with us when it comes to our relationship with him. It’s important to glorify God and not focus on our own pleasures and wants. God promises to sustain his people, willing to carry us through our difficult times, trusting in his way over the world’s ways. How we respond to God in the difficult times is important; showing our trust in following his way over our own, shows our faith in God, even if it’s really hard. In fact, the harder the situation, the more glory we give God. In hard times, our faith can grow stronger when we choose to trust God’s way.

God calls for a response here. God challenges them, “With whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?” God mocks the idols here and the people who worship the idols, “Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it. They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Even though someone cries out to it, it cannot answer; it cannot save them from their troubles.” We shouldn’t fool ourselves about who God is, he’s the only God, there is no other God like him. God has full knowledge of the past, the present, and the future. He’s in control, even in the heart of the greatest empire of that time. God saves, not our idols.

God reminds them, “Remember this, keep it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” Israel is still in exile in Babylon. They’re still a conquered people and often oppressed. They’re at the mercy of the king and nobles, and it’s often hard for Israel as they’re different, having a God who claims them as his own and demands total allegiance. This, as Daniel, Esther, and others discovered, put them at odds with the powerful and often led to the Jewish people needing to make faith choices that would often have harsh repercussions, and yet bring glory to God.

People, and the world notice when we don’t complain or whine when times are difficult, and instead talk to God, read his Word, and seek his guidance, asking what his purpose is during the times of struggle. I’ve stopped being surprised at how powerful our witness to the world is of who Jesus is, when they see the peace and strength followers of Jesus can show during really hard times, seeing how faith gives us the ability to trust in God’s purposes and laws. Paul’s encouragement in Romans 8 is powerful, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all…. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword…. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul reminds us that we can count on God sustaining us through the hard times, pointing us to the strength and love we find in Jesus and his way.

To fulfill his purposes, “God summons a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.” From Isaiah 44 and 45 we know that this man is Cyrus. God says, “He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, ‘Let it be rebuilt, and of the temple, ‘Let its foundations be laid.’” If you want to read how God uses this foreign emperor to accomplish his purposes to return Israel to their land and rebuild the temple, you can read about it in the book of Nehemiah. God tells Israel, “What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do. Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted, you who are now far from my righteousness. I am bringing my righteousness near, it is not far away; and my salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion, my splendor to Israel.”

The fulfillment of these verse occurs when Israel returns to their land through Cyrus, but the ultimate fulfillment of these verse is found in Jesus who came to take all our sin, to bring salvation through the cross, revealing God’s splendor in Jesus, fulfilling God’s promise in Genesis 3 to send a saviour who will crush the serpent’s head. Isaiah 46 is a reminder that God’s purposes are always fulfilled, that God gives us the strength to remain faithful during the difficult times, and bring him glory. May the Lord bless you as your raise your children to trust God in all situations and bring him glory.