Sermon Tone Analysis

God is.

This is the central truth of the universe.

But why is it important to our lives?

It is important because this one truth has massive implications for our being, our identity, our purpose, and as we will see, every choice we make either moves us closer or farther from our own flourishing and wholeness.

If you were going to build this case, how would you do it?

Our passage might be one way to do it.

This passage continues the courtroom scene we started last week.

God has summoned all the nations to His courtroom.

He is building His case that their idols are nothing, He is everything, and their greatest joy can be found in knowing Him and making Him known.

In today’s passage, Yahweh is calling witnesses for His case.

There’s only one catch.

God’s main witness is blind and deaf.

How can someone who cannot see or hear bear witness in a courtroom?

It may depend on the case being made.

Let’s review the opening statement, which came with the first implication, that we read last week:

Isaiah 42:8 (ESV)

I am the Lord; that is my name;

my glory I give to no other,

nor my praise to carved idols.

This implication leads into the first point today.

(This is a good time to insert one point I left out last week.

We are in the section of Isaiah that tells us about the Servant of the LORD.

The Servant of the LORD in Isaiah can be one of three people.

This can be Isaiah himself.

It could also be Israel as a nation, sometimes called Jacob, who was the father of the nation.

Then it could be the Messiah, the anointed one who serves God’s purposes for deliverance and ruling for God.

And then Messiah could be one of several people, including King David, some other king, or the deliverer of Israel who will come in the family line of David to redeem His people and establish the kingdom of God and the worship of God on the earth.

When we read any passage in Isaiah, it could be one or more of these in any given passage.

Last week, for instance, the servant of the LORD is Israel as a nation.

But it’s also clear that the nation of Israel does not fulfill the prophecy because of their sin and failure.

And so the greater fulfillment is the coming Messiah, the one faithful Israelite, who will accomplish what the nation could not do.

When we come to our passage this week, we see all of that complexity at play.)

Sin and Disobedience Plunders, Loots, Traps, and Imprisons

Our passage opens with a less than complimentary picture of the redeemed people of God.

Isaiah 42:18–20 (ESV)

Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see!

Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send?

Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord?

He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear.

If the Servant of the LORD in any given passage can be Israel, King David or the Messiah who will come from His line, Isaiah himself, or sometimes two of these at once, the context helps us interpret.

Isaiah 42:21 (ESV)

The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify his law and make it glorious.

The people of Israel were the people Yahweh redeemed from slavery in Egypt and to whom Yahweh revealed His word.

The LORD's Torah (instructions/law) is glorious.

He gave it to Israel that they may live fruitful lives in the promised land.

Literally, He promises that if they obey His commandments their grain and wine and oil will multiply (Deuteronomy 11:13-14).

But also that their own lives would be long and successful (Deuteronomy 11:22-25).

Isaiah 42:22 (ESV)

But this is a people plundered and looted; they are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons;

they have become plunder with none to rescue, spoil with none to say, “Restore!”

Isaiah 42:24 (ESV)

Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers?

Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?

Isaiah 42:25 (ESV)

So he poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle; it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.

Let’s see the implications here.

If God is, and God is everything, then because God has spoken to us, then His words, instructions, laws and judgments are our fruitfulness and wholeness.

Every choice you make to either obey or disobey is either a step toward wholeness and fruitful living or a step toward a wasted life.

Idolatry, or any other sin, plunders, loots, entraps, and enslaves us.

And like any loving Father, He will allow us to experience His anger and the painful consequences of our sins in order to discipline us.

For those who have become children of God by faith, there is this other implication.

God is, which implies that God is everywhere, so...

God is With His People in the Fire

Isaiah 43:1–3 (ESV)

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Just like in the Exodus, so in the Exile, God is with His redeemed people.

You may be experiencing the painful consequences of sin.

It may be the fires of conflict in your relationships.

It may be the plundering of your time and energy.

It may be a flood of guilt and shame.

It may be exile.

But if you are a child of God, you will not be destroyed, this is the loving hand of your Father purifying you to restore you.

You are precious in his eyes, and honored, and He loves you.

In fact, He would trade whole nations for you to bring you home.

This is what He told Israel through Isaiah:

Isaiah 43:3–5 (ESV)

I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.

Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.

Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.

Israel would go into exile for their sins.

But God would redeem Israel once again.

The same nations that had enslaved them would now be exchanged to bring Israel home.

This is what God does for His redeemed people.

When you are His child, He would give anything to restore you.

When you stack up the redeemed people of God against all the other nations, they may not compare in many ways.

They aren’t as powerful or wise by worldly standards.

They may not be influential.

But they have this one thing going for them: they are a visible demonstration to the world of the invisible God who saves the lost sinner.

So the other implications really build up to this one.

1.

We are sinners, and our sins have plundered and enslaved us.

2. God will use the consequences of sin as discipline so that His children are not destroyed, but purified.

3.

Your Salvation is Yahweh’s Proclamation that He is God

The LORD finally calls His witness, who may seem less than adequate.

But what we will see is that Yahweh uses that very inadequacy to demonstrate that He is and that He is God.

Isaiah 43:8–10 (ESV)

Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears!

All the nations gather together, and the peoples assemble.