THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

The Praises of His People

Isaiah 25-26

Isaiah next described the remnant, believers who will stream to Zion praising God at the beginning of Messiah’s reign.

Isaiah 25

1. Song of thanks or confidence in a time of trouble that there will be salvation and a reason to give thanks 1-5

Verse 1: The prophet reflects a personal knowledge of God; he is a saved person. He exalts and thanks the Lord his God because He supernaturally and faithfully executed the outworking of plans that He had formulated long before.

Verse 2: Continues the praiseworthy things God has done. Turned a city into rubble. Never to be built again because God knocked it down. In the Tribulation, God will humble the pride of man that seeks to save himself.

Verse 3: Strong people and groups of ruthless individuals will fear God and respect Him for what He has done. They will not necessarily become believers in Him, but they will acknowledge that He has done great things

Verse 4: Specifically, they will confess how He delivered those who trusted in Him (in history and during the Tribulation) in spite of the fierce antagonism of their enemies, which was like driving rain.

Verse 5: As a passing cloud provides relief from the heat during a drought, so the Lord gives His people relief by humbling the song of their ruthless foreign enemies.

PT: So when I am in trouble and I can supplicate asking god for help. The supplicant cries out to God. I need to talk God and you are my God. Now that this is established I can vent about my troubles and cry for salvation. We can infer there is a despotic nation oppressing the Israelite nation. They live in fortified city in which they take great pride. A foreign citadel.

Tyrants will be laid low and the downtrodden nation will be helped. But they will acknowledge how the Lord protected his people from them. The past tense is there to affirm that it is on its way. The confidence tense in Hebrew and in English the prophet is saying ‘consider it done’!

2. Universal feast given in Jerusalem celebrating a change in the world 6-8

Here he describes that messianic day of salvation. Having delivered His people from the Tribulation and preserved them to enter His earthly kingdom, the Lord will invite them to rejoice with Him at a great banquet at the beginning of the Millennium.

Verse 6: He will make on this mountain—Jerusalem, where he will rule a feast for all the nations of the fattest food and aged wine. It will be finger-licking good. This may be a ceremony of Christ enthronement over all the nations. All who enter the Millennium—everyone who does will be a believer—will stream to Mount Zion where the Lord will provide a joyful banquet for them.

Verse 7-8: He will do two things then…..

(1). The Lord will also remove the curse of death that has hung over humankind since the Fall. This will occur at the end of the Millennium, after the final rebellion and God’s creation of new heavens and a new earth.

(2). The Lord will wipe the tears from each face as a loving mother, and will remove the disgrace to His people from living in slavery to sin.

3. Here is the joy that will come to God’s people at this time. 9-12

Verse 9: The redeemed will rejoice that they are finally in the presence of the God whose deliverance to His rule and care they longed for so long. Finally hope will have given way to sight, and Old Testament saints will rejoice because they are finally with their Savior.

Verse 10: The reason for their rejoicing is God’s hand of blessing that will rest on Zion then. In contrast, Moab, representing the godless nations antagonistic to Israel will suffer judgment and humiliation under His foot.

Verse 11-12: Moab would try to swim out of his predicament, as he had relied on himself and tried to save himself in the past, but the Lord will punish his clever pride. None of Moab’s defenses against divine judgment will work. The Lord will bring them all down. But why talking about Moab?

PT: Moab is not a major player here. Before the coming of Assyria no nation was more vicious to Israel than Moab. An antagonist to Israel throughout history. The ultimate enemy to Israel. Perhaps the past history of these nations is the backdrop to the nation of Assyria coming. Moab antagonism was seared in their conscience. Assyria is a prototype of Moab.

Isaiah 26: Here is a song that will come when deliverance finally arrives.

This section focuses on the remnant of Israel during the Millennium. The meaning of God’s victory over the world for Israel is the theme.

1. Expected Rejoicing

Verse 1: The prophet revealed another song that will be sung “in that day” (the Millennium, cf. ch. 25) by those in Zion. The New Jerusalem that God sets up will be a place of strength and security for the redeemed.

Verse 2: Here the lookouts are waiting for Gods promise. Waiting through the long night of exile for this to happen. Isaiah called on the porters to open the city gates so the nation that was right with God could enter. The nation refers to Israel specifically in the context. Faithfulness and loyalty to the Lord will mark Israel then.

Verse 3-4: The Lord keeps in true peace the mind-set that consistently trusts in Him. His presence is an unmoving place of refuge and protection from the elements and from all enemies.

Verse 5-6: Here is the reason for the procession, the laying low of the enemy city. God brought them low. The New Jerusalem is secure because God brought down the city of the world and the proud who inhabited it. This is the reason God’s people can and should trust in Him. The feet of God’s afflicted and helpless people will trample the fallen world but it is the Lord alone who will subdue it.

2. A Prayer

Verse 7: Here the survivors of the oppressing nations are in procession crying out to clear the way because we want a straight beeline into Mt Zion.

Verse 8: The faithful people of God, Isaiah added, have waited for the Lord to act while following His commandments. They have sought a greater appreciation of Him rather than a change in their circumstances

Verse 9: He sought the Lord rather than seeking a change in his circumstances. He recognized that God intends His commandments and His providential acts to teach people righteousness.

Verse 10: Yet the unrighteous do not learn the righteousness of God from His word or his ways to the extent that they should. They do not understand but continue in sin and remain spiritually blind.

Verse 11: Even though the unrighteous do not recognize God’s messages to them now, they will one day understand, when He brings these enemies of His into judgment.

Verse 12: God will lay out peace in front of us because you made us pay a long dear price for our peace. We deserved that but now it is time to reward us for sticking with you.

Verse 13: Even though other rulers were trying to force us to give up our faith it was your name alone we remembered and will continue.

Verse 14: So do not let them live life and wipe out all memory of them. Those who oppressed God’s people have died and are gone because God punished them. Many of their names have even been forgotten and are irretrievable by historians. God’s judgment can teach these nations about God.

Verse 15: Even though admitting their sins they still did not forget God. Rather than Israel dying out as a nation, the Lord had increased her, as he promised Abraham (Gen. 15:5). This was not Israel’s doing; the Lord had increased her borders and so gained great glory for Himself.

Verse 16: They did remember you in spite of the exile. That God is the true Good. Even when your discipline stretched them out to the breaking point.

Verse 17-18: During Isaiah’s own times Israel went through many pains, as a woman in labor. But rather than giving birth to something significant, the salvation of the world or many individuals, these experiences only proved painful for the Israelites. They had not learned from God’s dealings with them any more than the nations had.

Verse 19: So we are the living now. Once dead but now alive. As dew descends, so God would come to the Israelites bringing refreshment and vitality. There is a future for national Israel.

Pt: So it is the prayer for the nations to suffer. They deserve what they get because even when they see deliverance they refuse to acknowledge God. And if God does not take vengeance they will certainly have no opportunity to know God and there then is place to doubt God. If they continue to not acknowledge God there is no hope for Gods people. So have them do so through judgment.

PT: In times of stress there is resurrection. Here is a metaphor for national survival from national destruction. A revival and return from exile.

3. Addressing the People

Verse 20: Jews are warned with the coming oppression against the nations when God comes out to destroy the nations it is a day of judgment. This could be any historical salvation of the nation. Hide during that time of wrath and vengeance. Before the final restoration of Israel, however, God’s people would experience hard times (in the Tribulation Rev 12). Before God opened the gates of the new city to the redeemed v 2 they would need to shut their doors against their foes

Verse 21: The lord is departing from his place to bring judgment. The killing fields like those of Bosnia You cannot hide the murder you committed. He is to clear the way for the righteous to receive their just rewards. The Lord would come out of His heavenly place of quiet to punish earth-dwellers for their secret sins in the Tribulation.

So What:

1. There is a day of reckoning for all of the unbelieving throughout human history.

2. The righteous, while waiting for that day, can rejoice in the sovereignty of their God.

3. God knows every detail of your life and can address any need you face with sufficiency.