All Glory to God the Father
Let us turn to Isaiah 59
Separation from God
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short
That it cannot save;
Nor is His ear so dull
That it cannot hear.
The Lord’s strength is more than adequate to bring deliverance to captive Israel and to us today. His ear is attuned to the call of His repentant people. We are His people and can claim Abraham as our Father, just as the Jews do. Let us look at Romans 4 verses 9 to 12:
9 Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say, “Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.” 10 How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; 11 and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them, 12 and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised.
God always had planned for Gentiles to be included in His Grace and Mercy, to be offered His hand in saving Grace and salvation. The Jews were to be His ambassadors and priests to the world. But the Jews were stiff necked and not accepting of His Son, the Messiah and our Savior.
We must remember that God is always available and fully capable of helping His people. God never moves away from His people, they move away from Him. He hears and answers prayers, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,
And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.
Who has separated from whom? Has God left us or have we left him? If our prayers are not answered, and the salvation we wait for is not brought unto us, it is not because God is weary of hearing prayer, but because we are weary of praying. If you are persistent in sin, you have in fact caused God to hide His face from you and He will give you up to your sin. As in Romans 1 verses 24 to 25:
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken falsehood,
Your tongue mutters wickedness.
It sounds like Romans 1 is the right place to continue. Verses 28 to 32.
28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
4 No one sues righteously and no one pleads honestly.
They trust in confusion and speak lies;
They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.
We are puffed up with pride and will do, or say, anything to save face. We will tell a lie, if it will sway the decision for us. We are lost to sin and nothing has changed from then to now. Isaiah is telling his people that their hearts and minds are stayed on evil.
5 They hatch adders’ eggs and weave the spider’s web;
He who eats of their eggs dies,
And from that which is crushed a snake breaks forth.
This is speaking of the evil imaginations they hatch in their evil minds. They tell one lie upon another to catch a person in their evil web. Those who associate with them become just as evil as they are. How is it that we think that we can associate with satan and not be affected? And satan quite often comes in the guise of a believer, someone you would trust, who would beguile you with a smooth message that makes sense. Remember what happened with Eve.
6 Their webs will not become clothing,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
Their works are works of iniquity,
And an act of violence is in their hands.
They are not weaving material for garments to help someone. They are weaving to trap someone who is unaware, like a spider would. Their works help no one at all. They are works that are useless.
This we have seen in our own society in recent years, that acts of iniquity and violence destroy, they do not build.
7 Their feet run to evil,
And they hasten to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity,
Devastation and destruction are in their highways.
This seems to be taken from Proverbs 1 verse 16:
For their feet run to evil And they hasten to shed blood.
The words focused on the national depravity of Israel that stood in the way of God’s deliverance. Paul showed that what was true of sinful Israel is indicative of the depravity of all mankind; Romans 3 verses 15 to 17:
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
8 They do not know the way of peace,
And there is no justice in their tracks;
They have made their paths crooked,
Whoever treads on them does not know peace.
The way of peace they know not. Neither the way of peace with God, supposing it is to be made by man, and not by Christ; and are ignorant of the steps and methods taken to procure it.
Look closely at our present day and marvel at what was spoken 2600 years ago is so true in our day and time. We who do everything possible to avoid discomfort, boredom and drudgery and are so easily swayed by what the world wants of us in our churches. We have churches that have ordained gay/lesbian clergy, who support Planned Parenthood (63 million abortions), who say they believe the God of the Bible, but not the bible itself. And yet we are so incurious as to even bother to find out any of these things, but willingly sit in the pew and let life slide by.
A Confession of Wickedness
9 Therefore justice is far from us,
And righteousness does not overtake us;
We hope for light, but behold, darkness,
For brightness, but we walk in gloom.
Because we have no regard for justice or honesty, God will not plead our cause against our oppressors; He does not defend our rights, nor avenge our wrongs; as if he had said, If we had executed judgment and equity among one another, they would not now have been far from us.
John 11:10 “But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.”
Jesus says walk in the Light.
John 8:12 “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
The secret to all of this, is repenting and coming to God, so that the Light will guide you.
10 We grope along the wall like blind men,
We grope like those who have no eyes;
We stumble at midday as in the twilight,
Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men.
They have eyes to see, but they do not see. Their sin has blinded them. Their spirit is dead.
11 All of us growl like bears,
And moan sadly like doves;
We hope for justice, but there is none,
For salvation, but it is far from us.
They are in desperate need of a Savior. God could not wait until they, or we, deserved to be saved, because they could not pull themselves out of the darkness. God sent His Son to bring the Light to the world, so that whosoever would could be saved.
When the Light of Jesus shines in your life, it does away with all darkness. They just need Jesus, their Messiah to come and awaken them.
12 For our transgressions are multiplied before You,
And our sins testify against us;
For our transgressions are with us,
And we know our iniquities:
If we shut our eyes against the light of Divine truth, it is just with God to hide from our eyes the things that belong to our peace. The sins of those who profess themselves God’s people, are worse than the sins of others. And the sins of a nation bring public judgments, when not restrained by public justice. Men may murmur under calamities, but nothing will truly profit while they reject Christ and his gospel.
13 Transgressing and denying the Lord,
And turning away from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words.
Luke 6:45 “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”
14 Justice is turned back,
And righteousness stands far away;
For truth has stumbled in the street,
And uprightness cannot enter.
With evil men there is no justice. They lie and cheat to get whatever they want. There is no such thing as a fair trial, when you have evil witnesses.
The Lord took it on Himself to change Israel’s condition through the intervention of His Suffering Servant (53:12).
15 Yes, truth is lacking;
And he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey.
Now the Lord saw,
And it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice.
In an environment where evil prevailed, anyone who departed from it became a victim of his environment because he did not fit in.
Those, who are living evil lives, try to destroy anyone who tries to break away and do right. One of the reasons for this is because the evil ones are afraid their evil ways will be found out.
God helps those who try to break away from evil. God will fight on your behalf, if you make a stand for God.
16 And He saw that there was no man,
And was astonished that there was no one to intercede;
Then His own arm brought salvation to Him,
And His righteousness upheld Him.
Not any man came forward to try to straighten this out. It is not known why, but perhaps from fear, no one stepped forward to work for God in this matter. God had sent judges, and prophets, but the evil ones had killed them.
There was no man who would do this, so there had to be the Arm of God to be the Savior. Jesus Christ is the Arm of God. He is the Savior. Jesus was not a man, but was housed in the flesh of man for His stay upon the earth.
He not only had righteousness, He was Righteousness.
17 He put on righteousness like a breastplate,
And a helmet of salvation on His head;
And He put on garments of vengeance for clothing
And wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle.
The Lord armed Himself for the deliverance of His people and for taking vengeance on enemies who would seek His destruction. Paul drew on this terminology in describing a believer’s spiritual preparation for warding off the attacks of Satan (Eph. 6:14, 17, 1 Thess. 5:8).
Jesus did not need armor like the kings wore in battle. His armor for His breast was righteousness. He is the Head of the church. He brought salvation to all who would believe. He is the Head; the believers in Christ make up the body.
The only weapon He used was the two-edged sword, which is the Word of God. His sword came from His mouth.
The Bible says that vengeance belongs to God, He will repay. He worked tirelessly, so that all who would believe would be saved. He worked 6 hours on the cross to complete His work on the earth. When the six hours were over, He said, it is finished.
18 According to their deeds, so He will repay,
Wrath to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies;
To the coastlands He will make recompense.
The judgment is generally against all, in Israel or outside it, who come under this description. The word “islands” is used, as elsewhere, for far-off lands. The words point to every such judgment, from that of Cyrus to the great final day.
Lest we think that judgement here is only for the wayward Jews, I remind all that it is a narrow path that we must choose and all will bend a knee to our King, Lord and Savior.
19 So they will fear the name of the Lord from the west
And His glory from the rising of the sun,
For He will come like a rushing stream
Which the wind of the Lord drives.
Fear could be thought of as reverence to God. The Gentile world will depend on the name of Jesus to save them. This just means when the great armies of the world come against the believers, Jesus will raise a standard against Satan and the world.
20 “A Redeemer will come to Zion,
And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” declares the Lord.
Romans 3:30 “Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.”
21 “As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from now and forever.”
This is that everlasting covenant that God made with man.
Galatians 3:16 “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”
In Christ we inherit the promises of both Jew and Gentile.
Galatians 3:29 “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
We are to take no thought what we are to say. God will fill us with the correct thing to say, as we need it. He is with us, and in us.
Colossians 1:27 “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:”
Now may the Lord bless you, and keep you;
May the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.’