Awake, Awake

Psalm of the Day:

Scripture Reading:

GMC! I was Glad when they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

So there is a bit of a phenomenon that Pastors will often notice. it is that when you begin to preach on a topic, you will often see the need for that same topic appear in your own life. For example, if you are going to preach on sharing your faith, you will find more opportunities during the week to share your faith. If you are going to preach on generosity you will find more opportunity to help those in need, etc. I usually attribute this to the fact that those opportunities are always there, but because you are getting ready to preach you are more aware of the opportunists in front of you. but sometimes you are getting ready to preach and you think: OK, something is going on here. Well that happened to me just last night.

To make a long story short, Sleep was hard to come by last night because of a series of events involving a child that woke up at 12:30 and refused to fall back asleep and a cat that found some sort of bug or something and just a general lack of ability to fall asleep. And so, this morning, when the first alarm went off, it rang and rang and rang and I could not wake up. (until Desiree pushed me and said, as kindly as she could manage, I really need to turn the alarm off or else). then I closed my eyes and 30 minutes had elapsed, just like that.

Because in reality the less rested we are, the more difficult it is to wake-up. And while this is true on a physical level, it is also true on a spiritual level. this morning we are turning our attention to the last interlude between the third Servant Song and the last, most epic, most impact fourth servant Song. And it is written to a people who are spiritually asleep, they have their eyes closed and are seemly unaware of all that is spiritually going on around them. there is a thought that they might be missing all the points of all that God is doing and so they need to, like we all need to, spiritually come awake. We will be looking at Isaiah 51:9-52:12 this morning but before we dive into the passage, lets begin with a word of Prayer.

PRAY

To remember our immediate context let us remember back to last week. We looked at the Third Servant Song, and showed how he was our example of how to listen to God. Then came, after the servant Song, three direct calls to “listen”. the call was he who has an ear, let him hear. but now we see there is a serious problem, a reason that the people cannot truly listen, that is because it is impossible to listen if you are asleep. So God, through Isaiah calls the people to awaken from their spiritual slumber. He calls for them to arise and see two things in particular.

The first is to awake and see WHAT GOD HAS DONE

Awake and see WHAT GOD HAS DONE

What God has done is clear, if we open our eyes, but yet we walk around with them shut so often. Lets begin reading Our passage.

Read: Isaiah 51:9-23

The PRAYER

strangely it opens with the people crying out to God, seemingly accusing HIM of being the one who is asleep. the first “awake, awake” is written by the people to their God. And we can, and should say two things about this

One: God is never asleep.

Two: We can forgive the seeming irreverence by noting their heart of reverence for God. While this is not a lament, we can read it in light of Laments in Psalm. Because the people are quick to acknowledge who God is and what he has done.

he saved them “long ago”

then a series of “was it not you” questions. - we should read these not as actual questions but as rhetorical devices, the point it to say with Boldness and assurance that “IT WAS YOU, O LORD” who...

cut rahab (Egypt)

pierced the dragon (saved the people from their enemies)

dried up the sea (red sea)

and then the finale, the trust, when God moves (and we could rightly say, when the people realize that God is and has, and will move) the people will rejoice.

The RESPONSE

and immediately God hears their prayer and he responds. The people call out “awake, awake” God answers back with his own reduplication: I, I am he who comforts you” in verse 12. By the reduplication the Lord matches the emotional intensity of his people. He is as concerned to answer as they are to call.

and in his impassioned response he calls the people to see who God is, the response is to first wake to remember who God is, maybe you are so tired, so drowsy that you Forgot who I was, is the response of God.

So why are you afraid of Man. man who withers like grass, who is here today and gone tomorrow. Remember I am God, verse 13 declares: the God who made the heavens and the earth.... so why do you fear just some man? you are calling me to wake up, but you need to wake up and see first and foremost WHO GOD is.

Verse 14 promises deliverance, not just deliverance, but a quick and full deliverance. remember the God you just prayed to

in case you forgot, God again tells us directly who he is: Isaiah 51:15

and he is the God who has called you as a people verse 16

The HOPE

And so we end with the hope. and what a blessed hope it is. it is interesting to note how the call has changed here.

It is difficult for us English speakers to see what is going on here. In the ESV and others in that family we read in verse 17: wake yourself, wake yourself. in the NIV and others in that family we see the same reduplication as ver 9 with “Awake, awake” so whats going on here, who is right. The answer is BOTH. but WHY is what makes this sop cool. the issue at hand is the issue of reflexive verbs, who is dong the action, and the difficulty of English to delineate these two things.

the reason that the NIV chose to go with “awake, awake” is because it is the same verb in verse 9 and 17, they wanted to keep the poetic repetition of the same word. the reason the ESV chose to go with “wake yourself” is because the verb had changed a little to show that the action is different.

at the heart, here is the difference, going back to my story about this morning. the call to awake in verse 9 (and we will see the same call in verse 1 of 52) is like the call of an alarm clock calling you to wake up. the call to awake in verse 17 here is like the internal call that I felt when I realized I had blinked and 30 minutes had elapsed and If i didn’t wake up I would be late. The call here is to discipline yourself to awake and see what God has done!

and first it starts with a honest evaluation of what has happened, and an acknowledgement that this is from God.

Isaiah 51.17-20 tell us how bad it has gotten.

utter and complete destruction. The cup of wrath (which is a terrible thing) is what the people have drunk from. How bad is the cup of wrath? well verse 18 tells us that that it is so complete that there will be no one left to guide you, you will be forced to stumble around in your misery alone. but how bad is that misery? verse 19

Verse 19 tells us that it is complete - the “two things that are four things, are a duplication to show utter destruction. “Devastation and destruction” are a reduplication showing one thing: physical destruction of property and land and “famine and sword” are a reduplication to show the completeness of the destruction of the people.

and verse 20 drives this all home.. (Isaiah 51.20)

but you might be thinking, what hope is this? well two fold here, before we move on.

It is a hope that God is not unaware.

and it is a hope that would mirror the thought of Job in Job 13.15

But it turns out it is an even greater hope than even just those two. It is a hope to see that God will save.

the hope that we have is that when we awake and see what God has done we will see his glorious salvation.

EXEGETE

and then the question becomes, what do we do, once we are saved, once we see the glorious salvation, what next?

well then we AWAKE AND SEE WHAT GOD HAS CALLED US TO!

Awake and see WHAT GOD HAS CALLED US TO

READ: Isaiah 52.1-12

The REDEEMED

This is found in Isaiah 52.1-6

The MESSENGER

this is found in Isaiah 52.7-10

The SOJOURNER

This is found in Isaiah 52.11-12