Present Trials, Future Glories - Isaiah 12

I believe one of the strangest things about us as humans is how we react to the suffering of others.  Our reactions vary widely depending upon the kind of suffering we witness.  I have yet to figure out why people falling is funny.  It’s not always funny.  Sometimes it is just shocking.  But America’s Funniest Home Videos is packed with people falling, stumbling, tripping, and getting hurt accidentally.  It’s just funny.  I don’t know why.

When some of us were kids, the funniest thing about the cartoons was how the various characters got hurt.  The Roadrunner cartoons consisted of nothing else than Wile E. Coyote repeatedly being smashed by heavy objects and falling off very tall cliffs.  That was just about it.  And that perpetual suffering of an incompetent coyote at the hands (or wings) of a bird was extremely entertaining.  But we know the coyote’s tragedies are not real, so we don’t feel bad about laughing at him.

But then there are real tragedies in real life, and we even laugh at them!  For example, we laugh about the brain dead bank robbers (emphasis on Bank Robbers!) who call ahead to tell the bank they’re coming, and they get caught in the act.  What’s funny about hoodlums getting guns, threatening to hurt people, and robbing a bank?  Why is it so funny that these potentially dangerous criminals are so stupid?  Shouldn’t we at least feel some sadness about that?  I must admit, I don’t feel any sadness toward them, even though they will spend a very long time in prison.  On the contrary, it is hilarious.  And they have gotten what they deserved.

Then there are those tragedies that are sobering and create a real sense of sadness in us.  Even so, they are still, in a warped sense, entertaining.  They hold our attention like little else.  Sin and strife are the stuff from which entertainment is made.  War, famine, pestilence, dirty politics, earthquakes, tsunamis, adultery and unfaithfulness, perversion and murder, death and destruction, planet-destroying asteroids: That’s what’s on TV tonight!  What would the news be without evil, tragedy and misfortune?  In a word?  Boring.  So for some strange reason, we tend to thrive on the adversity of others, even the sinfulness of others, oftentimes with a bag of chips in one hand, and a soda in the other, on the couch. 

Seems a bit insensitive.  We try to avoid hardship and unhappiness ourselves at all costs, but we’re entertained, and even enthralled reading about it or watching it on TV.  Tragedy can be mesmerizing, like the assassination of President Kennedy, or the destruction of the Challenger space shuttle, or the 9/11 attacks, or the invasion of Iraq.  What sometimes begins as the entertaining of our curiosity eventually gives way to feelings of genuine sadness and loss over a real catastrophe.  It’s one thing to see the planes crash into the twin towers.  It is quite another thing to see people jumping from the 100th floor.

Then we cross over into another realm entirely when the devastation isn’t being observed objectively.  It’s being experienced subjectively.  When tragedy strikes us personally, when God in His wisdom deems it necessary to bring calamity into our lives, its entertainment value disappears entirely.  What might otherwise be the stuff of a successful reality show is suddenly your life, your experience, your pain, your suffering, your ruin.  

Sin is the original cause of all difficulty, sadness, suffering, pain, and death.  That is one reason why there will be no sin in Heaven.  But it is that sort of stuff (difficulty, sadness, suffering, pain, stupidity and death) that tends to get and hold our attention, as long as it belongs to someone else.  Sometimes we are shocked by other peoples’ miseries, like in Haiti.  On the other hand, stupid bank robbers are just plain funny.  I don’t understand exactly why that is humorous, and it does really seem strange to me when I think about it, that other peoples’ sin and suffering and calamity are often so amusing.  Maybe it speaks to our condition as fallen human beings.  But I’m confident I will continue to be greatly entertained by the incompetence and accidental calamities of others, like anvils falling on the heads of coyotes.

The Bible speaks of sin and the misery it causes quite a lot, and while it isn’t funny or amusing, it does get our attention.  Some of the most well-known people in the Bible are well-known because of their sin.  Delilah and Jezebel are notorious for their wickedness.  Cain is known specifically because he murdered his own brother.  Sodom and Gomorrah have been household words for centuries specifically because of the extreme wickedness they represent.  No one names their son Judas. And there are dozens more lesser-known scoundrels in the Bible whose names are associated with evil.  All of this BEFORE we even talk about the catastrophes that are the result of sin of which we read in these pages.  Have you ever contemplated the drowning of nearly the entire human race by a world-wide flood?  Have you ever pondered the destruction of an entire city by fire falling from the sky?

In Isaiah, we read a lot of bad stuff that grabs our attention simply because it is so bad.  We’ve arrived at chapter 12, and in 11 short chapters, we have already seen a lot of “news-worthy” stuff: God’s people forsaking Him for idolatry; evil kings making evil alliances; ruthless armies marching against defenseless nations; the annihilation of 185,000 soldiers in one night; the murder of a king in the temple of his false god by his own two sons.  It’s all very exciting and even fun to read in a warped sort of way, . . . as long as none of it is happening to us. 

Interspersed throughout the bad news about bad people behaving very badly, there are promises given by God of better people and better days ahead.  A child will be born miraculously to a virgin.  The government of the entire world will be upon His good and righteous shoulders.  He will usher in a new world wherein righteousness dwells.  His good kingdom and his righteous reign will endure forever!  While there has been a lot of bad news to report in the first 11 chapters of Isaiah, there is also great hope in the midst of all the misery and pain and death.  One of God’s purposes in the miseries His people experience is to provoke hope in His promises of a glorious future.  

In chapter 1, verses 13-15, God says to the people of Judah, “I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.  Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates.  Even though you make man prayers, I will not listen!”  That’s not good, to say the least.  When God says He refuses to hear someone’s prayers, that is about as bad as it gets.  But a few verses later in verse 18 He says, “Come now, let us reason together.  Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”  Hope in the midst of great misery!

In chapter 2, verse 6, Isaiah says of God, “You have rejected your people.”  Why?  Because they are full of things from the east, full of silver and gold, full of horses and chariots, full of idols, full of themselves.  So in verses 12 through 17, God says He will be against the people of Judah.  In fact, He says it 10 times!  He is against everything they have prized and exalted, and He will bring it all down in order to exalt Himself.  God is going to terrorize His people with Himself.  

But you get to chapter 4, verse 2, and Isaiah says, “In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel. 3 It will come about that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy--everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem.”  That sounds pretty good!  God will punish, but God will restore.  There is hope in the midst of terror!

In chapter 5, we read, Woe, woe, woe, and some more woe.  Not good.  In chapter 6, Isaiah sees God and his sins are forgiven!  Very, very good!  In chapter 7, God sends Isaiah to go and help out King Ahaz, but then King Ahaz says in effect, “I don’t want God’s help.”  Not good.  But then God gives Ahaz a sign anyway named Immanuel, God With Us!  That’s good!  In chapter 8, Assyria is coming to wipe Judah out.  Not good.  But in chapter 9, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light!”  Really, really good!  A Messiah is coming!  Hope in the midst of overwhelming woes!

In chapter 10, “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees . . . .  For all this His anger has not turned away and His hand is stretched out still.”  Really not good.  In chapter 11, “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, . . . 6 And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, . . . 10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.”  Really, really good!

There’s plenty of bad news and evil men and lots of woe to get our attention in these pages.  But look at the hope the promises of God generate!  Are things bad in Judah?  Very much so!  But when God is done with His corrective, purifying, purging work in Judah, chapters 11 and 12 tell of the new heavens, the new earth, and a new people with a new heart toward God.

11:1 speaks of the Shoot, the Stump, the descendant of Jesse, the Son of David who will one day come.  One day, there will be a new heaven, a new earth, a new creation.  One day, the Holy One of Israel will be the new King over a new kingdom.  In verse 10, Isaiah says “In that day, . . . the nations shall inquire of Him.”  In verse 11, Isaiah says, “In that day, God will recover His people from the four corners of the earth.”  And in chapter 12, beginning in verse 1, we read these wonderful words:

1 You will say in that day:

“I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me,

your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.

2 “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid;

for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”

3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. 

4 And you will say in that day:

“Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted.

5 “Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. 

6 Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”

This is the kind of preaching Isaiah signed up for when he said in chapter 6, “Here am I!  Send me!”  This is Good News, a word of hope, a reason to press on.  These verses are designed to cause the people of Judah to trust the Lord for a better day, believing that God will eventually bring an end to their self-induced catastrophes and bring these good things to pass.  There really is a day coming when the people of God will have reason to shout and sing for joy.  

But not now.  Not yet.  That day is yet to come.  The new world with the new King and the new people of God who have been delivered from all their enemies and gathered from all over the earth, that day is still future.  In light of their current circumstances, it is hard to believe anything will ever get any better.  The calamity they are living in is not entertaining at all.  It’s just bad.  But God is going to remain faithful to keep every promise He has made regarding His people.  That day WILL come when everything, absolutely everything, will be made right.

Look again at verse 1.  1 You will say in that day: “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.”  For the people of Judah, this giving of thanks to God for turning His anger away was still future.  It had not yet happened.  They were still looking forward to when they could say God was no longer angry with them.

Has that day arrived for you yet?  Can you say, “The Lord was angry with me, but He has turned His anger away and He has become my Comforter”?  Or is the Lord still angry with you?  If you have not yet repented of your sin against Him, if you have never truly turned from your sin and cried out to God to have mercy on you, then He is still angry with you.  You are in danger of great personal catastrophe.

How about verse 2?  “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”  Is that your testimony?  Presently, right now, God IS your salvation?  He has already become your Savior?  Or is He not yet your Savior?  And if not, why not?  What personal calamity are you willing to risk by avoiding God?

As awful and miserable as life was for the people of Judah, God sent Isaiah with this word of hope.  God was still working to bring about a future day of deliverance and salvation for them.  That was their only hope in their misery under God’s wrath.  But the God who was angry with them would also become the God who saved them and comforted them.

Is that your story?  Are you thankful to God for His deliverance of you from your sin and guilt, and from His anger against you?  Are you grateful for God’s salvation of you from future misery and woe?  From an eternity of pain and suffering?  Has He become your comforter in your sorrow for sin?

Verses 5 & 6 speak of God’s people singing.  The people Isaiah is speaking of sing because of what they think of their Savior.  They sing because God has done gloriously, He has worked on their behalf magnificently.  They shout and sing for JOY because their God who dwells in their midst is great and awesome!  He is their great Deliverer, the Holy One of Israel!  

We sing here every week.  Most of us sing.  Why do you sing?  What is the motivation behind your singing?  Do you sing because you have experienced God’s salvation, or because it’s the next thing on the program?  Is it because you think so highly of Christ that you can’t help but sing about Him?  Or maybe I should ask, “You do sing, don’t you?“  Or are your woes so great and your difficulties so overwhelming and your heart so dull that your problems are bigger than God?  Do you hesitate to sing because you have no hope, and you have no hope because God is so small in your eyes?  You think your problems are unconquerable, and God really isn’t all that great?  Is that why you have nothing to sing about?

People don’t become accustomed to personal catastrophe.  We can watch other people’s suffering all day long on TV.  But personal catastrophe is never entertaining.  Extraordinarily bad events that are far worse than normal, everyday problems and struggles are considered to be catastrophic, and these things always leave a mark.  Someone’s house burns down and they lose everything, including their family.  A young woman goes out on a blind date and is raped.  Someone is injured in an accident and becomes a quadriplegic.  A spouse is killed by a stray bullet.  A child is abused by someone they trust.  A partner of 50 years files for divorce.  Such things happen regularly, and they are not entertaining at all to the people who experience them.  They are awful.  They produce fear and terror and anger and suffering and grief and trauma.  They are the calamities of life in a sinful world from which people never fully recuperate.  

The entire nation of Judah which had been the envy of the middle eastern world under the reign of David and Solomon, was reduced to a single city at the hands of godless kings and their armies.  They were living in a national calamity of their own making because they forsook God.  Their suffering was, by our standards, nearly unimaginable, and they deserved it.  Read what Jeremiah says about the suffering of Judah.  In the book of Lamentations, God compares what happens in Jerusalem to what happened in Sodom:

6 For the iniquity of the daughter of my people Is greater than the sin of Sodom,

Which was overthrown as in a moment, And no hands were turned toward her. (Lam. 4:6, ESV)

There was none to help, none to comfort, none to relieve the immense suffering of Jerusalem.  But even so, there was reason for Judah to hope for a promised day in the future when their Messiah would come and be in their midst and deliver them.

That day did come, in a certain sense.  Palm Sunday is the celebration of the King of the Jews riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.  Just as Isaiah says, the Lord Jesus, the Holy One of Israel, was in their midst.  And the catastrophe of all catastrophes was when the people of God crucified the Deliverer whom God sent.  The Savior they longed for so badly to bring them relief from all their sorrows, was murdered by the very people He came to save.

It doesn’t get any worse than that, and that is exactly what many of them felt when they were confronted by Peter on the Day of Pentecost.  When Peter confronted and accused the people of Jerusalem of crucifying their own Messiah, they were cut to the heart and asked Peter and the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

I ask you, what will you do?  If your faith is not yet in Christ to be your salvation, what will you do about God’s anger against you for your sin and the endless calamity that awaits?  I’m not talking about other people’s sin and other people’s suffering.  I’m talking about your sin, your death, and your hell.  Other people’s sin and sorrow we can tolerate and even be entertained by it.  The consequences others suffer for their sins, we can witness and feel no sorrow or remorse for them at all.  We might even say, and rightly so, they deserve whatever God determines to give them for their sinfulness.

But what about your unrepentant sinfulness?  What about God’s anger against you?  Not only will your misery not be entertaining, it will be your very own personal, eternal, sorrowful, crushing catastrophe.  What will you do to turn His anger away if you refuse to repent of your sin?

One day, the Lord Jesus will come again.  In that day, you and I will need to be found trusting in Him to deliver us from the wrath of God.  When will that day happen?  No one knows.  No one knows.  If you are sitting within the sound of my voice, I implore you to examine your own heart and life.  Has Isaiah 12 been your experience?  Is God’s anger toward you a thing of the past?  Can you honestly and with sincerity sing about the Lord having become your salvation?

Today, hear Him speak to you from His word.  Make that day THIS DAY.  Your life need not be another disaster, another calamity, another eternal catastrophe.  Place your hope and confidence in God.  He is willing to turn away His anger.  Run to Him.  Call upon the Holy One of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ, to save you.