ISAIAH - CHAPTER 48 - He Leads us by the Way
ISAIAH – CHAPTER 48 – He Leads us By the Way
Tuesday Morning Bible Study – November 4, 2014, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
In these chapters 40-48, the Lord has revealed to us the purpose of peace. Chapter 49 reveals to us the Prince of peace.
Isa. 48: 17-18: “Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the Lord your God who teaches you to profit which leads you by the way that you should go. O that you had hearkened to My commandments! Then your peace would have been as a river and your righteousness as the waves of the sea.”
This prophecy is addressed to the house of Jacob. He shows them that as it was by their own sin that brought them into captivity; so it would be only by the grace of God that they would obtain their deliverance. This is the message of the gospel pure and clear.
48:1-2: “Hear you this, O house of Jacob which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; the Lord of hosts is His name.”
“The name of Israel” means ‘prince with God’; ‘God prevails’”. They were called by the name of Israel, an honorable name. They prided themselves in being of that princely race. They came forth out of the waters of Judah, and were of the royal tribe, the tribe that adhered to God when the rest revolted. They swore by the name of the Lord, and thereby owned him to be the true God. They made mention of God of Israel in their prayers and praises. They called themselves of the holy city.
It was all in vain; there hearts were neither true nor right in their profession. They did not call upon the Lord in truth and righteousness.
48:3: “I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of My mouth, and I showed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.”
Everything of importance which happened to their nation from its origin was prophesied of before it happened. He also declared to them their return to God and to their own land again. He dignified them with remarkable providences.
48: 4-6: “Because I knew that you are obstinate, your necks is an iron sinew, and your brow brass; I have from the beginning declared to you; before it came to pass, I showed it to you; less you should say, ‘my idol has done this, my graven image, and my molten image has commanded them’. You have heard, see all this; and will you not declare it? I have shown you new things from this time, even hidden things, and you did not know them.”
He showed them new things by the prophets of their own day, and created them. They were hidden things, which they could not otherwise know.
48:7: “They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when you heard them not; less you should say, Behold, I knew them.”
These things God created now!!!!!!!!!!
Our Creator God is still creating!!!!!!!
Consider, says God, “how it was told you by the prophets, when it was the furthest thing from your thoughts, when you had not any reason to expect it. When the thing seemed utterly impossible, God showed them hidden things, and did great things for them. “Now” says He, “You have heard; see all this, You have heard the prophecy; see the accomplishments. Will you not declare that your God has been a good God to you? Declare this to his honor and your own shame!
48:8: “Yea, you heard not; yea, you knew not; yea, from that time that your ear was not opened; for I knew that you would deal very treacherously, and was called a transgressor from the womb.”
The deliverance of God’s people out of their captivity in Babylon was so improbable that the Lord was using Isaiah before their captivity to encourage them in it. (This is Love). Two things were discouraging: (1) their own unworthiness that God would do it for them. (2) The many difficulties in the deliverance itself.
Now through the promised Word of God both these difficulties are removed. Not only for Israel, but for us today through the Blood of the Lamb of God.
48: 9-11: “For My name’s sake will I defer My anger, and for My praise will I refrain for you, that I do not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver, I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, even for My own sake, will I do it; for how should My name be polluted? And I will not give My glory to another.”
If they were cut off, the heathen would blaspheme his name. It is for His praise because it would redound to the honor of his mercy. Even though they were corrupt, the Lord would make them fit for the mercy he intended for them. I have refined you, that you might be made a vessel of honor. This accounts for his bringing them into the trouble, and continuing them in it as long as he did. It was not to cut them off, but to do them good. He therefore takes them as they are; refined in part only, and not thoroughly. I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction, and then designed you for great things.
Many have been brought to God as chosen vessels out of the furnace of affliction. That is my testimony and I count it all joy. Without the furnace of affliction, the pride of life would have destroyed my soul.
God says he will do it, not because he owes them a favor, but that they will not be polluted by the heathen, who in triumphing over Israel, thought they triumphed over the God of Israel.
They are called according to his purpose, called by him out of Egypt and now out of Babylon. He will deliver them by His own strength. They need not fear, for He is God alone, and the eternal God.
48:12-13: “Hearken to Me, O Jacob and Israel, My called; I am He; I am the First, I also am the Last. My hand also has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has spanned the heavens; when I call to them, and they stand up together.”
What a verse!!!! My, my I have to stop typing and shout a while!!! I am he who can do what I will and will do what is best! I am the first and the last! What room is left to doubt of your deliverance when God understates it? He is the creator of the world. The palm of his right hand spanned the heavens and created all of the cosmos both natural and spiritual. If the palm of his right hand does all of this what will he do with his outstretched arm? He has the command of all the hosts of earth and heaven. The Lord of Hosts is his name. When he calls “they stand up together” at his command--- helping one another in the service of their Maker.
If the Lord will deliver his people, he is not at a loss for instruments in effecting that deliverance.
48:14: “All you, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them has declared these things? The Lord has loved him: He will do His pleasure on Babylon, and His arm shall be as the Chaldeans.”
All of the house of Jacob, assemble yourselves, and hear this. Which among the gods of the heathen or their wise men has declared these things or could declare them? Cyrus is the chosen vessel who must do it. The Lord has loved him before he was born. He has done him this honor to make him an instrument in the redemption of his people and therein a type of the great Redeemer, Jesus Christ in whom he is well pleased.
48:15: “I, even I, have spoken, yea, I have called him. I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous.”
“I have spoken”
“I have called”
“I have brought him”
“He shall make his way prosperous”
When the Lord speaks, and calls, He will bring us into His Kingdom purposes. He will even give us the heart and Spirit to make the calling and election sure that the Lord’s purposes may prosper.
Israel is now summoned by a change in Divine speakers to come near to God to hear him.
48:16: “Come near to me, hear you this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I; and now the Lord God, and His Spirit has sent me.”
Though there is a change in speakers, yet the speaker is a Divine person who had from the beginning openly, and not secretly, spoken of the plan to raise up Cyrus. This third speaker is the Messiah whom God and His Spirit had sent. This is a clear reference to the Divine Trinity of separate and distinct persons in the Elohim of Scripture. The Lord God (one person), the Holy Spirit (another person); and the Messiah (still another person), sent by the two---the Lord God (Adonai Jehovah) and the Holy Spirit.
48: 17-19: “Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the Lord your God which teaches you to profit, which leads you by the way that you should go.
I am Jehovah the Elohim which teaches you to profit. This is inclusive of a financial blessing of prosperity as well as peace, wholeness, soundness, health, holiness, and every other good of every kind which would have been like a river flowing abundantly, even overflowing its banks.
By his grace He leads us in the way of duty. By His providence he leads us in the way.
“Who leads you by the way that you should go” John 14:4-6: “Where I go you know, and the way you know…I am the way the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father, but by Me.”
48: 18-19: “O that you had hearkened to My commandments! Then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea; Your seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of your bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before Me.”
Israel’s name as a nation and a kingdom would not have been cut off if they had obeyed God. They were never cut off entirely as a race, for a remnant always was and always will be saved.
The Lord earnestly wished they might be obedient. The Lord has no pleasure in the death of sinners. He assures them that if they had been obedient; they would not only have prevented their captivity, but would have advanced and perpetuated their prosperity. Your peace would have been as a river. You would have enjoyed a series of mercies, one continually following another, as the waters of a river. Their honor and the justice of their cause should in all cases have borne down opposition by their own strength, as the waves of the sea. Now they had been disobedient, the current of their prosperity was interrupted, and their righteousness overpowered. The rising generation should have been numerous and prosperous, whereas they were now very few.
The honor of Israel should still have been unstained. His name should not have been cut off.
This same word applies to the disobedience of the church universally, in the United States and to the government of the United States of America.
48: 20: “Go forth of Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say you, The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.”
Here is assurance given to His people of the great work which God worked for them, even their salvation out of their captivity. God proclaimed, long before Cyrus did, that whoever would might return to his own land. Send the tidings of it by word of mouth to the ends of the earth. This was a figure of the publishing of the gospel to the entire world. Let them all know those whom God owns for his are such as he has dearly bought and paid for. The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.
He that redeemed us has an unquestionable right to us. Those whom God designs to bring home to himself, He will take care of.
48:21: “They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts. He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them. He clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.”
In their journey the rock followed them and the waters flowed from that rock. The Lord will do great marvels again as he leads them out of Babylon. Many stories have been written about the Exodus from Egypt, but here the Lord promises His great provision for the exodus from Babylon.
God works as effectually by marvelous providences as he does by marvelous miracles. This is applicable to those treasures of grace laid up for us in Jesus Christ from which all good flows to us as the water did to Israel out of the rock, for that rock is Jesus Christ. At the cross, the waters gushed out.
48:22: ‘There is no peace, says the Lord, to the wicked.”
If we could just get people to hear that message, surely they would turn from their wicked ways for the precious grace of “peace”.
God’s thoughts are thoughts of peace, yet to those that are wicked and love the world, there is no peace. What have those to do with peace who are enemies to God?
Next week the Prince of Peace – Chapter 49.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. – I entered into the labors of Matthew Henry’s Commentary and Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their labors.