Isaiah 51 - Listen and Look

Let’s open our Bibles together this morning and read the 51st chapter of the book of Isaiah.

[READ ISAIAH 51]

As we consider this passage together this morning, I want to draw your attention to the imperatives , the commands, of God in the passage.

And there are two commands that run through this chapter and into the next that are important for us individually as believers and together as the church.

“Listen” and “Look”.

v. 1 - “Listen to Me” and “Look to the rock”

v. 2 - “Look to Abraham and Sarah”

v. 4 - “Give attention to Me” and “Give ear to Me”

v. 6 - “Lift up your eyes”

v. 7 - “Listen to Me”

v. 9 - The people say to God “Awake, awake”

and in v. 17, God says “Wake yourself, wake yourself”

and then in v. 21 - “Hear this”

Listen and look, look and listen.

See and behold, Hear and heed.

Let’s remember also that this chapter is embedded in the collection of prophecies of Isaiah known as the Servant Songs.

So this chapter is firmly about the person and work of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

There are some who might think it’s odd to have those two things together:

To have a song about the Messiah and what He will do,

And at the same time to have a song filled with commands of God to His people.

But it’s not odd at all.

Think about what these commands are: look and listen.

God’s commands here through His Servant are not commands like do this, accomplish this, make yourself into this.

Isaiah 51:3 “For the Lord comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.”

His commands here are to see and hear what HE is doing.

That’s important.

To see the comfort HE is providing, particularly through His Servant, Jesus.

That kind of work , listening to God and seeing His works, leads us to faith, not in ourselves, but in God alone.

When our Lord was about to ascend bodily into heaven after His resurrection and the forty days He remained with His disciples after his resurrection,

He told them this: Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.””

You will be my witnesses.

That is what God is commanding in this chapter of Isaiah we are looking at today:

look - witness by seeing

listen - witness by hearing

And these things will build your faith in God through Jesus Christ:

All this so you can testify to HIS works.

In all the things we could talk about, all the things God could rightly demand of His people,

He is declaring to us that our greatest calling is to witnesses of His greatness and glory.

Not the greatness and glory of our works,

Or the greatness and glory of the church.

Not even the abiding greatness of His Law

Or the Bible

Or the heavens and the earth.

Our testimony is not even really what God has done for us, because that often becomes the testimony of how WE have changed.

How WE are doing better and nicer things.

How WE are more worthy now of being called Christians than we were before.

How WE are better people than those sinners “out there”.

Please allow me to be blunt: the witness of the gospel does not center around how much better WE are than we used to be.

The witness of the gospel is ONLY what God has done in spite of my ham-fisted efforts.

Because the witness of the gospel is about God’s works, not ours.

Not even when it seems like ours is working in God’s direction.

And when we understand that, we will be less star-struck when a celebrity declares they have been saved.

And we won’t feel like we should praise athletes or politicians who are Christians because of their “influence” for the gospel.

Is there any believer here today who believed that the Holy Spirit NEEDS a celebrity to endorse Him to legitimize the gospel?

The Holy Spirit, who moved over the unformed earth, formed everything perfectly, and breathed life into the first man:

Does that Spirit NEED a football player to kneel in the end zone and point to the sky?

I am happy for the athlete or the politician or the celebrity if they follow Christ - but they do only what they should.

They are still, from God’s point of view, unprofitable servants.

Luke 17:10 “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ””

If you have followed Christ perfectly, never deviating or turning to the left or right, you STILL have done nothing more than you should.

And you still have cost God more to keep you than you will ever bring Him in gain.

Unprofitable is how the KJV translates it.

So in our passage today, God declares in v. 16: Isaiah 51:16 “And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’ ””

HE has done great things.

HE has protected your undeserving hide and mine.

HE has created everything.

and HE has called you to be His people.

Our testimony isn’t about our goodness, or the goodness of the church, or anything but this:

Our testimony if the glory and worthiness of God.

Look and listen, See and understand.

But perhaps you are thinking “That is a pretty narrow focus”

Maybe people want to hear something more than God’s worthiness and glory.

Maybe people want to hear what THEY should do to be worthy.

What they can do to make themselves better.

What laws should be instituted or enforced to make society better.

After all, the largest churches around here are the ones who tell people about what God can do FOR THEM.

People want to know “What’s in it for me?”

“If I give God my time and some offering, what do I get in return?’

Aren’t we just shooting ourselves in the foot by being witnesses to Him and His glory, like we don’t even matter at all?

It’s almost like God would be God even if I don’t vote for Him or worship Him.

It’s like He doesn’t need me.

Doesn’t he need me and His people to change society?

To make this country a Christian nation?

Surely He needs people talking about His Law and trying to get it implemented in our state and nation.

Will people really respond if all we talk about is God’s glory and not talk about how WE are improved?

The truth of it is: God’s people will respond; others will not.

Church, Christian, the greatest thing you can declare is the work of God.

The gospel is the work of God.

If you are His, then you are His witnesses.

Look and listen; see and understand.

This message is not small; it is not narrow.

It is declaring the works of God, and that is THE most important thing we can do, the most important subject we can declare.

I love reading the old Puritan books because even when they write books on the way we should live some aspect of our lives,

Everything is rooted in who God is.

That is the source, the fountain, of who you and I should be.

We don’t do good and pious things to be acceptable to God;

We do good and pious things because God has brought us to Himself, and He is good.

These aren’t about self-help - they are about holy living because you are a holy people.

We aren’t Christians because we obey God;

We obey God because we are Christians.

The people in our text today had it turned around.

In verses 9-11 in our passage today, the people were calling out to God, telling Him to awaken and save them.

Isaiah 51:9–11 “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

They are saying, in effect, we are suffering here, and we know YOU, God, want to make us happy and glad.

It’s almost like they are saying: “The suffering of Your people isn’t a good look for You, God.”

God’s reply to them is direct:

Isaiah 51:12–13 ““I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor?”

And then He says:

Isaiah 51:17–18 “Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering. There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne; there is none to take her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up.”

It is like He is saying: You want ME to wake up?

It’s not ME who has fallen asleep.

You left Me;

You stopped looking and listening to Me.

And you stopped believing and trusting in Me.

You made yourself drunk on a whole bunch of YOU thinking.

Have you ever done that?

Spent so much time thinking about yourself that you lose touch with the things that are important around you?

Maybe you are going through a tough time, and it is ALL you can think about or talk about.

When the cashier at WalMart asks how your day is going, you feel compelled to bring them up to speed on your sufferings.

There are times in my life where I have been so overwhelmed by circumstances, I didn’t even have the time or inclination to battle, confess, or avoid sinful activities that were much more dangerous to my soul.

There is a drunkenness there, when selfishness takes such a firm hold of us that we act as if our problems were bigger than anyone else’s.

Have you ever been in a conversation where one person shared something difficult they were going through, and the other person, rather than comforting, pulled out something in their life they felt was a bigger trial?

I won’t ask which person you were;

I suspect we have all commonly been either person.

Your husband or wife walks into the house and says, “I have had such a hard day.”

And your reply is “You think YOUR day was hard; let me tell you about mine.”

How do we wake up from that kind of drunken selfishness?

Look and listen to God; see and understand HIS work here and now.

Isaiah 51:22 “Thus says your Lord, the Lord, your God who pleads the cause of his people: “Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more;”

It is His work even to save you from your own selfishness.

No, it’s not a popular message that God has done everything necessary to save His people, but it is the truth.

It is the message He shows in the bronze serpent. Remember, in the wilderness in the Exodus from Egypt, the people had grumbled and rebelled, and God sent snakes to torment and bite them.

Numbers 21:9 tells us: “So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”

Look at the serpent, and be healed.

Jesus uses it to describe faith in Himself in John 3:14–15 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

But we, like Naaman the leper have other ideas.

In 2 Kings 5, we learn he was the commander of the armies of Syria, and he had leprosy.

So he came to Elisha to be healed.

He came with an ARMY to be healed - surrounding Elisha’s house with horses and chariots.

And Elisha didn’t even come out to see him; he just sent word by his servant that Naaman should wash himself in the Jordan 7 times, and he would be healed.

2 Kings 5:11–12 “But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.”

We don’t want to listen and believe - we want a quest, a task.

The cure seems to marvelous if we do nothing but dip ourselves in a dirty river seven times.

But listening is hard -

It is hard because it takes FAITH.

Faith in God through Jesus Christ that HE will accomplish His work the way HE has ordained it.

Look and listen - and believe.

See what God has done, what He has promised,

And trust in His good heart and almighty hand to do everything He has said.