Isaiah 63:7-64:12. Yesterday’s reading left off with God both saddened and active. He was sad that no won seemed to care about sin (disobedience and rebellion toward God) but he was also active doing his part so we could have a restored relationship with him. Today’s reading starts out with Isaiah speaking. At the very end of yesterday’s reading the emphasis wqs on god’s anger. Maybe that prompted Isaiah to do a little remembering.
What Isaiah remembers is God’s faithfulness and love and action toward the Israelites. Some Bibles use the word “lovingkindness” in verse 7, the Hebrew word is “hesed” and it is a very big word. It’s all about how god makes a promise and is very faithful in keeping it. But it’s bigger than that because it also involves kind actions and even sacrifice. That is how God feels toward us, he is very devoted to us. In verse 9 it he tells us that when things happen in our lives it affects God. Verse 10 seems to take a kind of scary turn it says that because of rebellion that God became our enemy. If anyone else had even half of God’s power and was our enemy we would be in serious trouble. It’s interesting that he fought against the Israelites. You have to wonder when the guy who spoke the universe into existence fights against you how you survive more that a millisecond. It’s kind of like when I would wrestle with my kids when they were young or would play a game with them or race them. As a dad I showed restraint so that they would have opportunity to grow from the experience. Verse 11 tells us the outcome of this fight, they remembered. They remembered how he cared for them and also how much honor he got from it all (in verses 12 and 14 it tells us that his actions made and “everlasting name” for him).
All of this remembering seems to make Isaiah sad too. In verse 15 he talks to God and asks him to look down from heaven at him. Isaiah then asks where God’s love and help are. Isaiah sees God as a loving and caring father even though Isaiah’s faithful ancestors like Abraham and Israel (or Jacob) probably wouldn’t recognize their descendants (for more about the Israelites see the “Old Testament Connection”). We need to be careful wne we read verse 17 because it seems like God is forcing the Israelites to be disobedient, for their hard to be callouse or hardened toward God. Probably the most famous example of this sort of language is in Exodus 1-14. In those chapters we see the story of the Israelite people and their escape fro slaver in Egypt. God chose Moses to be the leader of the Israelites and had him ask the King or Pharaoh of Egypt to let his people go. Throughout the story we see God describing Pharaoh’s refusal to let them go as a hard heart. Sometimes in the story we are told that God’s hardended Pharaoh’s heart and other times we are told that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Sometimes I wonder if it’s like a game of chicken. God is driving on the right side of the road going the right way and we are racing toward him going the wrong way. The Bible says that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow ((Hebrews 13:8, see also James 1:17), he never changes, he doesn’t flinch or blink. Instead of turning around and going the right way we swerve off the road into the ditch, then we blame God. I think the hardening thing is the same way, God doesn’t change the rules and we refuse to obey, we have a bad attitude toward God, we are hard toward him and in a certain sense he has some responsibility for it. But in the end his rules are the right rules and our suffering is really all on our heads. At the end of chapter 63 Isaiah asks God to come and help, for th right reason, for god’s reputation, because God had promised to be their king.
Isaiah continues this idea in chapter 64. Isaiah asks God to rip open the sky and come down and make himself known to everyone. It would be like the old days according to Isaiah 64:3. And one thing they would learn about God is that he helps those who are faithful to him. In verse 5 Isaiah admits that they had been rebellious and that it had been going on for a long time (400-500 years actually). In verses 6-7 Isaiah comes back around to the same kind of idea that God had in Isaiah 63:5, there is no one who really followes God. Verse 7 ends with Isaiah admitting that God has allowed them to fall into their own trap, they were getting what they deserved.
Like so much of the book of Isaiah there is always hope. In verses 8-12 Isaiah remembers the idea that God is like a father, he loves us. A lot is made of verses about God being the potter and us being the clay, people like to use those verses to prove that God can do what he wants to with us. But it seems like Isaiah’s point here is that we are a creation of God, surely he didn’t create us just to destroy us. As a father I didn’t have children to beat and mistreat, I have children that I want to love and help and have a relationship with. Isaiah is saying something like, “look dad, the tree house we made and sat in together is destroyed, can’t we fix all of this, you really want it all fixed don’t you?”
We are the work of God’s hands and he does want our relationship fixed, that is why at the right time Jesus was born, and lived, and died for us (Romans 5:6-8). We can have a good relationship with god but not if we insist in playing chicken with him, then our lives and eternities will wind up a wreck. God clearly has a soft spot for us in his heart the question is do we have a soft spot for him. As in all of Isaiah, pride is the enemy, we need to turn our lives around and turn them over to God. Remember who he is, remember what he is offering and honor him today. God help me honor you each day with my life. I do want to be a faithful son. I don’t really want the discipline, I know I’ll get it sometimes, but help me respond quickly. Help me be one who upholds the family name. Help me be worth of the name “Christian”. And let my life speak well of Jesus to the world.