The Rebel Loving Lord

In Luke 24 Jesus explains to two of His disciples how the whole Old Testament is about Him. I like to think that He spent a lot of time on that walk to Emmaus talking about Isaiah. Isaiah is the Gospel. In sixty-six chapters the prophet unfolds holiness, judgement, sacrifice and grace, almost as explicitly as anyone in the New Testament does. Isaiah 30 is a great example of this.

If we read verses 19-33, who do we meet? We meet the Lord who teaches, and restores and fights for His people. He teaches them when to turn right and when to turn left, He restores them like a beautiful garden, and He fights for them and overcomes their enemies, earthly and cosmic, forever. I love the mixture of intimacy and fierceness in this passage. The intimacy of the one who whispers 'right' or 'left' in our ears, the gentleness of the one who plants and waters and gives growth, and the fierceness of the one whose arm will be seen in furious anger.

This would be an astonishing passage if it were addressed to a covenant keeping people. To a people who observed Passover  didn't trade on the Sabbath  didn't worship bits of wood or indulge in whatever sinful fancy came their way. This sort of God would be a remarkably gracious God if He was teaching and nourishing and fighting for a people who loved Him and honoured Him. How much more should our minds be blown and our hearts be warmed then, that this God is offering all this to a people with their back turned to Him.

Go back a page, and look at 30:1-17. What's happening? The stubborn children of Israel, under attack from Assyria have gone to Egypt for help. Chapters 28-31 contain some of Isaiah's most passionate preaching. He implores his listeners to trust in the Lord, not in chariots, to hope in the One who brought them out of Egypt, not in Egypt. But they don't listen. They rush to Egypt, they take treasure, they give themselves totally to Egypt, totally to what their flesh can see. And it's a disaster.

Sennacherib marches on through Judah, burning up town after town. Only the miraculous intervention of the Lord Himself stops them razing Jerusalem. And this happens because Hezekiah finally sees sense, and finally repents.

Verse 18 is the hinge on which this great chapter turns.The Lord waits to be gracious. He knows repentance is coming, and Isaiah promises his listeners that it will be received. In fact the Lord loves to show mercy to sinners, He loves to display His grace, the apex of His glory. He doesn't wait passively, He's not sitting around anxiously hoping that Hezekiah will lead His people in repentance, but He will wait until the right time to show Himself mighty, and gracious, and glorious.

In Mark 2:17 Jesus tells us that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Sinners like Judah in Isaiah's time. Sinners who worship idols and turn to Egypt. Are you a sinner? Do you feel like your rebellion has taken you far from the grace of God? Great! That's the one qualification for entry to the Kingdom! Only repent, and the Lord will teach you, in this life and eternally. The Lord will nourish you, and you'll enter paradise, the Lord will fight for you, and finally overcome the enemies that Jesus disarmed on the cross.

Let your mind be blown, and let you heart be warmed by this God, the rebel loving Lord.