Stand in Awe of God (Isa 29:17-24)

The popular movie, Spiderman, has a famous quote, “great power came with great responsibility". For Israel, God’s covenant people, they received great revelation and promises from Him. These should have been answered with worship and trust. What happens when God’s people fail to trust in His Word but indulge in religious hypocrisy? We find ourselves tonight in a section of Isaiah where God addresses his people’s failure.

What will be the consequences? How will God respond?

(A) In awe of God who heals spiritual ignorance: the blind see; the deaf hear

In the context of the book of Isaiah, Israel face the threat of Assyrian invasion and instead of turning to God, they worshipped Him in hypocrisy. They continued to offer feasts in worship, but also planned and sought ways to deal with this Assyrian threat. In the previous verses of Isaiah 29, God sends foreign military might against them (Isa 29:2-4), but He also doesn’t completely destroy them (Isa 29:11). But God is not destroying His people. At the eleventh hour, in an instant, the LORD of hosts himself visits His people. In His awful might and power, He sweeps Israel’s enemies away so decisively that Israel forgets her enemies like a passing dream. This is a wonder – an act of grace. 

We would think that Israel would heed and respond to God’s Word. Rather than doing so, in Isaiah 29:9-12, we see that they have become spiritually ignorant, blind. In Isaiah 29:13-15, we see them turning things upside down: mouths that praise but hearts that wander, a fear of God rooted in the teaching of men, wise men being fools, the creature thinking itself creator. 

Then, in Isaiah 29:14, God promises that he will again wonders to reveal the foolishness of a wisdom that resists God’s own.

What wonders will God do? What other than judgment can be the rightful wages of those who resist God’s gracious Word and salvation from His enemies? It is at this juncture that we arrive at Isaiah 29:17, our text for tonight.

We see renewal happening in these verses in Isaiah 29:17-18. The fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest (Isa 29:17b), and this doesn’t take place overnight. The deaf will also hear and the blind can see (Isa 29:18). Both these changes are unexpected and unnatural. Trees do not suddenly become fruitful fields of their own accord, and vice versa. These transformations show us how God is acting quickly and unexpectedly against those who act hypocritically. These are also worked by God miraculously! He reverses expectations. 

Isaiah 29:18a and Isaiah 29:18b parallel each other. Deafness and blindness are parallel ways of describing spiritual ignorance, or the inability to understand God's Word. The inability to hear God’s Word is also parallel to being in gloom and darkness. In other words, those who cannot understand God’s Word live in gloom and darkness. This is also similar to what we read in Isaiah 29:11, where deafness and blindness describe their spiritual state, their inability to understand God’s word. And in this state, they are in gloom and darkness. This describes the spiritually ignorant. 

God’s people rightly deserve judgment. But Isaiah reveals a God who does not give us what we deserve, but gives us entirely what we do not deserve. Are you able to relate to the Israelites in Isaiah 29? How have you been hypocritical? Does your heart desire and yearn to read God’s word or is your heart wandering? 

We know the gloom and darkness that accompany our resistance to God’s Word. Examine your life and see whether this is so. When we prefer our wisdom over God’s, we experience the gloom of uncertainty and the frailty of our plans. When we refuse to believe His promise to help us, we find ourselves in darkness, with no one to turn to.  When we rely on human systems to save us from injustice, we find that it will fail us. Simply put, without God’s Word, there is no hope and no joy.

But God does not leave us as we are. Through this very passage, in His grace, He works upon us the wonder that allows us to behold and understand all other wonders. He opens our eyes and our ears to His Word. For God to open the eyes and ears of we who have blinded ourselves and rejected His Word, instead of destroying us, or leaving us be, is not just wonder upon wonder, but grace upon grace.

Without God’s word, there is only gloom and darkness! Praise God that He does not leave us alone! 

This text should also spur our efforts to share the gospel! None of us are here today because we were “less deaf” or “less blind”. God can open the eyes and ears of anyone, and we should not write someone off as beyond His grace. The need for God to act also frees us from placing on ourselves the burden of saving someone. All we can do is bring God’s Word to them and ask that He graciously do the work we cannot do.

(B) In awe of God righting injustice: the disenfranchised rejoice; the godless judged

In Isaiah 29:19-21, Isaiah contrasts the meek and poor with the ruthless, scoffer and those who watch to do evil. In Isaiah 29:19, we read of the meek, the poor among mankind who obtain fresh joy in the LORD and exult in the Holy One of Israel. The word “for” that starts the next sentence shows that the reason for their joy and exultation is God’s judgment of the ruthless, scoffer, and those who watch to do evil. They trust God because of their meekness. They hear God’s Word and receive with faith God’s promise that He will right all wrongs. To them, God is LORD, who keeps His covenant. He is also the Holy One of Israel who is powerful and mighty to save.

In contrast, Isaiah 29:20-21 also speaks of the ruthless, scoffer, those who watch to do evil. They bear false witness, obstruct justice and judge corruptly. God judges them and they shall come to nothing. They will cease their scoffing and are cut off (removed from God’s people). This is because they are opposite of being meek – they refuse to accept God’s Word. They persist in wickedness. For example, the scoffer chooses to reject God’s Word and follow ungodly passions (c.f. Jude 18).

How do we apply this? Perhaps we think that we are not ruthless, and neither are we poor. The core of ruthlessness is a lack of compassion or mercy. We are ruthless in that we have no compassion for the poor: we may not actively oppress them, but we persist in accumulating wealth and rarely spare a thought for those in need. 

We may not trumpet our scoffing at God’s Word, but in the secret moments where we must choose between our passions and obeying Him, do we not spurn His Word by thinking: In this moment, I shall do as I please? Do we not think Isaiah 29:15: “who sees us? Who knows us?” Or, when we are worried about something – our careers, families, ministries – do we not often turn to worldly wisdom like the Israelites did in the face of foreign foes? When we do so, we are scoffing at the wisdom and reliability of God’s Word.

We may not bear false witness in a court of law, but do we not pervert and obstruct justice by lying to hide our wrongdoings and getting angry when others confront us on our mistakes?

Isaiah 29:19-21 also show that there are two ways to live and these are captured in the two responses to God’s word. We can bank on God’s Word: trust Him, rest in Him, believe that He keeps His covenant and is mighty and powerful to save, order our lives according to His laws; or we can trust ourselves, strive to succeed in this world through ruthlessness, plotting, human striving, scoffing at God’s Word and God as impotent.

God has promised to right all wrongs. To those who receive His Word, He will add joy. But to those who scoff at His Word and oppress the disenfranchised, He will deliver judgment. 

This too, is grace that is deserving of awe.

Do we meekly accept His word or do we scoff at it? Do we believe that He is mighty and has the power to save, or do we strive to depend on ourselves and plot our own success? 

Isaiah seems to think that those who are faithful to God belong in one category, and those who are not also display it in relationship with others. Isaiah cannot imagine a world where we are faithful to God and unfaithful to neighbour. To Isaiah, ill-treating neighbour is godlessness. If we believe as Isaiah did, perhaps then, we will long for the day of the Lord as Isaiah did (and spoke a lot of). This is counterintuitive in our world, because we are tempted to make a difference when we see injustice and wrong in this world. Rather, Isaiah is saying that we make a difference when we obey God and be faithful to neighbour, but the final hope is in the day of the Lord. Basically, Isaiah is challenging all our categories.

(C) In awe of God redeeming shame for glory: the rebel instructed; the redeemer sanctified

Considering the context of Isaiah 29, why is Jacob initially ashamed in Isaiah 29:22? Jacob is initially ashamed because of the disobedience of his descendants. It’s not hard to see why this association is made, because God made the covenant with Abraham, handed it to Jacob but now is being rejected by his descendants.

God reverses the situation by acting. He describes Jacob’s children as the work of His hands (Isa 29:23).  Look at how God is being described in Isaiah 29:22 — “who redeemed Abraham”. God has consistently acted to redeem His people. The nature of God's work in His people is unilateral and undeserved redemption. He has operated this way consistently. 

In Genesis 12, Abraham was not chosen by merit. He and his fathers were idolaters in a foreign land – in other words, Abraham was spiritually ignorant. Unless God revealed Himself to Abraham, he would have lived and died an idolater. But God called Abraham out of his father’s house to the promised land. He chose Abraham in a manner that Isaiah describes as a redemption. He entered into covenant relationship with Abraham. Abraham simply received and trusted in God’s promises.

Similarly, the people of Israel had gone astray in spirit and murmured (c.f. Josh 24:1-3) . They had preferred human wisdom over God’s ways and become blind and deaf to His Word. Unless God intervened, they would have remained spiritually ignorant. But despite their lack of merit, the covenant-keeping God unilaterally acted to open their eyes and ears to His Word. He reveals His great promises for those who trust His Word. Those who meekly accept it obtain fresh joy; those who are disenfranchised, poor, oppressed, can exult in Him. 

As a result, Jacob’s children will both be in God’s midst and yet set Him apart from them (Isa 29:23). This is a fitting reaction. Consider that they have sinned against the Holy One of Jacob, so powerful that He wields armies and nations as a whip for discipline, and then dismisses them, all to convey the message that He is powerful and sovereign to save. In His redeeming grace, He has opened their eyes and ears to understand His Word, which reveals that all will be made right one day – all injustice will be dealt with. And so they stand in His midst as His covenant people. But they also stand in awe as they realise and acknowledge how utterly set apart He is.

Second, Jacob’s children will come to understand and accept God’s Word, and learn obedience (Isa 29:24). In other words, they will be sanctified. 

What does that mean for us today? Like Jacob’s children, we have rebelled against God – although we’ve seen the even greater wonder of the gospel, we sometimes still murmur against him. Is there hope for us? Will we ever accept instruction?

Friends, Isaiah holds up a picture of a God who redeems His people’s shame for his glory. He does so not because of our merit, but by His grace. 

By grace, He redeemed Abraham. By grace, He worked wonders for Israel despite their rebellion. By grace, He sent us His gospel to open our blind eyes and deaf ears by grace. If today you feel the shame of Jacob, receive God’s Word: He has promised to sanctify us – He will surely do it! This too is grace. We are the work of his hands, and He will redeem our shame for His glory!

We worship a God of grace. He heals the spiritually ignorant. He rights injustice. He redeems shame for glory. This has always been His character.

His grace is seen most fully, most vividly, most grandly, most gloriously, in Christ. Christ who came to preach the good news that was powerful to open blind eyes and deaf ears, Christ who ushers in His kingdom, which the meek will inherit, where all injustice will be made right – where never again shall there be oppression, and Christ who, by His blood, leads us into the presence of the Holy One of Israel, who redeems our shame by taking it upon Himself, that we may worship Him as Holy, to the praise of His glorious grace. 

How can this be? How can this be the fate of a rebellious people? There is no appropriate reaction for us other than to stand in awe before Him and set Him apart as Holy.