Adult Class
December 2006-May 2007
Isaiah
Lesson 18: The Only God
In chapter 41, God issued a direct challenge to idols and those who would worship them. In this section, He will become very much more direct and will demand a test to demonstrate that idols are worthless and that He alone is God. He will make a stunning prediction that came true in such precision that nobody could deny that only God could bring this all about. The end result of all of this is the proof that God is God and that He alone is worthy of worship and service.
Isaiah 43—God will protect Israel and restore her
From the beginning, God asserts that He is responsible for the existence of Israel at all. Truly He created the people and nurtured them through times that would have destroyed any other people. He spoke the nation into existence and created them, actually from nothing, just as He made the heavens and the earth. And He fixed His attention on them and cared for them. He specifically notes that He will ransom Israel by giving others in the place of God’s people (this surfaces again in chapter 45). His motivation for this is stunning in its simplicity and in its power: “I love you,” God says in Isaiah 43:4. It is because of His love that He will restore Israel after the captivity.
Again, God issues a challenge to idols and those who serve them. He demands to know which of the other nations predicted all that God is bringing to pass. Whoever could foretell these events must be responsible for making them happen. God declares that His hearers must serve as witnesses to the truth that nobody predicted anything like this. This is proof positive that He is God and there is no other. The inclination to idolatry is always with human beings. We always seem to want a representation of what we worship. But no representation could ever tell even a small part of the truth about God. Any statue or drawing would fail. He is above all that we can express.
God promises to punish the Babylonians and if that claim sounds fantastic, He reminds the hearers about another great kingdom in which He intervened. Just as He reached into Egypt and carved a way out for Israel then, He will restore His exiles to their homes and provide water in the desert for them. In spite of God’s past care and future blessing, Israel has not served Him properly. In fact, instead of offering sacrifice to Him, they have despised and insulted Him with their sin. But God forgives sin for His own sake, and He tries to shame Israel by inviting them to examine their past faithfulness.
The chapter finishes with a strong declaration of judgment upon the men of standing in the Temple service. In them, Israel will be “devoted” to destruction. This is a carefully chosen term that implies total destruction as an offering to God. It was used to describe the fate of Jericho (Joshua 6:17) and to describe God’s judgment on the Amalekites, which Saul failed to perform (1 Samuel 15:3).
Isaiah 44—Idolatry is stupidity
This section begins with God promising care and restoration for Israel. Although the people have persisted in chasing after their idols, there is no idol that can perform what God will do for the nation. God goes on to extol Himself, which seems out of keeping with His nature, to our minds. However, He is not exalting Himself out of pride but out of a deep desire to impress truth upon Israel. God identifies Himself (first and last) and challenges anybody to compare himself to the Lord merely by showing that he also knows what was and what is to come.
Then God issues a scathing description of the idiocy of idolatry. A man decides he will build an idol and he creates the thing, whether from the forge or the carpenter’s shop. He selects a wood that will not rot quickly, and then chops some of it up for a fire for warmth. Another part he cuts up to cook his food. And from the same dead tree he sets up a “god” to worship! In complete senselessness, nobody seems to point out the futility of making such a “god.” It was a moment’s choice whether this piece of wood was to become a god or just a pile of ashes, having furnished some comfort for the man. And one is just as good as the other.
And now God begins in earnest. He rails at people who would question Him and His purposes. He turns on those who would criticize Him or demand answers from Him or even give Him orders about how to govern the world in righteousness. Then He reveals His coming plan—He will raise up an unknown, Cyrus by name. This is a stunning prediction, coming as it does some 150 years before the man was born.
Isaiah 45—God chooses Cyrus
God called Cyrus to be the conqueror over all the Middle East. He would take cities, overthrow Babylon and release the captive Jews to return to their homes. He would seize treasures hidden away and it would all happen to demonstrate that God alone is God. He has the ability to declare the future and to cause it to happen. Even though Cyrus did not know God or acknowledge Him in any substantial way, God would raise up the Persian and give him success everywhere until Israel was brought home to Judah. This is all done for the glory of God and to prove that He is, indeed, God.
God will listen to no arguments in this. He is the creator and everything is His to do exactly what He would like. And in fact, Cyrus will accomplish God’s will and do it all for free. He will receive nothing in return. He will conquer far and wide, taking the people of Egypt, Cush and Sabea.
Now, those who hear this prophecy are challenged to respond. Who foretold all this and made it happen? Which idol has ever made such predictions and caused them to be fulfilled? In truth, nobody else could know this information 150 years in advance. But God is the only Living God. He knows and He causes things to happen. And He has declared that every knee will bow before Him—just as He repeated in Philippians 2:10-11 in the New Testament.
In point of historical truth, Cyrus did come on the scene, rebelling from Babylon and overcoming its armies in battle. He finally took the city of Babylon by diverting the Euphrates and marching his battalions in on the shallow riverbed, where they stormed to victory in a single night, since the “defenders” were involved in a drunken festival (see Daniel 5 and Herodotus, The History, 1.191 for holy and secular descriptions of the same conquest). After taking Babylon, Cyrus released all the captive people to return to their ancestral homes—and Zerubbabel took a group of Jews back to Jerusalem, beginning the restoration (see Ezra 1 for the beginning of this fulfillment).
For his part, Cyrus continued his conquests until he foolishly invaded the Caucasus, where he was killed in a Persian defeat. But God’s will had been done.