Isaiah 59
McGeeCHAPTER 59THEME: Condemnation of Israel; confession of Israel; coming of the Redeemer to IsraelThis remarkable chapter continues God’s charges against Israel, and He spells them out. Their sins had brought about their sad state. Religion had become a cover-up for their sins. God refuses to hear because of their iniquities, not because He was hard of hearing. Many people today think God has a hearing problem. God hears us all right. The problem lies with us. Their sins are referred to thirty-two times. Many words are used to describe their sins: iniquities, sins, defiled with blood, lies, perverseness, vanity, mischief, adder’s eggs, spider’s web, viper, works, violence, evil, wasting, destruction, crooked paths, darkness, transgressions, departing, oppression, revolt, conceiving, and uttering of falsehood. There are twenty-three separate charges brought against them. What a picture this is! For Israel there will be a time of national confession of sin. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem.
We are told about it in Zec_12:11-14: “In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.”
Isaiah 59:1
CONDEMNATION OF ISRAELThe reason that Israel was not saved in Isaiah’s day was not due to any weakness in the “mighty bared arm of Jehovah” which we saw in Isaiah 53. The Lord’s hand was not shortened. Neither was it due to any faulty connection in His communication with man. Likewise in our day it is not the mental hurdles that man has to surmount nor any of his many problems, but his sin separates him from God.
Isaiah 59:2
Let me quote the comment of Alexander Maclaren in The Books of Isaiah and Jeremiah: “It is not because God is great and I am small, it is not because He lives for ever, and my life is but a hand-breadth, it is not because of the difference between His omniscience and my ignorance, His strength and my weakness, that I am parted from Him: ‘Your sins have separated between you and your God.’ And no man, build he Babels ever so high, can reach thither. There is one means by which the separation is at an end, and by which all objective hindrances to union, and all subjective hindrances, are alike swept away. Christ has come, and in Him the heavens have bended down to touch, and touching to bless this low earth, and man and God are at one once more.” Now throughout this first section God spells out their sins. It is rather a discouraging picture of the human familyand of you and me. Then we have a confession of Israel, which is coming in the future when the Redeemer comes to Zion.
Isaiah 59:9
CONFESSION OF ISRAELThe change of pronouns here indicates that there is another speaker. Instead of “your” and “their,” it is “we” and “our” and “us” now. This is Israel’s confession. They confess they are in darkness. They confess that their religious rituals have all been a pretense. Many folk need to do this in our day. I played golf with a dentist and a broker some time ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Both of these men told me how they came to know the Lord. Both of them had been members in rich liberal churches. They were both wealthy men. One of the men told me that one day he simply got tired of being a hypocrite, so he went to the Lord and confessed that he was a hypocrite and wanted reality. He accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. Oh, how this is needed today! It could actually bring revival to our churches. Now notice Israel’s confession:
Isaiah 59:10
You see, they are in darkness. What a picture of the man who does not have a personal relationship with God! But when Israel will make this confessionand they will make it in the futureto these specific charges, they also will repudiate their sins. My friend, our confessions to God should be specific and then the sins repudiated. Each sin should be confessed privately to God. I have no heart to go through this list of Israel’s sinsI have problems enough with my own.
Isaiah 59:20
COMING OF THE REDEEMER TO ISRAELNotice that the pronoun changes again. The Redeemer will come to Zion. Many people ask, “Will the whole nation be saved?” No, “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (Rom_9:6). Those saved will only be a remnant. And there appears to be only a remnant in the church who are actually saved. But the Redeemer is coming some day to Zion, and at that time there will be a great confession of sin. Zec_12:10 tells us about it: “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”
Isaiah 59:21
God has made a covenant that the Redeemer is coming to Zion. There will never be a time when this promise will be entirely forsaken, for this is God’s purpose. It will be fulfilled in His good time.