Isaiah 51.17-52.12 (click here to read the passage)
This passage is awesome and wonderful as the Lord gives an amazing call to His people.
What's happened just prior to this passage is that, again, the Lord has said that it's time to redeem the people from their misery and oppression in exile, and He will call them home from the farthest reaches.
In the previous chapters, the people have been calling on God to fulfill His promises.
Now God calls the people to action. The Lord is calling the people to take hold of His promises and act.
Twice in this passage, the Lord says, YOU HAVE TO RISE UP AND TAKE THESE PROMISES BY FAITH (Awake! Awake!)! We see this in God’s call for the people to act, to “break forth together in singing,” to “go out,” to “rise up.”
In other words, it's not a question of trying to persuade God to do something that He is reluctant to do. Rather, the people must grasp God’s promises, living into them and living them out, acting on their faith.
Our faith in Jesus isn’t about sitting back and timidly waiting for something to happen. Jesus has already won the victory through the cross and the resurrection. Now it’s time for us to awake, to take hold of that which the Lord has already accomplished.
My friends, I guarantee that if we don't pursue knowing, loving, and serving the Lord, we will not have the encounter with the Lord for which we hunger and thirst, eventually leaving us with a faith that is impotent, arbitrary, and unappealing to us and especially so to those who wonder if Jesus truly has the power to change and transform their lives.
Don’t let that be you! Take a moment and remember what God has done; how God has worked and moved in history and in your own personal life as you’ve come to truly trust Jesus.
The last part of this passage is Isaiah's dramatic image of a besieged city hearing good news of a defeated enemy, defeated at the hands of the Lord, and what is their response?
They lift up their voices and sing for joy at what they see! They have seen how the Lord has delivered and comforted His people.
The call of the Lord is to act; to go forth knowing that the Lord goes both before and behind them, an image that is literally understood as the Lord being in their midst.
I love how John Oswalt frames this in his commentary on Isaiah, “Nothing remains but for Israel to lay hold of this promise in faith and to leave behind the old way with its sin and uncleanness… No, the enemy is completely defeated and can do nothing to regain its hold on the former captives. They are free, free indeed, through the power of God.”
What the Lord has done for His people in the past, He has done for all of us in the giving and sending of His Son Jesus.
You are free, free indeed!
Awake! Awake! Grab hold and never let go. Live the full life you are promised by Jesus.
God bless you, and know that you are constantly in my prayers!
Scott