Just When You Thought it was Over

Where did we leave off in Isaiah 30? The people were turning to political alliances with Egypt to win the battle with Assyria. God was warning their efforts would prove futile. He determined great distress for their rebellion. 

But just when you thought it was over. Hope: 

Isaiah 30:18 (ESV) Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

Notice the phrase "He exalts Himself to show mercy to you."

God's glory is for the sake of God's glory. Even our stupid choices can be opportunities for the world to see how good God is. This is not to encourage stupidity but to remind us of His beauty. There is none like Him. 

Isaiah 30:19 (ESV) For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.

The Lord invites us to pray even while we wander away. What hope we have in that! You may be tempted to think that your sinful condition causes Him to be callous toward your cry. You'd be wrong. We must remember that our sinful nature also infects our view of even the Lord's mercy in the face of our sin. 

Then the Lord reminds them that through prayer and His answer, they will see that the affliction has a purpose.

Isaiah 30:20–22 (ESV) And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. 21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. 22 Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”

Notice how God refers to Himself as the "Teacher" here on the heels of Israel's simple prayer in verse 19. God speaks and teaches when we pray. Remember that in the face of affliction or adversity. We want deliverance. God wants discipleship. We want miraculous answers, God wants us growing in awareness of who He is. That is the point of afflicting His beloved. 

His instruction causes us to turn from idols. He changes our heart toward them. We say, "Be gone!"

Isaiah then illustrates the deliverance to come against Assyria:

Isaiah 30:29–30 (ESV) You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel. 30 And the LORD will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones.

There is singing in spite of the darkness. There is God's speaking and power on display. And it is His Word that accomplishes the victory. 

Isaiah 30:31–32 (ESV) The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the LORD, when he strikes with his rod. 32 And every stroke of the appointed staff that the LORD lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them.

There is great power in the Word of God not only toward us in discipleship but toward our enemies in destroying them. The devil cannot stand against the Word. Jesus said, "It is written" to the Devil's temptation in the wilderness. We win when we listen to Him and learn to speak what He has spoken into us.