Where Is This Salvation You Speak Of – part 2
Isaiah 59:1-60:22 (59:9-15a)
October 6, 2024
You will remember that back in Isaiah 58
There was a question asked of God which did not sit well with Him.
Isaiah 58:3 “Why have we fasted and You do not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?”
This was a question in response to God’s promise in Isaiah 57
Isaiah 57:15 “For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.”
So we have here
• A Jewish people who are suffering under the hand of their oppressors.
• They hear the word of Isaiah that God dwells with the humble.
• In response they engage in what they perceive to be humility.
The problem is, to their pragmatic minds, it did not work.
“Why have we fasted and You do not see?
Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?”
Now in chapter 58
God responded by telling them that what they did was not humility.
• They took off work, but they worked their laborers twice as hard.
• They took off work, but they used it to focus on work and how to get ahead.
• That was not humility and that was not fasting.
God then outlined the fast He wanted.
• He wanted a fast from selfishness:
• He wanted them to rescue sinners from their sin.
• He wanted them to divide their bread with the poor.
• He wanted them to honor the Sabbath as a priority.
That was true fasting, that was true humility.
What they did was neither.
But as we learned LAST WEEK,
God is still not finished answering that question.
Isaiah 59 indicates to us that these frustrated Jews
Had more than one explanation as to why God had not delivered them.
• In Isaiah 58 the insinuation was that He wasn’t faithful to keep His word.
• But in Isaiah 59 the insinuation is that maybe He can’t keep His word.
That is what God answered next.
#1 THE LORD’S REPROACH
Isaiah 59:1-8
(59:1-3) “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken falsehood, Your tongue mutters wickedness.”
God revealed that the reason they had not been saved from Babylon
Or delivered from their oppressors
Was not because He couldn’t, rather it was because He wouldn’t.
These people were still living in the same sins
That caused Him to send them away to begin with.
NOTHING HAD CHANGED.
Isaiah had confronted their bloody hands and lying tongues
In the very first sermon of the book, and that hasn’t changed.
They still have bloody hands and a lying tongue
God has no interest in bringing them back in that condition.
He went on to speak about their sinfulness in even greater detail in verses 4-8.
We learned about their DISHONESTY (4)
“No one sues righteously and no one pleads honestly. They trust in confusion and speak lies; They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.”
They use a corrupt legal system to cheat and steal from their brothers.
Similar to the Corinthians who sued their brothers to cheat them.
We learned about their DEEDS (5-6)
“They hatch adders’ eggs and weave the spider’s web; He who eats of their eggs dies, And from that which is crushed a snake breaks forth. Their webs will not become clothing, Nor will they cover themselves with their works; Their works are works of iniquity, And an act of violence is in their hands.”
That is to say they provide no benefit for the poor.
• When they do feed the poor it is with serpent eggs.
• When they do cover the poor it is with a spiders web.
We learned about their DIRECTION (7-8)
“Their feet run to evil, And they hasten to shed innocent blood; Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, Devastation and destruction are in their highways. They do not know the way of peace, And there is no justice in their tracks; They have made their paths crooked, Whoever treads on them does not know peace.”
They did not desire righteousness or holiness,
They loved sin and they ran to it as fast as they could get it.
And quite frankly God responded by saying,
“I DON’T WANT TO LIVE AMONG PEOPLE LIKE THAT.”
There’s a reason I haven’t delivered you.
There’s a reason I haven’t brought you home.
There’s a reason our fellowship is in shambles.
You have offended Me and you won’t change!
As I pondered God’s answer to Israel through Isaiah, I am convinced:
This is a message that EVERY GODLESS CULTURE NEEDS TO HEAR.
Surely Isaiah was speaking to Israel, that is certainly the chief application.
(To the Jews in Babylon and even to lost Jews today)
But could the message be any less true for any culture in any age?
Could our wicked society not learn from this as well?
• We wonder why God doesn’t want to deliver a people from their toil…
• We wonder why God doesn’t dwell nearer with a nation…
Perhaps it is because the dishonesty, deeds, and direction
of that nation is utterly repulsive to Him.
Has it not long been lamented in our culture
How our society has done its best to separate from God?
• We have lamented things like taking prayer out of school or the 10
commandments out of courtrooms.
• We have talked about groups like the ACLU who seek to fight any expression
of religion in the culture.
We see a nation that desires to separate itself from God
And then goes to a baseball game and sings “God Bless America”
The message was certainly for Israel,
But I don’t see how can fail to learn from it in our culture today.
Isaiah is about to show us what a culture under judgment looks like.
It’s as though Isaiah opens the newspaper
And he reads about the reality of the culture
And shows us the effects of distancing ourselves from God.
We’ve seen The Lord’s Reproach
#2 THE PROPHET’S RESPONSE
Isaiah 59:9-15a
I want to tackle this passage in segments.
I want us to start here by looking at verses 9-11
I want us to just gain an understanding of
The ramifications of a society that is separated from God.
To put it another way.
• If a society had offended God
• And if there was a separation from Him (as there clearly is in this chapter),
• What might that society look like?
• Would there be indications of that separation?
Satan promised Eve in the garden
That if she would distance herself from God
She would have freedom and wisdom and would be like God.
IS THAT TRUE?
What would it look like in a society if God was pushed aside?
What would it look like in a society if God pulled back His hand?
How would you spot it?
Certainly we are familiar with that famous 1st chapter of Romans
• Where we see when God gave them over to impurity, to degrading passions,
and to a depraved mind.
We see the existence of such problems as evidence of God’s wrath.
Here, in like manner,
Isaiah will show you the signs of a culture that is under the wrath of God.
In verses 9-11 Isaiah will give you 3 realities that would occur,
For they are occurring in the lives of the people he is addressing.
1) EMPTY HOPE (9)
“Therefore justice is far from us, And righteousness does not overtake us; We hope for light, but behold, darkness, For brightness, but we walk in gloom.”
We’ve talked quite a bit about hope
During our recent Wednesday night studies of the book of Romans.
One of the main points we have discussed is that
There is a difference between hope(n) and hope(v).
Verb hope is not nearly as valuable as noun hope.
Verb hope is something you do, (i.e I hope things get better)
Noun home is something you have, (i.e. I know things will get better)
Well the hope Isaiah speaks of here is THE VERB KIND
And that is why we call it an empty hope.
Notice what Isaiah says:
“Therefore justice is far from us, And righteousness does not overtake us;”
You could read that as Isaiah’s lament over living in a culture that has no moral backbone, (and certainly he did.)
But that is NOT the point.
Rather, Isaiah is talking about the inability to get justice in his culture.
• Someone steals your car but the corrupt court system acquits the criminal.
• Someone attacks you in the parking lot, but the cops refuse to come.
• Someone desecrates a public monument, but no one holds them accountable.
That is what Isaiah means by “justice is far from us”.
It means no one is coming to make things right.
• No one is coming to defend us.
• No one is coming to vindicate us.
• No one is coming to deliver us.
He means the same things when he says, “And righteousness does not overtake us;”
We always like to believe that “good wins in the end”.
We like to believe that “everything will work out for the better.”
Isaiah says, “Well those things are predicated on having a righteous God in your midst, but when you offend Him, you can forget it.”
Justice is a long way away and righteousness isn’t coming.
Jeremiah 18:17 “‘Like an east wind I will scatter them Before the enemy; I will show them My back and not My face In the day of their calamity.’”
Which explains the despair and empty hope of his day.
“We hope for light, but behold, darkness, For brightness, but we walk in gloom.”
There are countless things that seem to get our hopes up,
But it doesn’t seem like they ever come to pass.
We try to stay optimistic, but sooner or later reality sets in
And it never seems to work out for the better.
It is the old saying, “Cheer up things could get worse, so I cheered up and they got worse.”
In other words, you can hope, but you’re just going to be disappointed.
Welcome to a culture which God has abandoned.
Welcome to a culture that God has “given over” to its sin.
Welcome to a culture that God is judging.
Things like justice, righteousness, and hope begin to fade away.
And why wouldn’t they?
• He is the Savior…
• He is the source of justice and righteousness…
• He is the reason all things work for good…
Then why wouldn’t His absence trigger the loss of all those things?
That is a culture that has offended God.
EMPTY HOPE
2) FUTILE GROPE (10)
“We grope along the wall like blind men, We grope like those who have no eyes; We stumble at midday as in the twilight, Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men.”
What is this a picture of?
It is a picture of men trying to save themselves.
The problem is that man is powerless to save himself.
• Compared to a blind man or even a dead man.
• You just don’t have the ability or the resources to fix the problem.
• You can fight and scratch and claw and try to save yourself, but you can’t.
Moses told the people that if they failed to obey God then they would be cursed and one of those curses was this:
Deuteronomy 28:28-29 “The LORD will smite you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart; and you will grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you.”
God told Israel exactly what it would look like
When He is offended and a culture is cursed.
It will look like hopeless people trying desperately to save themselves
And never being able to.
What does it look like when a nation tries to save itself without God but is failing?
• Perhaps a nation $33 trillion dollars in debt…
• Perhaps a nation with corrupt and unqualified leadership…
• Perhaps a nation whose borders are overrun by foreigners…
• Perhaps a nation with no response to natural disasters…
Do you not get the sense that we are on a sinking ship, but still trying to pretend like any minute we’re going to figure it out and resurface?
When a nation abandons the true Savior
And tries to fix things themselves, THERE ARE SIGNS.
EMPTY HOPE, FUTILE GROPE
3) DESPAIRING MOPE (11)
“All of us growl like bears, And moan sadly like doves; We hope for justice, but there is none, For salvation, but it is far from us.”
Isaiah uses a literary tool here.
“growl” is HAW-MAW and it means “to murmur” or “become disturbed”
Psalms 55:17 “Evening and morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur, And He will hear my voice.”
Psalms 42:5 “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence.”
“moan sadly” is HAW-GAW which is “to make a sound with the throat”
Psalms 115:7 “They have hands, but they cannot feel; They have feet, but they cannot walk; They cannot make a sound with their throat.”
Isaiah says they HAW-MAW and HAW-GAW
We might say there is moaning and groaning.
DO WE SEE THIS IN OUR NATION?
• Do you have social media?
• Do you hear the general attitude of the people?
I don’t know the ratio, but I promise you the number of posts that are someone complaining are probably 10 to 1 over people rejoicing.
And it is not just because things are bad,
But because there never seems to be any relief.
Isaiah says, “We hope for justice, but there is none, For salvation but it is far from us.”
My grandpa used to sing me a song about a rabbit that didn’t have a tail and after each verse he’d sing the chorus, “Same song, next verse, could get better, but it’s gonna get worse.”
That is the general feeling of a nation
That has distanced itself from its savior.
Jeremiah 11:10-11 “They have turned back to the iniquities of their ancestors who refused to hear My words, and they have gone after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.” Therefore thus says the LORD, “Behold I am bringing disaster on them which they will not be able to escape; though they will cry to Me, yet I will not listen to them.”
God even told Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 11:14 “Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them; for I will not listen when they call to Me because of their disaster.”
It is the utter hopelessness and helplessness and lament
Of a nation that has abandoned its savior.
INTERESTING NOTE,
but when Isaiah says we are hoping “for salvation but it is far from us.”
That word “salvation” is YESHUA
It is the Hebrew name of Jesus.
When a nation distances itself from its Savior
They are left only with
An empty hope, a futile grope, and a despairing mope.
Isaiah says this is the state of his people and THEN HE SAYS WHY,
And it is very important that each of us understand this.
(12-15a) “For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And we know our iniquities: Transgressing and denying the LORD, And turning away from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words. Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands far away; For truth has stumbled in the street, And uprightness cannot enter. Yes, truth is lacking; And he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey.”
So it is obvious that Isaiah is here in full-blown confession mode.
We see his list:
• “transgressions”
• “sins”
• “transgressions”
• “iniquities”
• “transgressing”
• “denying”
• “turning away”
• “oppression”
• “revolt”
• “lying”
The people wanted to know why God wasn’t responding to their humility
They thought God was somehow unfaithful or unable,
Isaiah lays the blame at a different location.
The problem is NOT God’s unfaithfulness or God’s lack of ability.
THE PROBLEM IS SIN.
But here is where we need to pay special attention this morning.
I have little doubt that you could easily see
The current predicament of our culture in Isaiah’s words.
But the temptation is for us to far too often
Pin the blame on the most immoral among us.
We typically fess up to apathy, in the sense that I will hear people say,
“We stood by and did nothing when they took prayer out of school.”
That is sort of A HIGH-ROAD CONFESSION.
“They did all the bad and my association is only that
I didn’t try harder to stop them.”
Now that will certainly be part of it.
In fact you’ll see down in verse 16 that God “was astonished that there was no one to intercede;”
• Not standing in the gap is no small thing.
• Failing to intercede is no small thing.
• Certainly that is a sin of the people of God in this mess.
But that is NOT what Isaiah confesses to first.
Notice his use of the word “our” and “us”
Isaiah DOES NOT come before God and say, “Man God have they wrecked our society, and I’m sorry I didn’t do more.”
Isaiah joins in with the confession
That he was not just a failure to stop the problem,
But he was in fact an accomplice.
Do you remember Isaiah’s confession when he stood before the LORD?
Isaiah 6:5 “Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”
There was no denying that Isaiah lived in a corrupt culture,
But Isaiah did not try to act as though he was not a part of it.
AND NEITHER SHOULD WE.
It is true that we may be guilty of APATHY,
But we must also admit that we are guilty of INIQUITY.
REVIVAL NEVER COMES BY ONLY RECOGNIZING THE SIN OF OTHERS.
CAN WE TRULY SAY THAT
• We have never abandoned the oppressed and those sinners whom God wanted us to deliver from their burdens?
• We have never turned our back from the poor and failed to divide our bread with the hungry?
• We have never dishonored His Sabbath and prioritized the world over worship of Him?
• We have never dabbled in idolatry or iniquity or lying?
• We have never turned away from God?
See, we’re fooling ourselves when we think that
The collapse of a culture is only the fault of the unchurched.
Have we forgotten the famous announcement of Solomon?
2 Chronicles 7:14 “and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Isaiah comes before God in true repentance and humility.
He understands that the call of God is to
“My people who are called by My name”.
If we desire to see a nation restored,
This is where repentance must begin.
Peter taught us:
1 Peter 4:17a “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God…”
LAST TIME we talked about that story
• Of when God’s glory departed from the temple and hovered on the mountain
overlooking the city just before Babylon came in to destroy Jerusalem.
If you back up to chapter 9
You see God’s announcement of that coming judgment
There is a very important reality that is seen.
In Ezekiel 9 God calls the executioners
Ezekiel 9:6 “Utterly slay old men, young men, maidens, little children, and women, but do not touch any man on whom is the mark; and you shall start from My sanctuary.” So they started with the elders who were before the temple.”
Do you see where God’s judgment began?
“you shall start from My sanctuary.”
But I thought there wasn’t any condemnation for those who are in Christ?
I thought God caused all things to work for good for those who love Him?
I thought God had not destined for wrath, but for obtaining salvation?
THAT IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE.
So why would God’s wrath start at the temple?
Why would God’s judgment begin with the church?
Well for one, there is a difference between discipline and condemnation.
But it is also true that: Just because someone associates with God’s people does not mean they are genuine or real, and God’s judgment starts there.
JUDGMENT STARTS WITH THOSE WHO KNOW BETTER.
Luke 12:47 “And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes,
It has never been your physical location
That has proven the genuineness of your faith,
But rather the spiritual condition of your heart.
In that same Ezekiel passage, before the executioners were to come, Ezekiel was given a directive.
Ezekiel 9:4 “The LORD said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst.”
• And we already read verse 6 where the executioners were told, “do not touch any man on whom is the mark”.
We remember that God rescued Lot out of Sodom because:
2 Peter 2:8 “(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),”
It is of utter importance that those who claim to be God’s people
Actually live like God’s people.
It is of utter importance that our hearts align with God’s heart.
That our humility is genuine.
That our fasting is what God desires.
That our worship is pure.
So when Isaiah begins to talk about the need for the confession of sin,
He does not talk about THEIR sin, he talks about OUR sin.
(12) “For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And we know our iniquities:”
Isaiah is not hiding the sin of his heart
Or his participation in the corruption of the culture.
He even lists the sins specifically.
(13) “Transgressing and denying the LORD, And turning away from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words.”
WHAT A LIST.
“Transgressing and denying the LORD”
That does not necessarily mean they audibly defected from the faith.
It means that by their lives they broke the covenant they made with God
And denied Him by their actions.
Titus 1:16 “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.”
IT IS A DENIAL IN BEHAVIOR.
The church can have an accurate theology and still walk in utter apostasy
We can preach what is true from the pulpit
And utterly deny the Lord by our behavior.
Isaiah sees it as a “turning away from our God.”
When God says He wants us to rescue sinners from their sin,
• But we instead congratulate them in it.
When God says He wants us to feed the poor and clothe the naked,
• But we instead turn a blind eye to them.
When God says He wants us to prioritize our worship of Him,
• But we love the activities of the world more.
To deny God’s words is to deny God, and the church in America
Is just as guilty in this area as any unbeliever in our culture.
It is a ridiculous notion to assume that
The difficult state of our nation is only the fault of the unchurched.
Isaiah continues his confession.
“Speaking oppression and revolt”
The Hebrew word for “oppression” is O-SHEK
and it is often translated as “extortion”
Psalms 62:10 “Do not trust in oppression And do not vainly hope in robbery; If riches increase, do not set your heart upon them.”
• A constant desire to figure out a way to cheat someone else.
• A constant desire to figure out how to get ahead at someone else’s expense.
“revolt” is SAW-RDAW and it means a “defection or revolt”,
But primarily from what is morally right.
It is sometimes translated as “wrong-doing”
ISAIAH IS SIMPLY CONFESSING THAT
Even as those who are supposed to be God’s people,
We are just as bad as the world
When it comes to oppressing the poor and doing what is wrong.
YOU AND I KNOW THAT
It wasn’t just the un-churched who raided grocery stores on Tuesday
• To buy up all the bottled water and toilet paper out of pure selfish greed
• When news broke of a dock worker strike.
In Jesus’ day it was the Pharisee who devoured widow’s houses and even exploited that one poor widow into giving her very last 2 cents.
It was James who had to scold the church to stop showing favoritism to the rich and dishonoring the poor man.
James 2:1-7 “My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?”
Can we honestly say that these things do not still occur today?
You see Isaiah’s confession here.
HE CONTINUES:
“Conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words.”
It is not just lying, it is pre-meditated lying.
• It is knowing and planning to lie
• In order to escape trouble or to get ahead in some other area.
• Lie about the car you’re selling so it will bring more money.
• Lie about your income so you can pay less taxes.
• Lie about your boss or coworker so you can gain sympathy.
I HOPE WE UNDERSTAND WHAT ISAIAH IS SAYING HERE.
He opens a newspaper and he sees a culture
That is suffering under the hand of God’s discipline.
• They are a people with an empty hope.
• They are a people with a futile grope.
• They are a people with a despairing mope.
And Isaiah knows that it is rebellion against God
That has brought this calamity upon the society.
But he also knows that the fault is not just that of unchurched.
If judgment will start at the household of God
Then repentance should begin there too.
So Isaiah confesses the sin even of God’s people.
• This is OUR transgression.
• This is OUR iniquity.
• This is OUR sin.
AND ISAIAH REMINDS AGAIN
What such transgression and iniquity and sin has done to us.
(14-15a) “Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands far away; For truth has stumbled in the street, And uprightness cannot enter. Yes, truth is lacking; And he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey.”
Lest we deny our sin and try to pretend
That maybe we aren’t a nation under discipline,
Isaiah returns one more time to reminding us the state of the culture.
Once again: “Justice is turned back…”
Once again: “Righteousness stands far away…”
Once again: “Truth has stumbled in the street…”
Once again: “Uprightness cannot enter…”
But perhaps even the most telling is Isaiah’s final statement here.
“Yes, truth is lacking; And he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey.”
Isaiah speaks of a culture so far gone in sin
That if a person stands up for what is right,
They will actually become a victim of the hate of the masses.
• What happens if you publicly oppose abortion in our culture?
• What happens if you publicly oppose homosexuality?
• What happens if you call out drunkenness on homecoming weekend?
• What happens if you tell people to stop delighting in adultery?
• What happens if you expose the greed of gambling or hoarding?
You know and I know that you will be publicly shamed.
That is the mark of a culture that is under the judgment of God.
I know Isaiah is speaking to his culture.
I know Isaiah is speaking prophetically to Jews in Babylon.
I know Isaiah is speaking prophetically to lost Jews today.
But I just don’t see anyway we can’t recognize that
The same issues Isaiah recognizes are issues we deal with in our nation.
We bear all the symptoms of a nation that is under the wrath of God.
And Isaiah most certainly CALLS FOR REPENTANCE,
And he calls for it FROM ALL OF US, not just the unchurched.
I WANT TO CLOSE THIS MORNING
With one of the greatest prayers of repentance I find in Scripture.
Certainly we could go to the 51st Psalm, but there is one that hits even closer to home for our situation than that one.
In Daniel 9, Daniel recognizes the judgment of God upon his nation and he prays a prayer of repentance and confession to God on behalf of them all.
I can’t think of a more fitting prayer for a nation under God’s judgment than this.
TURN TO: DANIEL 9:1-19
