Isaiah 48: Flee From Chaldea

Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right. 2 For they call themselves after the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel; the Lord of hosts is his name. 3 “The former things I declared of old; they went out from my mouth, and I announced them; then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass. 4 Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass, 5 I declared them to you from of old, before they came to pass I announced them to you, lest you should say, ‘My idol did them, my carved image and my metal image commanded them.’ 6 “You have heard; now see all this; and will you not declare it? From this time forth I announce to you new things, hidden things that you have not known. 7 They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’ 8 You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel. 9 “For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. 10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. 11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. 12 “Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last. 13 My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together. 14 “Assemble, all of you, and listen! Who among them has declared these things? The Lord loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans. 15 I, even I, have spoken and called him; I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way. 16 Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there.” And now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit. 17 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. 18 Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; 19 your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.” 20 Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!” 21 They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out. 22 “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”

Sermon Text:

Let’s open our bibles to the 48th chapter of Isaiah this morning as I read:

[READ ISAIAH 48]

I would like to look at this chapter in the light of the 20th verse:

Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!”

You hear the joy in the proclamation: The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob!

This is the message God is telling His people to spread over the entire earth.

From sea to shining sea; from shore to shore. Shout for joy!

In the valleys and on the mountains, proclaim this great news: The Lord has redeemed His servant!

The obvious response of the distant people in far off lands?

You can hear them saying:

“That servant, Jacob, must be really good.

“He must have really done something great for God to care for him that much.”

“For the only God, the Creator of everything, to personally rescue him, that people must be perfect.”

And the messenger might look at them and say: “Wellll, not really.”

Verse 1 – “they confess the God of Israel…but not in truth or right.”

Verse 4 – “They are obstinate, stiff-necked”

Verse 5 – Idolaters.

You get the point.

Then we skip down to verse 18: “If you had obeyed, you wouldn’t have needed to be redeemed”.

You would have had peace.

You would have had plenty.

You wouldn’t have been cut off from the land.

That is the point of mercy, isn’t it? You don’t deserve it.

If you deserve it, it’s called “justice”.

Mercy is when you DON’T get the punishment you deserve.

Justice doesn’t really excite us, make us “shout with joy”.

Mercy – that comes closer to doing it.

For those of you who work, when you get your paycheck, do you skip through the yard singing “I got paid! I got paid!”?

Probably not often, right? Because you are being paid for time and effort you exchanged with the person who signed the check.

You came to an agreement – I will do an amount of work for you, and you will pay me an amount of money.

There’s nothing joyful about simply receiving what we are owed.

But what if, in the middle of the night, someone slipped an envelope with ten thousand dollars under your front door?

Not a loan – just a gift.

Do you think you might have a little more joy over that gift than the paycheck you earned?

So when the Lord redeems His servant, that is why there is so much joy: it is all of God’s mercy and grace.

We might WANT to be worthy.

We might even strive out of love and gratitude to be worthy.

But God’s love is such that Christ died for the ungodly.

He died for the sinners.

He died for US, and He didn’t owe us anything except damnation.

But the declaration of His mercy, as great as it is, is not the only command in this verse.

Before the proclamation goes out over the whole earth, He commands His people to “Flee from Chaldea”.

His mercy is the reason we can.

It is the redemption He brings to us.

Flee from Chaldea.

Wouldn’t that be an obvious thing?

After all, the people of Judah had been carried off to Babylon, Chaldea, against their will by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.

After seventy years in the exile, they must have been counting the days until that exile would end.

Knowing that as soon as God’s promise of the end of the captivity in Babylon was fulfilled, they would run back to Jerusalem.

Except they didn’t.

We aren’t sure how many Jews were deported in exile, in slavery, to Babylon, but we do know how many returned.

We know that 400 years before, during the reign of King David, there were almost 500,000 fighting-age men in Judah.

We know it because he took the census that God considered quite sinful and punished the land for.

And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to David. In all Israel there were 1,100,000 men who drew the sword, and in Judah 470,000 who drew the sword. 6 But he did not include Levi and Benjamin in the numbering, for the king’s command was abhorrent to Joab. 7 But God was displeased with this thing, and he struck Israel. - 1 Chronicles 21:5–7

By the time of the captivity 400 years later, we don’t know for sure, but I think estimating the population at over a million people would be very conservative.

It could easily have been 3-5 millions by the time of the exile.

And, after 70 years, how many returned to the land of Israel?

Ezra tells us exactly – 42,360 men and women. (Ezra 2:64; Nehemiah 7:66) under Zerubbabel.

That was the number of those who returned when Cyrus decreed that they could return.

He even gave them incentives to go back, and all they could muster was 42,360.

Then 80 years after that, Ezra gathers another group to return, but only gathers around 2000 people.

And he has to wait even then because NO Levites were found in the group to return with him.

So why, whether with the first return after 70 years, or the second after 150 years, why did they have such a hard time getting people to return to the land God had promised?

It’s not really that hard to see: they had gotten comfortable in the land of Babylon.

They had built lives in the land of the Chaldeans.

They had lived their entire lives trying to make their lives better NOW.

They had long since stopped expecting to see God’s promise fulfilled.

They were living for today, working for today, and making a good life for themselves.

After all, they had God’s Law.

And if they obeyed it, mostly, they could be more honest and reliable than their neighbors who were less so.

Who knows: they may have had books or sermons or teachings about how the principles of the Bible would help them do business better than those around them.

After 70 years, God’s people, the people Isaiah is talking to with his prophetic voice, they were not just God’s people –

They could call themselves God’s successful people.

V. 1-2 – [they] swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right. 2 For they call themselves after the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel

They lived and worked in God’s name; they had successful lives in God’s name.

But they weren’t living in the place where God intended for them to live.

Even though God had redeemed them from the slavery and exile they were under, they didn’t want to leave.

They were happy there.

They had houses and jobs.

They had figured out how to live in Babylon.

They didn’t need the promises of God – they just needed Him to bless them where they were.

And Christian, I would bet that is the most common type of prayer in churches today: bless me in MY plans.

Bless me where I am.

Bless what I plan to do.

Make my life easy right here while I am doing MY thing.

Sure, we may add “if it is Your will” to the end, but think about the things you have prayed about this week:

How many of them were truly seeking GOD’S will, and how many were trying to get Him to bless yours?

There are churches filled to bursting over many campuses today because they will teach people how to get God to do YOUR will.

There are best-selling books that talk about how the principles of the Bible will make you successful – because God blesses you when you obey.

They might even point to the 18th verse of our chapter today as proof:

Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; - Isaiah 48:18

Dear friend – please hear this: This verse is talking about God’s judgment over the breaking of His commandments, not the worldly blessing of those who follow them.

If we are blessed, it is because it is God’s desire that all His children be blessed in His love.

His judgment, especially His temporal judgment, interrupts that for a time to remove sin and rebellion from us.

But that is the great grace and mercy of God: He always loves His children, even when they are not obedient.

God was not calling Judah to be a successful people;

He is calling them to be a holy people.

He is not calling YOU to be a successful person;

He is calling YOU to be a holy person.

Your success is incidental to holiness.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. - Matthew 6:33

Perhaps you are hearing that, and you think that I am saying that it is better to be poor than wealthy.

Poverty is not holier than wealth – that is not the point here.

The point is to be holy, faithful, obedient in any situation – plenty or need.

I know you are probably thinking that it sure would be easier to be holy and wealthy, don’t you think?

But there are not many of us that can squeeze that particular camel through a needle’s eye.

There aren’t many to whom God has given that grace.

And in most of those cases, the ones who have wealth with holy contentment learned how to be holy with much by practicing being holy with little.

They learned God is trustworthy because they were FORCED to trust Him for even their daily bread.

We don’t like that – as Americans.

We think wealth is our birthright.

We think anyone who is poor just doesn’t have the gumption to work to get themselves out of their poverty.

We think that God has blessed us with all these things because we are holier, nicer, more righteous than the starving nations of the world.

That we are closer to Him than believers who struggle to get enough food for their families.

And we think we have a handle on our wealth, that we are in control of our love of money or our greed or our covetousness.

If you think that, let me give you a little test:

Pray to God, and ask Him to take away all your financial security, all your wealth, all the nest egg you have held on to.

Ask Him to strip away all your comforts until you have only the basic necessities, and then plan to ask Him every day for those things.

Tell Him it is ok if you never have another vacation so long as you have a closer relationship with Him, in greater dependence on Him.

Tell Him you are ok if you lose everything but one set of clothes on your back so long as you have Him.

Are you willing to pray that dangerous prayer?

Are you so free of the love of money that you would pray to be cast completely on the mercy of God for your survival, so if He doesn’t come through, you will die?

Do you love Him more than these things?

Do you love Him or trust Him less without these things?

Your money, your house, your comforts, they are not evil. But for many of us, our TRUST in those things is a great sin, and it is a sin we don’t want to recognize and don’t want to repent of.

We are and should be thankful to God for His many gifts.

But do you love Him even if He stops giving those gifts?

Do you love Him when life is hard?

Do you love Him when you have to scratch through the thorny ground?

Will you accept difficult things from God, and not just the easy things?

You have brothers and sisters both here and in the church all over the world who wake up every day knowing that if God doesn’t provide water in their desert, they will go without.

You have brothers and sisters right here in Alabama, I daresay in Alex City and Sylacauga and Sycamore and Childersburg, who struggle with the things you take for granted.

You have brothers and sisters who would give anything – anything – to live a life as blessed by God as you.

You are God’s people – you don’t get to live like the world any more.

That is the message here in v. 20: Flee from Chaldea!

Unhook their claws from your flesh and run away from them.

All those things you are taught to love that aren’t God –

Hate them.

Hold them in your open palms, extended to God, knowing that even if He takes them from you, He is still good and loving and right.

And you are still His beloved child.

Target Date: Sunday, 27 April 2025

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

Thoughts on the Passage:

I wouldn’t give you two cents for all the so-called “Christian” books that tell you how to get ahead in this world. Flee it!

What is the Good News of this passage – Where is Jesus Christ? (if you can’t answer this question, are you finished?)

Teachings:

What do we learn about God/ Jesus/ Holy Spirit?

Applications:

For the Christian:

For the Backslidden:

For the Unconverted:

Primary Preaching Point:

Building Points:

[on even numbered page]

MORNING PRAYER:

Adoration:

Almighty God and everlasting King.

Confession:

Forgive us our pride, and the loathsome lengths to which we will go to support our fleshly vanity.

Thanksgiving:

In You we find our only hope, both in this life and in eternity joined with Christ Jesus.

Petition:

We beg that You subdue the power of our sins by Your Holy Spirit.

Intercession: (also beyond our local)

We pray that Your peace would reign anew on the earth: