Today we are celebrating the sacrament of baptism . The family has chosen Isaiah 46 where God promises “I Will Sustain You.” God is speaking through Isaiah, reminding the people that he has upheld his people and carried them since they have been born, unlike the idols which have to be borne by beasts of burden or people. Rather than sustain idols, the people are reassured that God sustains them. This is a beautiful passage of hope and a reminder to keep our eyes on God.
Today we are celebrating the sacrament of baptism . The family has chosen Isaiah 46 where God promises “I Will Sustain You.” God is speaking through Isaiah, reminding the people that he has upheld his people and carried them since they have been born, unlike the idols which have to be borne by beasts of burden or people. Rather than sustain idols, the people are reassured that God sustains them. This is a beautiful passage of hope and a reminder to keep our eyes on God.
I Will Sustain You
Isaiah 46
Adam and Heather chose this passage for us to reflect on for the baptism of the twins Richard and Rosemary. It’s a passage of hope and comfort, a passage of challenge to follow and honour God about everything, and a call to focus our eyes and hearts on who God is and to shape our lives in response so that our lives glorify God, not only in the good times, but especially in the difficult times of trial and tribulation.
It's getting close to the end of Israel’s exile to Babylon for not truly being who God has called them to be as his people, focusing on simply following the rituals and festivals rather than allowing God’s laws on how to follow him and live with each other shape who they are as a people who love God above everything else and then allow God’s love for them flow into their brothers and sisters, especially those who are going through difficult times. It’s been a long 70 years in exile, but it’s almost finished. It’s been filled with times of persecution and times of God’s stepping in and showing his power in the center of Babylon’s power by saving his people. We remember how God saved Daniel from hungry lions, saving Daniel’s 3 friends from a fiercely fiery furnace, and using an orphaned Jewish girl Esther to save his people during a particularly dangerous time for God’s people. With all of this in mind, Isaiah writes to the people, calling them to remember who God is and to reject Babylon’s idols. God mocks them mercilessly.
The scholar F Kidner shows how the gods were similar to the gods that Israel had chased after back at home. Bel was a title transferred from the old god Enlil to Babylon’s national god, Marduk, whose son Nebo was the god of learning. Their names are found in king’s names such as Belshazzar, or Nebuchadnezzar. Both gods were regularly transported in processions, but in this scene, they’re refugees, weighing down their struggling pack-animals. God, through Isaiah, is showing how great the differences are between these idols who are just burdens the people have to haul around, with all their demands on their money and muscles, as compared to Yahweh who has carried his people their entire lives.
These idols are nothing but creations, created by the creatures the eternal God has created. God tells Israel, “Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” With all the history God has with Israel, with all the covenants and promises that God has given and carried through on, Israel is still constantly tempted by the gods of the nations around them. Idols will always promise you the things you desire, all you have to do is give them your loyalty. Idols don’t demand your entire devotion, only enough to give them what you have in return for temporary pleasure. In doing so, you take away from God’s glory, making him less in your heart, making him someone you negotiate with in how much of your devotion you’re going to give him. God calls for a response from his people here. God reminds them that God is the only God who is with them, cares for them, sustains them and carries us from birth to death. There’s an especially powerful word of hope here as God reminds them that he’s also their rescuer, pointing them back to Egypt and ahead to their upcoming return back to the Promised Land.
Israel, and we today, too easily fail to give God the glory he deserves and instead we often focus our hearts on our desires instead. We allow ourselves to fool ourselves in believing that if we give God some, or even most of our devotion, we’re good and he’ll accept whatever we’re willing to give him. We forget that God is a jealous God and demands all our love and devotion, something God told Israel in Leviticus, and Jesus later reminds his followers. Loving God with our entire heart, soul, mind, and strength is the foundation of our relationship with him; anything less takes away from God’s glory and we place ourselves in charge instead of God. God doesn’t like playing games with us when it comes to our relationship with him. It’s important to glorify God and not focus on our own pleasures and wants. God promises to sustain his people, carrying them through the difficult times, giving them what they need in order to carry through. How we respond to God in the difficult times is so important, showing our trust in following his way over ours reveals our trust and faith in God, even if it’s really hard, in fact the harder the situation, the more glory we give to God when we stay true to him.
God calls for a response here, as God reminds them, “With whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?” God mocks the idols here and the people who worship the idols, “Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it. They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Even though someone cries out to it, it cannot answer; it cannot save them from their troubles.” We shouldn’t fool ourselves about who God is, he’s the only God, there is no other God like him. God has full knowledge of the past, the present, and the future. He is in control, even in the heart of the greatest empire of that time. He lets us know what we need to know about who he is in order to worship him and to be who he calls us to be as his people.
God reminds them, “Remember this, keep it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.” Remember, Israel is still in exile in Babylon. They are still a conquered people and often oppressed. They were at the mercy of the king and rulers of the time, and it was often hard for Israel as they were different, with a God who has claimed them as his own and demands total allegiance. This, as Daniel, Ether, and others discovered, put them at odds with the powerful and often led to the Jewish people needing to make faith choices that would often have harsh repercussions.
People, and the world notice when we don’t complain or whine when times are difficult, instead they talk to God, read his Word, and seek his guidance, asking what his purpose is for them during the times of struggle. I’ve stopped being surprised by how are amazed at the peace and strength followers of Jesus can show during really hard times, seeing how faith gives them the ability to trust in God’s purposes, that Paul’s encouragement in Romans 8 is really true, “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things…. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul reminds us that we can count on God sustaining us through the hard times, pointing us to the presence and love found in Jesus.
To fulfill his purposes, “God summons a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.” From Isaiah 44 and 45 we know that this man is Cyrus. God says, “My is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, ‘Let it be rebuilt, and of the temple, ‘Let its foundations be laid.’” If you want to read how God uses this foreign emperor to accomplish his purposes to return Israel to their land, you can read about it in the book of Nehemiah. God goes on to tell Israel, “What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do. Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted, you who are now far from my righteousness. I am bringing my righteousness near, it is not far away; and my salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion, my splendor to Israel.” The fulfillment of these verse occurs when Israel returns to their land through Cyrus and Nehemiah, but the ultimate fulfillment of these verse is found in Jesus who came to take all our sin, to bring salvation through the cross, to reveal God’s splendor in Jesus, fulfilling God’s promise in Genesis 3 to send a saviour who will crush the serpent’s head. Isaiah 46, a reminder that God’s purposes are always fulfilled and that when we act in trust and faith during the difficult time, we bring glory to God’s name. May the Lord bless you as your raise your children to trust in God is all situations.