The Messianic Hope

Isaiah 50:1-11 

1 Thus says the LORD:
"Where is the certificate of your mother's divorce,
Whom I have put away?
Or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you?
For your iniquities you have sold yourselves,
And for your transgressions your mother has been put away.

2 Why, when I came, was there no man?
Why, when I called, was there none to answer?
Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem?
Or have I no power to deliver?
Indeed with My rebuke I dry up the sea,
I make the rivers a wilderness;
Their fish stink because there is no water,
And die of thirst.
3 I clothe the heavens with blackness,
And I make sackcloth their covering."

4 "The Lord GOD has given Me
The tongue of the learned,
That I should know how to speak
A word in season to him who is weary.
He awakens Me morning by morning,

He awakens My ear
To hear as the learned.
5 The Lord GOD has opened My ear;
And I was not rebellious,
Nor did I turn away.

6 I gave My back to those who struck Me,
And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard;
I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.

7 "For the Lord GOD will help Me;
Therefore I will not be disgraced;
Therefore I have set My face like a flint,
And I know that I will not be ashamed.

8 He is near who justifies Me;
Who will contend with Me?
Let us stand together.
Who is My adversary?
Let him come near Me.

9 Surely the Lord GOD will help Me;
Who is he who will condemn Me?
Indeed they will all grow old like a garment;
The moth will eat them up.

10 "Who among you fears the LORD?
Who obeys the voice of His Servant?
Who walks in darkness
And has no light?
Let him trust in the name of the LORD
And rely upon his God.

11 Look, all you who kindle a fire,
Who encircle yourselves with sparks:
Walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks you have kindled—
This you shall have from My hand:
You shall lie down in torment.

Today’s devotional is God relaying the Messianic hope for God’s people through Isaiah.  The questions of God’s people then have not changed today, just the particular circumstances and the fact that God’s people now are more than just Israel.  We still backslide and sin as they did then and imagine that God has forsaken us forever because of it.  We still think that God is limited in delivering us or certain others locked in iniquity as if He could ever be unable to redeem anyone He calls whom He has chosen and sealed as His, like Israel as His only theocratic nation.  God most certainly has the unlimited power to deliver and redeem His people, for nothing is too difficult for Him as the LORD in Jeremiah 32:17, 27 reminds us all.  Yes, the Lord feeds and clothes us with the same ability seen in all of nature at His command for us to observe as from His word and hand of sovereign power.  We who are God’s servants awake each day to be taught by Him through the scriptures and His Spirit to gain knowledge and wisdom in the spiritual understanding as if scholars so that we may encourage others along the way of each day and not just to store up a library of truth in ourselves.  It is therefore God Himself who opens our ears to hear from Him and our response should be an eager willingness to hear and put these things into practice and not turn away in rebellion to our duty (Luke 17:10) to Him and others, even when we are mocked an mistreated as Christ was (Matthew 26:67, 27:30) for speaking the truth in love.  As it is written in verse 7, we are given the example to trust God’s help in the disgrace and be firmly founded in Him to not be toppled by attempts to shame us.  Our hope and solid foundation of life is faith in our suffering Servant who is our omnipotent deliverer and redeemer.  Nothing can dissuade us if we stand firm as a flint in this resolve of faith.  Who justifies us but the LORD alone (Romans 8:33)?  Nobody can argue against God’s certain work in Christ for us!  Those who condemn we His people will be overcome by death themselves (Psalm 102:26) in the end apart from a transforming faith in Him.  The call from Isaiah is to us as well that we trust, fear Him, and obey.  This trust and reliance on the Lord brings us out of darkness into the light instead of making the same mistake as Israel’s to trust in our own light and attempts to live well and do the right things to earn an unobtainable salvation.  This futile attempt to earn our standing with God for heaven only ends in eternal torment; our works have no merit apart from faith and God’s enabling ((Ephesians 2:10) to do them out of a firm foundation in the work of the Servant of the Lord, Jesus the Christ.  May we instead worship in His light and not our own feeble sparks of philosophy and supposed wisdom.  We have our only hope in the Messiah who is the Christ and His work to deliver us; there is no other way (Acts 4:12).  These are God’s words given to the weary as Matthew 11:28 assures us, a reassurance of the Messianic Hope we have in Christ and not our own wisdom’s works.