A. W. Tozer, reflecting on the process of man turning to worship the created thing rather than the Creator, wrote, “This series of degrading acts began in the mind. Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they are themselves idolatrous. The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true.”¹

I would dare say that if we agree with Tozer in saying that the idolater “simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true” then we must also agree that we all to often can be characterized as idolaters. For just as it is easy to speak confess one’s love for another while denying it in one’s actions, so it is easy to confess right things about God verbally only to them secretly imagine false things about him and live as if they were true.

Idolatry is a sin addressed in Scripture in quite a gross fashion. In fact, when God bears down on his people in judgment, it is often because of idolatry. Therefore, we should not imagine that idolatry is as easily avoidable as the insurance salesman announcing he’s trying to take advantage of you in his opening statements. Sin (such as idolatry) is not upheld as a great enemy in the Scripture because it is uninviting and easily avoidable but because it is subtle, alluring, and can draw us in when we are unaware.

In the chapters we are looking at this morning, God makes much of idolatry. He even shows the perverseness and foolishness of one carving an idol out of the same wood with which he uses to cook his food and warm himself. However, my great fear this morning, is that we might find ourselves agreeing with God’s assessment of such only to find ourselves in great sin because we miss the over-arching point of the text. That great point, I believe, of the text is not to draw our attention to the idols, primarily, but to recognize the greatness of God in light of what man pursues as his god, in light of the low view man has of who and what is worthy of worship. My great fear is that we might mock the thought of worshiping idols while holding such a view of God that is not worthy of him and leads us to walk in sin. For cannot much, if not all, sin be traced back to a faulty concept of God that we hold in our minds? Indeed, I think it can. Therefore, I want to remind us this morning what I think Isaiah wanted to remind his readers of in these chapters, namely, what our God is like and what impact that should have on our lives. Thus, let us now turn to a few lessons about God’s nature and works that we can see in this text.

Because God is in control of the world, directing history, his purposes and plans will be accomplished (41:1-20)

This is one of the first clear messages Isaiah seeks to communicate to his listeners. He begins chapter 41 calling all the earth to attention, to draw together for judgment. Then he asks them who has been directing history, only to answer the questions himself. We read in verses 2-4, “Who stirred up one from the east whom victory meets at every step? He gives up nations before him, so that he tramples kings underfoot; he makes them like dust with his sword, like driven stubble with his bow. He pursues them and passes on safely, by paths his feet have not trod. Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he” (41:2-4).

The answer is clear. God is the one directing history. God is the one who is sovereign over the nations. He is the one who is sovereign over all things.
“Fine,” we might think, “God simply wants us to know how great he is.” Yes, he does want us to know he is great, but there is a specific end in mind for Israel in this text. God wanted them to know how great and powerful and sovereign he was so that they would trust him to care for them and to carry out his purposes and plans for them. Therefore, he brings up three pictures where Israel is unable and then assures them he will provide for them.
The first is in 41:8-13 as God lifts up Israel as a people he has chosen and whose enemies he will conquer. We read, “But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off; fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish. You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them; those who war against you shall be as nothing at all. For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, fear not, I am the one who helps you.”
The second is of Israel as a feeble worm, who cannot do what is necessary and God turning them into a threshing sledge, which can do more than imagined (41:14-16). And the final picture is of Israel as poor and needy while God is one who is going to provide for them (41:17-20). Isaiah is simply showing Israel that she need not fear, for God, who is committed to them and is in control of history, is directing things to their right end.

This is one of those points where idolatry is easy to succumb to throughout life. For I do not doubt that we are nodding to this reality this morning, but I do doubt that we therefore find ourselves continually resting in God’s sovereign, guiding hand in the world. No, rather, is it not that we often live in great anxiety and even anger because we imagine less of an image of God than is presented in this text? Is it not the case that we often have trouble trusting God to direct and guide us even though we know (even as we might have prayed as children) that he is great and he is good?

I am not a masterful chess player. I know what moves the pieces can make and I can think logically enough to beat someone if he is not greatly skilled in playing the game. But I am in no way approaching grandmaster status. Moreover, this week I played chess with someone who is not that great either. However, I doubt he would be offended at my saying so, for he beat me. As we played that game this week, we represented two different players. I represented the player who makes fumbling moves along the way, not thinking or using as much long-range planning as I should, and so end up losing the game. My opponent, then, represented one who equally made a number of fumbling moves along the way and yet won. My dad, on the other hand, is an excellent chess player. When we played while I was growing up, he made sport of me during chess by telling me how many moves he would use to beat me. Thus, the challenge for him was not whether or not he would beat me but whether or not he could do it in the number of moves he had announced (which meant at times he would have to delay the inevitable though I was giving him many open doors to victory). Thus, he represents one not only who wins at chess but, when he really wants to win, makes no wasteful moves along the way.

And though analogies, when pressed, will inevitably fail, I think this one can aid us in highlighting one thing. For many of us, my opponent this week more rightly represents how we perceive God than my dad does. That is to say, none of us struggle in agreeing that God will be victorious in the end and will accomplish his purposes in us. However, it is quite difficult for us to trust in all the ‘moves’ along the way. We need to see that to be gripped with anxiety because of the events and direction of our own lives under God’s sovereignty is even more foolish than watching with great anxiety as my dad moves each chess piece into place so that he can beat me in six moves. It is ridiculous. It is the action of idolatrous thought about God.

Therefore, this morning, maybe for many of us, a right response to this text is to repent, for our lives truly display the outworking of a faulty view of God, a view in which he is not an almighty God committed to the good of his people.

From here, the text then fleshes out two specific areas from which God can deliver his people so as to accomplish his purposes.

God, then (because of his very nature), can deliver his people from physical realities that stand to hinder his work in regards to them (42:18-43:21)

In 42:18-43:21, we see a cycle that will be somewhat repeated in the final section of our text. Briefly, the cycle has four stages: Israel’s failure is revealed and her disaster pronounced (42:18-25), Israel’s redemption is proclaimed (43:1-7), God shows the certainty of his promises (43:8-13), and God displays the details of his redemption (43:14-21).

Therefore, in the opening section (42:18-25), Israel’s failure is clear. God calls out his people as a servant who is blind and deaf. Though they have seen and heard of God’s great works, it is as if they are blind and deaf (18-20). This is disastrous, for God had been pleased to use Israel as his servant through whom he would magnify his law and draw the nations to him, but now they will be plundered by those very nations as the judgment of God. We see this in verses 21-24.

Judah is about to be defeated by Babylon and taken into captivity, and it will be the Lord’s judgment for her sin. So, does this mean that somehow God is not able to bring about his intent for them? No, rather, we read in 43:1-7 that God is going to redeem them from Babylonian captivity, and he is so committed to them that should the task be to sacrifice others to save them, the decision is made. He is going to deliver his people.

How can his people know this for sure? God answers, “‘I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I am God. Also henceforth I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work, and who can turn it back?’” (43:1-13).

God’s answer is that he is God, the one who has redeemed in the Exodus, and the one who will do it again. There is simply none to stop him. Therefore, in verses 14-21 he describes the flight from Egypt (43:16-17) and declares there is a new picture of redemption coming (43:18-19).

Babylonian captivity, even as it is a consequence of Judah’s sin, simply is not enough to prevent God from fulfilling his plans with and through his people.

So it is with us. No physical reality (even if it may be a consequence of our sin) is enough to prevent God from completing his purposes and plans in our lives. I say that because Babylonian captivity is simply not a reality for us. I know of no one wrestling right now with how he can continue to labor as a useful vessel for God because he finds himself in captivity in Babylon. It is quite easy for me, however, to think of some individuals who are in marriages to non-Christians because they chose disobedience to the Lord when they were married. And now they might be fretting greatly at how God might use them.

For them, God has made clear that divorce is not an option for them, and they are living in the physical consequences of their sin. However, just as God had promised to Judah, so we can hear now, that God is with us wherever we are, and nothing can keep him fulfilling his purposes and plans with you.

Therefore, do not fret over current circumstances or live as one who constantly allows your mind to dwell in the past and what you might have done differently. Rather, know now, wherever you are and whatever physical reality you are in at this point in life, nothing can thwart God using you to fulfill his purposes. Therefore, pursue diligently in faithful obedience this God who is great and good.

We also see that God also can deliver his people from sin (43:22-44:23)

Though it might seem to us amazing that God deliver Judah from Babylonian captivity, and stories such as God’s deliverance of Judah under Hezekiah’s reign from the great Assyrian threat such as in chapters 36-37 of Isaiah make us marvel, such deliverances are only shadows of a greater deliverance, that of God’s people from sin.

In 43:22-44:23, Isaiah repeats the pattern we have just seen in the previous section, but this time the redemption is not from Babylon but from sin. In 43:22-24, Israel’s sin is exposed. In 43:24 we read, “You have not bought me sweet can with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities.” Yet what is God’s response? God proclaims, “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (43:25).

All they can bring to the table is their sin, guilt, and deserved punishment, but God proclaims blessing in 44:1-5, affirms his ability to bring about such justification because he alone is God in 44:6-20, and describes their redemption in 44:21-22.

But the miracle is how God does this? And the answer is that he justifies himself without sacrificing his justice by letting his Son receive their penalty on the cross. Forgiveness is not easy. Our justification was paid for by the blood of Christ, but God did not spare his own Son. Therefore, dare we doubt the greatness and goodness of our God!

When I was younger, I remember having a dispute with my mom one day when finally I blurted out, “You just don’t love me.” With that, my mom angrily and disappointedly looked at me, opened the door, and said, “Go stand outside until you know better than that!”

It caught me off-guard. And as I was standing outside my thought of unbelief that she had told me to stand outside were only ultimately eclipsed by my unbelief that I had actually made the statement I had to my mom. It was a ridiculous notion. I might doubt my mom had done every little thing right concerning parenting, but I could not doubt her love. She served everyone in her house with sweat and tears.

Even greater, it is ridiculous that we live our lives as if our God cannot be trusted. Perhaps it is because we think too little about the cost of our redemption. We have failed to realize with Paul, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

But here we might be tempted to say, “Hey, are we not comforting ourselves too much with the words of this text, for they address Israel much but not necessarily us?” How can we really know Isaiah intended those reading the text today to receive such comforts from this text?

There are really two reasons. The first is that in Christ God has made one new people out of two peoples so that there is no longer Jew and Gentile, but we are all one in Christ, and we are no longer strangers to the covenants of promise (Ephesians 2:11-21). And the second reason is that God does address the whole world in this text. It is in the section we have overlooked, namely, 41:21-42:17.

We read in 42:18-25 that Israel had failed as God’s servant to bring blessing to the world. However, just before that, we see that God’s redemptive purposes were not laid upon the ability of Israel, but his true servant.

In 41:21-29 we read again of God’s greatness in comparison to idols. But what is the hope for a world that has chosen idolatry? It is Christ and his world, of which we read in 42:1-17.

In 42:1-4 we read that God has a true servant, a true vine, a true Son, the true Israel, Jesus of Nazareth who will bring his redemptive purposes to believers from all over the world. And one day, according to 42:10, his praise will sound from the end of the earth. Therefore, this gives us our final hope today as a reminder of our sureness in trusting God.

All things are sure in God’s plans for his people, for he is committed to the exaltation of his Son (41:21-42:17)

Our ultimate hope for trusting God to fulfill his plans in and through us is because God’s purposes are being fulfilled in Christ (in whom we dwell) and God is committed to exalting his Son above all things. That is to say, God’s ultimate purpose for his people is wrapped up in the completed work of his Son and the exaltation that comes from that, and that work and exaltation are sure.

Therefore, as we come to the table this morning we are reminded of the past and the future, of what God has done and what he will do. And my prayer is that we indeed proclaim through the receiving of this bread and this cup that we will walk in obedient faith. May God’s grace be with us. Amen.

¹ A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 5.

GOD, REDEMPTION, AND HIS PEOPLE