Isaiah 46
Matthew 11:25-30
The history of Israel as a nation centers on its first 3 kings – Saul, David and Solomon, the son of Bathsheba. The high water mark of the people of God was the Davidic kingdom, or the reign of King David.
The Bible devotes an enormous amount of ink to the history of these 3 kings, but the truth is that their entire reign covered a period of only about 3 generations – less than 100 years.
It is a touch of irony that Israel remained a theocracy under the sovereign rule of God for about 1,000 years and fell apart after less than 100 years under a monarchy, or a formal government.
What is even more ironic is that Joshua may have led the people of Israel into Canaan as late as 1240 BC. If that is so, that would allow for only 190 years from the time Israel entered the Promised Land until the reign of King Saul in 1050 BC.
You might compare that with the time between when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, in 1620, to the founding of our national government in 1796 – a period of 176 years.
As a theocracy, Israel was a failure; as a monarchy, it fared even worse.
As a theocracy, the faith of the Puritans died with the first generation and gave rise to such corruption as the Salem Witch Trials. It was a failure. As a nation, the United States, arguably the most powerful nation on earth, is a little over 200 years old and appears to be in decline. One could argue that the 50/50 political division in which we seem to be stuck at the moment is analogous to the divided kingdom of Israel.
The northern 10 tribes of Israel finally fell to the Assyrans in 724 BC, and its people were deported. You have heard of the “lost tribes of Israel.” Those are the 10 tribes that were dispersed to the extent that they lost their national identity. That was around 325 years after the establishment of the monarchy and 200 years after the death of King Solomon.
In 701 BC, 224 years after the death of Solomon, Assyria invaded the Southern Kingdom of Judah and Benjamin. They took 46 fortified cities, carrying off all of its people, leaving only Jerusalem. Jerusalem was surrounded. In 597 BC, Jerusalem fell to Babylon. The city was plundered and destroyed, and the people were carried off into captivity in ancient Iraq. God commissioned King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to carry off His people so that He could preserve a remnant for Himself through a period of exile and suffering.
From the time the remnant returned to the City of Jerusalem and began re-building the wall to the time of Christ was about 525 years. During that time, while Israel never again returned to idol worship, it was surrounded by world conquerors – the Babylonian, Persian and Greek empires. Antiochus Epiphanes, the King of Syria, attacked Jerusalem in 165 BC on the Sabbath when he knew the orthodox Jews would not fight. The city walls were destroyed, large numbers of people were slaughtered, and an edict was issued that Greek deities were to be worshipped by all.
A bearded likeness of Antiochus, purported to be Jupiter, was erected on the Temple altar. This is referred to as Daniel’s prophecy of the “abomination of desolation.” Around 130 BC, the Roman general Pompey took Jerusalem after a 3-mo siege. 12,000 Jews were slaughtered.
It was under Roman rule that the Messiah came to Israel around 4 BC.
The passage of Scripture from Isaiah 42 was a prophecy to a people in captivity. They had been in captivity for 70 years. Those who remained faithful were the remnant God set aside for His glory. Others in captivity caved in to the gods of Babylon. Israel was to return to its homeland under the good graces of Cyrus the Great, the conquering monarch of Persia, ancient Iran.
The Prophet Isaiah was born in Jerusalem about 760 BC. He was called of God to preach in 742 BC. The 42nd Chapter that we read this morning is a prophecy concerning Cyrus, the Persian king from the east, liberating the Jews from Babylon – encouraging them to go back home. It also is a warning against idolatry.
I had the privilege recently of attending my uncle’s funeral in Bethel, ME. I say “privilege” because it is always a privilege to say “goodbye” to someone you know has loved and served the Lord all his life. I have to say that I was very impressed by the quality of the sermon preached by the pastor of the Bethel Alliance Church.
The pastor read from this very 46th chapter of Isaiah in reference to the last days of my uncle’s life at the Veteran’s Home (he had Alzheimer’s disease). What Uncle Ralph kept asking in those last days was, “Did I do it right?” “Did I do it right?”
One of my cousins described those days as being a time of the memories “sloughing off,” leaving behind the real person. Uncle Ralph was a kind, quiet, courteous, helpful person all his life. That is the way he died – even when he failed to recognize members of his family.
“Did I get it right?” “Get what right?” we might ask. Well, at that stage there is little left but reflection. The answer is, “Yes, Ralph, you got it right, not because you did it right, but because you trusted Jesus as Lord.” Isaiah wants us to understand that.
God is using the idolatry of Babylon as an object lesson for His people. Their gods had become so cumbersome – so burdensome – that they were slowing them down in the same way our lavish lifestyles are slowing us down. They could not go into battle without their gods. They were defeated by the Persians; the captured people and their idols became spoils of war.
Bel was the chief deity of Babylon. He was a deified prince. Nebo was a deified prophet, and, guess what – the god of science and learning. I suppose our Nebo might be Darwin or John Dewey. Certainly, we seem to be bowed down by the weight of those two while we are carried off into captivity to humanism.
When Cyrus takes Babylon, down go those idols. Up go the Persian idols in their place (sort of like the Republican and Democratic regimes in our country, is it not?). Get rid of their gods and put up our own gods.
These idols were made of gold. The symbol is riveting. Here is an idolatrous nation, believing in the power of their gods, being led into exile in chains, while their impotent gods were trussed on the backs of mules – the same gods that accompanied them into battle.
God reminds His people that this is the exact opposite of His way.
Listen to me, O House of Jacob,
All you who remain in the house of Israel,
I have upheld you since you were conceived,
And have carried you since your birth.
Even in your old age and gray hairs,
I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will (future) carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
Out of the womb of God’s grace, mercy and promise, the children of Israel had been carried by God. Getting it right, then, is about permitting God to carry you – trusting Him. Getting it wrong is about insisting on pulling your own weight – determining your own destiny, thank you very much. Going into the battle of life with nothing but you is a bad deal and is more than enough to weigh down the weary (v. 1).
In the beginning Israel was foolish and helpless. God carried them in His arms of love and bore them upon eagle’s wings. It is our testimony, as well, that God has been faithful to us – has borne us from the day we were born into the eternal Kingdom. Until this very day, we have been under the constant care of His divine providence.
Whatever is in us that was born of God has been borne up by Him; otherwise, we would have failed as citizens of His Kingdom. We did not have the power to get into the Kingdom, and we do not have the power to stay in. It is all God!
Getting it right, then, has nothing to do with how righteous is our behavior. It has to do with on whom or on what we depend. If we depend on our money to coast us through to the end, we will be taken captive, bowed down by our money. If we depend on our wife or husband or significant other to coast us through to the end, we will be taken captive, bowed down by our relationships.
But God will not fail us when our strength fails. When we grow unfit for business; when we become sick; when even our friends and relatives begin to get weary of us and want to stick us in one of those homes, God will not fail us.
“I will carry you!” “I will bear you up!” “I will bear with you to the end!”
God gives His people a challenge: “To whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that I may be compared?” The challenge is to try and create the eternal God in their own images, just as the Babylonians had done in the long history with their gods.
Israel got a snoot full of idolatry by watching the Babylonians labor under the weight of their useless gods who were fashioned in their own images. It is an utter absurdity to take the infinite and eternal Spirit and craft Him into one of His creations – even that of a human being. The “abomination of desolation” was the erecting of a human image at the altar of the temple in Jerusalem. Even the golden calf was a more honest effort at idolatry than that because it was an outright rejection of the God of Israel rather than His human replacement.
Worshipping a human likeness is the sin of Adam. God is being replaced by one of us.
Isaiah hits us where we live, I am afraid. “Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it; they lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands.”
That is the picture of us carrying God, rather than God carrying us. That is the ultimate in getting it wrong. That is what brought down the angel Lucifer and what has brought down our ancestors.
I was given an example of that last week when I was pressed into attending the celebration of the Katahdin Lake land swap. If ever there were an example of worshipping the work of our own hands, it was that event. The usual cast of characters was there from the Governor on down, patting each other on the back, applauding and congratulating each other, as though to do so confirmed their value.
No wonder we have become weighed down by our constructions and weary in the battle of life! We are carrying too much baggage! We are carrying so much baggage that it is the 3rd world countries that are able to take advantage of our technology. The US is now 23rd in the world in the deployment of broadband Internet access.
The picture we have here is that no expense of time, energy or money is spared in crafting idols. This is often done at the expense of our families, where the pennies are pinched. While we serve our appetites with the best that we have, we give God the leftovers. Getting it right, you see, is about our priorities, however poorly we may go about them.
David, with all his sin, was called a man after God’s own heart. The reason for that is that he had his priorities straight – he knew that in the final analysis he could get nowhere without God carrying him there.
Nobody can come up with a suitable image for God, can they? Even America, as powerful and as wealthy as it is, is a poor image of God. The problem, you see, is that anything we can imagine can only be 2nd generation at best – created by the created.
The proud and obstinate Babylonians said that they would never let the people of Israel go. They will never show mercy; they will never do justice; they would detain them forever. But God had a plan. His plan was a bird of prey from the east – Cyrus the Great of Persia, who would swoop down and take the Babylonians and their idols into captivity. They would turn the Babylonians into slaves and melt down their idols. And they would let God’s people go.
The deliverance promised in earlier times is still held out: “I am bringing my righteousness near; it is not far away. My salvation will not be delayed. I will grant my salvation to Zion; my splendor to Israel.”
The history of Jerusalem, although besieged and occupied from time to time, was that it became the international center for the One, true God. From the Zion of ancient Israel – Judaism – springs the Zion of the Gospel – the Kingdom of God from every nation, tribe and tongue. On it marches in victory over its enemies with nary a shot being fired or a weapon being dragged into battle.
The King has come. His Kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting. Swords have been beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Even those nations with the mighty power of nuclear weapons stand in a weary battlefield with their implements of war on beasts of burden, defeated before God’s righteous One in Zion.
This Deliver; this salvation promised to the Jews in captivity in Babylon, has this to say about the crushing weight of our idols:
‘Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
That’s the contrast with our burdensome idols that just stand wherever we put them. And that’s the formula for getting it right.
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