Day #206

Sermon - Audio
Isaiah 35-36 - Audio
Isaiah 35-36 - Reading

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Daily Reading: Isaiah 35-36

Isiah 35

This is one of my favorite passages in all of scripture. It looks forward to the same day that Revelation 21-22 look forward to: the return of Christ. The imagery is vibrant and full of hope and healing. The reading is very short today. I recommend taking some time in this chapter. Maybe read it twice.

This chapter is situated between two very bloody chapters. It acts as an oasis between the wasteland created by wickedness in Isaiah 34 and the threat of war and sickness of the next few chapters. Though the present looked very bad for Israel (as it does for us), they could look forward to a day when all wrongs would be righted and all hurts healed.

Take notice of how earthy this chapter about God's future reign: wildernesses bursting into bloom, blind eyes be open, hot sand turns into pools, and most importantly we will see the glory of the Lord. I'd like to let NT Wright chime in at this point. The quote comes from Simply Christian (I really recommend it, the whole book is like this!):

Despite what many people think, within the Christian family and outside it, the point of Christianity isn't 'to go to heaven when you die.' The New Testament picks up from the Old the theme that God intends, in the end, to put the whole creation to rights. Earth and heaven were made to overlap with one another... completely, gloriously, and utterly. “The earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.” That is the promise which resonates throughout the Bible story, from Isaiah all the way through to Paul's greatest visionary moments and the final chapters of the book of Revelation. The great drama will end, not with “saved souls” being snatched up into heaven, away from the wicked earth and the mortal bodies which have dragged them down into sin, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, so that “the dwelling of God is with humans.” ...the Hymn “This is my father's World” points beyond the present beauty of creation, through the mess and tragedy with which it has been infected, to the ultimate resolution:

This is my Father's world; O let me ne'er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the ruler yet.

This is my Father's world; the battle is not done;

Jesus, who died, shall be satisfied,

and earth and heaven be one.

And earth and heaven be one: that is the note that should sound like a clear, sweet bell through all Christian living, summoning us to live in the present as people called to that future, people called to live in the preseent in the light of that future...

Christian holiness is not (as people often imagine) a matter of denying something good. It is about growing up and grasping something even better. Made for spirituality, we wallow in introspection. Made ofr joy, we settle for pleasure. Made of justice, we clamor for vengeance. Made for realitonsihp, we insist on our own way. Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment. But new creation has already begun. The sun has begun to rise. Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world. It is time, in the power of the Spirit, to take up our proper role, our fully human roles, as agents, heralds, and stewards of the new day that is dawning. That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus into the new world, God's new worlds, which he has thrown open before us.

35.1-2 Desert, parched land, and wilderness are all describing the same sort of place. The piling on of synonyms adds to the vividness of the land. I have seen the very land that is pictured in this passage. It is a place almost completely void of life—a place impossible to survive without God's help. And now, this lifeless place bursts into life like a crocus.

35.3-4 “Behold, your God will come. Believing perseverance comes from God's commitment to his people (“your God”) and the faithfulness of his promise (“will come”). ESV Study Bible” The second part of that line “He will come with vengeance” is the one phrase that might strike our ears oddly. This is not God seeking revenge, but rather God bringing his justice. From the perspective of the oppressed, this is very good news!

35.8 This is pilgrimage language. As is described in some of the Psalms (Ps 120-134, notably 121). Imagine a parade designed to celebrate the car ride to church. Only this parade is special! It is to celebrate a new age. (Analogous language is used in 1 Thessalonians 4.16-17 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet [a “parade” word] the Lord in the air.

May Isaiah 35 be a comfort and a blessing to all of you who suffer. May it give you hope! Mark it in your Bibles and take it with you to be a comfort in hard times. Be strong, do not fear; your God will come...he will come to save you.

Isaiah 36

A switch back to the history of King Hezekiah's reign. “Against the backdrop of divine faithfulness and human inconsistancy, God stands forth as the only hope of his people (ESV Study Bible).”

36.4 “Thus says the great king. Speaking unwittingly as a false prophet, the field commander pronounces a royal decree...The word “trust” appears seven times in the Hebrew text of this paragraph (36:4, 5, 6, 7, 9). At the heart of Isaiah's message is a call to God's people to trust his promises with an audacious faith amid the hard realities of life.”

36.7 “This reveals the uncomprehending Assyrian viewpoint and the key to their eventual doom. Because the field commander from Assyria does not believe that the God of Israel is different from the gods of the pagan high places and altars (ESV Study Bible).”

36.10 The field commander uses several techniques to try to weaken Israel. This one is particularly interesting in that he perverts Isaiah's own message. Look back at Isaiah 10.5-7 ^I send him against a godless nation, I dispatch him against a people who anger me, to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets (v. 5). He conveniently leaves out Woe to Assyria.

36.11 “Many of the common people would have had difficulty understanding negotiations spoken in Aramaic. The three leaders were concerned that panic would spread throughout the city if the people heard the Assyrian’s demands in Hebrew (The Bible Knowledge Commentary).

36.12 Eat their own excrement and drink their own urine describes the condition of starvation while a city is under siege. They are trying to test Jerusalem's resolve. Both Hezekiah's to surrender and the peoples as to whether or not they will revolt against him. Jerursalem is indeed desperate: many towns in Judah have already been taken and Jerusalem itself is surrounded.

36.15 Hezekiah takes a public stand that his faith is in the Lord. The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

26.16-17 The field commander offers a familiar Israelite blessing that we've heard before every one of you will eat from your own vine and fig tree... (1 Kings 4.25 and Micah 4.4) This describes the good life. It is like the promise of Herbert Hoover in 1928 America: a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. But he is offering to make peace with him at the cost of peace with God...and juts as Hoover's promise, his words were empty.

26.21 “The king’s instruction, Do not answer him (21), took due account of the fact that the speaker was seeking victory, not truth (NBC).” This seems to be proverbial wisdom “Do not answer a fool in his folly.”

26.22 Tearing of clothes is an outward sign of inner distress.