Singing is more than just singing. It is for the praiseworthy. Do you sing? We are familiar with it when we go to church on Sundays or come together on Wednesdays. But what happens when Monday comes around? What happens when the realities of life hits hard? This matters because it tells us who we are and where we belong to.
In Isaiah 26, God prepares His people to sing a special song.
(A) Judah’s Present: Dependent and disciplined, they yearn for God’s justice (IsA 26:7-18)
Isaiah 26:1 begins with a mention of “that day”. What have we learned about “that day” so far? In Isaiah 24, it speaks of terrible judgment on the whole earth with no singing and no cheer. But song and cheer sound forth as God’s past deliverance and future redemption is considered in Isaiah 25. God’s people sing amidst judgment (Isa 26) and
God sings over His people amidst judgment (Isa 27).
This chapter has a series of “O LORD”. As we examine their cry, we also learn something of the people’s desires, experiences and perspectives on evil. It helps us to consider who they are and how they are being prepared to sing.
Isaiah 26:7-9 shows us the people’s desires. The people yearn for the LORD, actively waiting upon Him, for His judgements reveal righteousness. This is an active waiting that does not seek to pave its own path, but trusts in the LORD’s judgments, calling to mind His character and works. Who is this God? He is a God of justice, majesty, great power, tender care, provides completely, of peace and exists for eternity.
What did the people experience? The people knew God’s discipline, experienced its distress, and learned to seek the LORD (Isa 26:16-18). Notice the change in pronouns from “they” in Isaiah 26:16 to “we” in Isaiah 26:18. There is a common experience of discipline. They not only experience distress, but through it, recognise the futility of their own works. In these verses, there is a picture of enduring all the pain of childbirth, only to give birth to wind.
In Hebrews 12:5-8, a similar idea is expressed. God discipline His children. Has this come to your mind in your Christian life? Here in Isaiah, a yearning people get there because they know of God’s discipline.
Georges Bernanos, a French author who had fought in WWI and lived through WWII, was a man who had great hopes that the right political order and political parties would bring about lasting peace and renewal to his nation, only to be sorely disappointed time and time again. He wrote, “In order to be prepared to hope in what does not deceive, we must first lose hope in all that deceives.”
What deceptive security is God pruning in your suffering? We speak these days about learning to suffer well. Yes, there are good fruits from suffering — steadfastness, deep joy in sorrows. There is another one — to learn to reshape our hopes. Friends, God’s will is to shape your hopes through your hardships.
We also see the people’s understanding and response to sin (Isa 26:10-11). The wicked are blind to God’s favour, environment of uprightness, and majesty, so God’s people pray for His zealous judgment.
Neither blessing, nor an ideal environment, not the majesty and works of God Himself is witnessed by the wicked. The Lord has only and always been good, but we have repaid Him with wickedness. Those who are not given new life, they continue in this blindness.
See the amazing grace of God that gave you eyes to see your sin, and better yet, eyes to see your Saviour. A similar idea is expressed in Psalm 36:1-2. The Lord has always been good but we have only repaid Him with wickedness. See God’s grace to open our eyes to see our sin! And His grace also enables us to see our Saviour! This week, don’t flinch from your sin. See it, and also see your Saviour!
This petition means two things. Firstly, vengeance belongs to the Lord. Have you struggled with vengeance and anger in your heart this past week? Read this passage and remember this! Trust yourselves to Him.
Secondly, this presents a tension and struggle for us. Mark Feather sums this tension in Isaiah 26:10-11 appropriately,
“There’s always going to be a tension here. If you are someone like me who has a lot of family who aren’t Christians, it’s very difficult to yearn for the Lord to avenge and yet know that some upon whom God’s wrath might fall are those we love. And so it’s really hard to work through a verse like this when I know people who will be under the judgment of God. And yet the Lord so clearly in His word shows us that our understanding and our knowledge of His ways are not yet full. Not yet perfect.
For now, we must learn to say with Abraham in Gen 18, ‘Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?’ For there will come a day when we stand with glorified eyes, and we see sin for all the wickedness that it is. And we will see the Lord for the glorious king that He is. And how wicked sin was to so lie about God’s judgments. God’s ways are true, and righteous altogether, so we must yearn for Him to judge, defend His people. Entrusting ourselves to Him.”
This is how God’s disciplined people think. How is God shaping your hopes through your hardships today?
In Isaiah 26:13, Isaiah refers to Israel’s other ‘Lords’ — those who rule with an iron fist, those who manipulate, those who abuse their power for selfish and stupid gain, such persons and more, God’s people knew.
But where are they today? Down in the dust. Look instead at the contrast, God’s people increase and increase even more. Make no mistake, the spread and growth of God’s people is not the function of chance, or colonial ambitions, or the best made plans of mice and man. When Christian’s take the long view, we see that God is the one that gives the growth! It is the Lord’s work, and here’s the application — we give thanks for it. And this is not just in the sense that there are more numerically, but that there will be more forever. Unlike these lords who are dead and will not live, God’s dead shall live; their bodies shall rise, and not with the lethargy of a Monday morning, but with song and joy. We can also give thanks for the grey-haired saints that came before us, and the Gen Z teen that He is adding to His family.
Isaiah 25:19 also tells us that those in the Lord, though are dead, have the promise of living and “their bodies shall rise”. This is a glorious truth and hope that we can hold fast to! Hope in these things!
Dependent and disciplined — this is what God’s people are like. God is also a God worth waiting for. Not a single moment that you spend shaping your desires for this God will go to waste. His grace is complete and guides us through all of our life, even to the future. Friends, this is a BIG GOD. He is not a God that we can bottle up and call out when we need Him to provide something for us. And because He is a great God, it is our great joy to shape our desires according to this God!
(B) Judah’s Preservation: Hidden from God’s wrath to sing salvation’s song (Isa 26:20-21, 1-6)
God declares in Isaiah 25:21 that He is coming out to act in justice, and in response to their yearning in Isaiah 25:9. God also calls His people to hide and here, we don’t see the specific details of how and where to hide (Isa 26:20). It’s a pattern established earlier in the Old Testament, in Genesis 6:11-18 and Exodus 12:21-32. When the earth discloses the blood shed on it, when all the works of our hands and the sins of our hearts are laid out to bare before the God of holy wrath, what could hide you from his justice? Our only hope is to say, “He told me I could hide, and I can trust in Him.”
What does Judah sing about in Isaiah 26:1-6? There is a comparison between the city of God and city of man. Firstly, we see attributes of the city of God, where “he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks”. In contrast, the city of man has descriptions of its height, and is spoken of as “the lofty city” (Isa 26:5).
Next, Isaiah sings about the people. In God’s city, there is a righteous nation that keeps faith (Isa 26:2b). The city of man is filled with its lofty inhabitants with their “pompous pride”. Notice how it’s not just unbelief, but pride. What a thought for us in a culture that is marked by self-sufficiency and prides itself in defining its own meaning.
Lastly, both groups have different outcomes. God’s people are kept in perfect peace (Isa 26:3,12). In Hebrew, this is translated as the same word repeated twice, “peace peace”. What does that look like? Peace with one another, peace within (this is the domain of righteousness, where we no longer war against sin) and peace with God. This is what God’s people are headed for. How? God ordained it and our minds are stayed on Him. Remember Isaiah 26:7 — we are to ponder God’s path, stick to His ways and perfect peace is a natural fruit.
Notice also how this is not just intellectual. It also requires us to trust in Him, and this is an activity of the whole person. What do you fix your mind on? A Bible teacher has described it succinctly in the following quote, “You are not what you think you are. But what you think, you are.”
And another one— “The heart cannot love what the mind does not know.” In that day, the heart will know rightly, and the mind will know fully. Friends, we also get to experience this right now. We may not know perfectly, but we can know Him adequately. He has revealed Himself in Christ. What have you been moving towards, especially in these COVID years? Can you say that you are like those here? Can you spot this in a friend, and encourage them with it — to help them see that God is doing good work in them and He will finish it in Christ.
In contrast, in the city of man, the people are humbled, downtrodden, trampled (Isa 26:5-6).
What sort of people does God prepare for Himself? What sort of people sing? Colossians 3:1-3 also paints us a picture of the people of God. They are those who have been disciplined, and have died to sin. The part of us that are slaves to sin and glory in pompous pride has died. We are hidden in Christ and He has prepared us for Him. Such a people can sing salvation’s song!
As fears mount around us, can we sing “He will hold me fast”? If you know the truths of these words, and know the God who is behind these words, we will be able to sing the words of “Christ will be my hideaway”.
Today, how is God forming your hopes through your hardships? What truth of God will you set your mind on tomorrow?