Dwell in the Word: Isaiah 42:18-25

Contemplate these questions as you dwell in Isaiah 42:18-25:

1. In Isaiah 42, God rebukes Israel for their spiritual blindness and deafness, despite being His chosen people. How does this message resonate with believers today, and what lessons can we learn from their failures to truly hear and see God's message?

2. The passage mentions that God gave up Jacob and Israel to their enemies as part of His judgment. What does this reveal about the consequences of persistent disobedience and rebellion against God's law? How can individuals and communities avoid a similar fate?

3. The text emphasizes the importance of taking God's law to heart and living in gratitude for His mercy and forgiveness. How can modern-day believers apply this principle to their lives and maintain a heart of repentance and gratitude in their relationship with God?

Transcript:

As we come to this section of Isaiah, what we're seeing here is the failure of Israel to see and hear. We see this pointed out for us in the heading that the ESV puts above verse 18, right? But we have this driven home with really powerful imagery from Isaiah. Hear you deaf and look you blind that you may see. He's calling to people who are incapable of doing things to do things. That would be like saying, you who can't fly, fly, right? I mean, now it's different because hearing is achievable. No human is going to fly. But yet the deaf can't hear, the blind can't see. We've talked about this before. The idea here is that God is the one who does this for His people, right? But what we get out of this from Isaiah is, Who is blind but my servant? Or, Death is my messenger whom I send. Who is blind is my dedicated one, or, Blind is the servant of the Lord. What is Isaiah saying here? He's saying that you people, you've turned away from God, and you're the last people who should do this. You're my messenger. I've given you the message, but yet you can't hear it.

You can't see where to go to serve me. You've been dedicated to me, but you don't listen. We see this spelled out perfectly in verse 20. He sees many things, but does not observe them. His ears are open, but he does not hear. We read in verse 21, The Lord was pleased for his righteousness sake to magnify His law and make it glorious. Well, what is going on here? They have been given the gift of God, choosing them as His particular people, right? But yet they run away, yet they move away from it, yet they don't listen. They are the ones whose ears have been opened, but they don't hear. Their eyes have been open to see, and yet they seem to be closing them. This is why the punishment was brought upon them. This is why they have been taken into exile. This is why these foreign lands have come and pillage them and taken over them. Then we read in verse 24, This is all the design of God. Who gave up Jacob to the looters and Israel to the plunderers. Yeah, if God wanted to protect them, He's God. He's going to do it.

He gave them up for a purpose. Was it not the Lord against whom we have sinned and whose ways they would not walk in whose law they would not obey. So we poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle. It set him on fire all around, but he did not understand it, burned him up, but he did not take it to heart. This may be some of the most powerful language that we've seen in Isaiah. I know I've said that several times. We've seen some really strong language of judgment. But let's think about this here. You've been given everything. You have been given the law. You have had people come and God used them to punish you for your sin, and you still can't pay attention. You still don't notice. You're still oblivious to it. This is a really powerful message for you and I, isn't it? When we think about this, we know, as we've mentioned many, many times, we know that the wrath against our sin has been poured on Christ. We have been forgiven. Our perspective in this story is a different one because we are on the other side of the story of redemption.

We are understanding Christ. We have been given the gift of faith in Him. But at the same time, do we not turn away from God's law? Are we not at times deaf and blind? It's important for us to take this to heart to think about what do we do about this? Do we want to be like Israel? No, we don't want to hear God's word and turn away from it in disobedience. We want to understand that when God poured out the heat of his anger, He did it in His grace, and so we don't want to offend the Lord because he has forgiven us. We don't want to anger him because he has already done all that we need. We want to live our lives in gratitude for the mercy that he has shown to us in Christ. The message for you and I today is that we need to take all that we have seen to heart. We need to remember that the punishment that we deserve for our sin was taken on by Christ, and may we remember God's law and turn away from our sin. May we move towards God and move towards Him in repentance, take what He has done to heart and may we serve Him in gratitude not only today, but in the days to come.