Do you know how to save a drowning man? How do you save someone who is drowning and struggling? This is the state of the Israel that we are confront with tonight. This Israel that we read of in Isaiah 46 is very much a drowning man. They have been conquered and had no hope of rescue. Yet, they were still struggling to stay alive. Tonight’s text will show us what it takes to save such a drowning man.
(A) The burdening gods (v1-2)
The idol are described as bowing down and stooping. This is a striking image of these “great gods” in prone position, carted off on livestock (Isa 46:1-2). It’s not only that they cannot save – it’s also that when crunch time comes, they become a burden for beasts!
Bel is Marduk, the patron god of Babylon, and Nebo is his son. Nebo is the god of wisdom, and every New Year, would be carried to Babylon to accompany his father Bel to foretell what destiny lay ahead in the coming year for the great city of Babylon. He got it wrong about Cyrus the Conqueror!
Imagine what the hearers would have felt! It might have seem too good to be true. But today, we know that the great Babylon no longer exits. Tom Holland, the historian, states that the greatest victory over Babylon is that Babylon is now dust, and the Bible is still read. Today we read these words, but the great civilisation is no longer exists.
Thus, it also means that no other idols can stand up to God too! When we open God’s word, we are meant to see that God’s word stands despite the rise and fall of human civilisations. Today, years later, we still gather around God’s word. One thing will last, and it is not these idols that are on beasts of burdens.
How do you relate to earthly powers that give you the peace and safety that you desire? What makes your heart tremble? The truth of the matter is, for all who worship such things, they end up as burdens.
(B) The burden-carrying God (isa 46:3-7)
God is saving His people in these verses in Isaiah 46:3-4. Isaiah 46:4 states that God will carry and save. The author is clearly contrasting God with the idols, described in Isaiah 46:1. While idols are being borne away, God is the one who bears here!
In contrast to idols who are borne as burdens, God bears His people all the day long. The repeated emphasis (actions described at least 7 times over) here shows us a God of great action and verve for His creation, in contrast to these gods of feckless inaction.
God is asking them to imagine something that is hard to imagine. How were they to remember what it was like from their time in the womb (Isa 46:3)? Yet God is shattering and shifting their paradigm! He is calling us to imagine something that we cannot humanly imagine because He is a God who is very different from what we imagine or expect. Remember that this is a remnant. They have nothing to make God be merciful to them!
What kind of a tone? The tone is strong, assuring, commanding yet kind. There is repeated assurance and revelation that God has here — He will do these things. There is also a call to listen, to listen and know that He will carry them and save them.
He is sovereignly resolved, yet personal. And all of it is to communicate that God will carry. It is a reminder too, that God has been carrying them all this while! They are not to let their current circumstances override what God is trying to tell them.
So it is for us today. None of us have the wisdom and the ability to conceive of the plan of salvation that God has in place in Christ. This long historical legacy of God’s action to redeem, bear and rescue is the same heritage that we share in today. This text calls us to think about what it means that God is the God who carries, and daily He bears our burdens.
Think about what we are worrying about today? Underneath all our worries is a fear and a belief that everything depends on us controlling it or bearing it, or even saving ourselves. But hear these words here — God bears, even to the end.
Isaiah 46:3-7 contrasts the characteristics of God with that of idols. We see how God cares for His people before they were even formed (Isa 46:3), whereas idols are formed at great cost to the idolater (Isa 46:6). God continues to carry His people (Isa 46:3c) while idols are heavy to bear (Isa 46:7a). This is a God who makes, bears, and saves His people (Isa 46:4b), while God neither not move, budge, nor save (Isa 46:7).
The absurdity of following idols is shown here. Isaiah 46:5 gives us the right response — they are to regard God’s matchless nature and were not to relativise God.
How have your idols been treating you? What have you been pouring your life into? When the stock market crumbles and all your money disappears? Or what about the relationship that you have poured all your affection into?
God’s word here calls us to consider that there really isn’t anyone that God can be likened to. We are to regard God’s matchless nature. There is only one God. You might think that the right response is to just turn away from idols and that we will immediately be encouraged when we read the Bible and go to church. But also see how God reveals Himself here. We are meant to think great thoughts of God and grapple with it.
Look at the prayer of Moses in Psalm 90. Have you prayed and asked God to think great thoughts of Him? Ask Him to help you to see the greater plans and purposes that He has in place not just for us, but for this world. He is a God who has been the dwelling place of His people from generation to generation. Ask to know God in such a great way, and in so doing, know what it is like to trust and find refuge in this God.
God will show Himself sovereign over the world’s mightiest army.The weak will overcome the strong only because God carries them.
(C) Carried and crafted by the burden-carrying God (Isa 46:8-13)
God also address the transgressors, those who are stubborn of heart. In Isaiah 46:8-13. He chastises and calls them out for the ways that they continue to resist His will. Think about the actions that they are called to. He calls them to remember, recall and listen (Isa 46:8,12). All of it is setting up for us the truth that what we call to mind about God is far more important. The truth of God that we bear in mind is far more important than our circumstances. This calling to mind allows the people to stand firm!
Notice how He calls such a people to remember. The truth of God is far more important than the tremors of your circumstances, for He is the One who carries. So it is far more important in any given circumstance to consider first who God is.
But what does God want His people to remember with certainty? From Isaiah 46:8-10, He calls the people to remember “the former things of old”. There is something specific that they are to remember — how God has revealed how things will come to pass, and they wil! Thus God’s people are to look at events with greater understanding. In Isaiah 46:11, we see how there will be a specific person from a foreign country (“bird of prey from the east”). This builds on from what God has already revealed in Isaiah 44:28 — Cyrus, will be used of God to accomplish His purposes. We have already said this is not what they expected! They would not have expected deliverance through a foreign conqueror. God tells them that everything that is unfolding has been revealed from ancient times. All that is happening is happening according to His purposes.
God’s people are to remember who this God is and what He has already revealed to them. There is no other God, and none other whose purposes are bound to be accomplished in this world.Cyrus is coming, for God’s counsel and purposes will be fulfilled.
They are not only to know that these things will unfold. They are to also know that these things will unfold according to His promises. The order of God’s revelation in this pericope is instructive. God’’s people are to no longer transgress and depart from His ways because He has carried and continues to carry them. Because He has carried so they can continue to trust Him through the tremors.
God’s ultimate purpose amidst a world of idolatrous and stubborn hearts is revealed in Isaiah 46:13. God speaks of righteousness bring brought near, and this is a scary thought! The graciousness of His purposes is also that this righteousness is not to condemn, but to bring about salvation. He does all these so that salvation will be found in Zion.
The drowning man might make things worse as they struggle, and also pull down the one who is trying to save. Rather, the way to save a drowning man is to enter the water of their panic, subdue them in all of their struggle, and then carry them out.
This text unfolds and points to the Christ who entered our watery grave and carries us. Salvation is not just a nice thought. Isaiah 46:13 also has something crazy — God will use Israel for His glory. They are a people who are not right with God, they are far from righteousness. But so be it, God will bring His righteousness near, and the point of this nearness is not to condemn them, but save them! And then He (re)makes them into His own image.
Psalm 115:4-9 describes what could be familiar to many of us. We know what it is like when our hearts are set on an idol and we find ourselves restless and in a frenzy. We become what we love. But look at Psalm 115:9-11. In God’s soveriegn work of grace, as we trust and behold our Saviour, we become more like Him. See how He carries us all the way. As we see how grand and sovereign His purposes are, we find that our way of thinking that life depends on us loosens.
We will become like the one we trust! We are not yet what we one day will be, and 1 John 3:3 has a wonderful promise and hope for us. When we see Him we will be like Him! All who hope in Him purify themselves as He is pure. As we hope in Him, we continue to be made like Him. What will it be to live a life without sin? One day, this will become our reality. Today, this is our hope! What is God saying to you today about the grace and glory seen in Jesus Christ?