Season 6, Podcast 97, Isaiah 41:1-29, “Fear Not I Will Help Thee.” Episode

Season 6, Podcast 97, Isaiah 41:1-29, “Fear Not I Will Help Thee.”

Isaiah Chapter 41, using antithetical parallelism, is divided into two unequal but distinct parts. Part One, comprising verses 1 through 20, declares that the Holy One of Israel is the God of Jacob. Part Two, comprising verses 21 through 29, condemns the false idols set up by King Ahaz and perpetuated by King Manassa. If you recall the idols were torn down by Ahaz’s righteous son King Hezekiah and then rebuilt by Hezekiah’s own unrighteous son, King Manassa. Idol worship had become imbedded in the House of Israel. Ahaz even stole sacred alters from King Solomon’s temple and used them in his idol worship.

Before reading Part One of Isaiah 41, which is full of hope, restoration, and redemption, consider the context. This is one of the bleakest moments in Israelite history. The twelve tribes have split into two groups. They are at war with each other. The ten northern tribes are at war with the two southern tribes. Ephraim, who represents the ten tribes, is conquered by Assyria, taken captive, and finally scattered to all parts of the earth. They have since been known as the Ten Lost Tribes.  Judah, who represents the two southern tribes, having been preserved from Ephraim, Syria, and Assyria, are soon to be conquered by Babylon where they will be held captive for 70 years. Jerusalem is about to be destroyed. The Temple is about to be destroyed. They lose the Arc of the Covenant. Following the Babylonian captivity, they are shuffled about by their over-powering neighbors: the Persians, The Greeks, and finally the Romans, yet the message of Isaiah 41 Part One is, “Fear Not I Will Help Thee.” Part Two says, before I can help you, you must get rid of the idols and turn back to the only true God.

Scriptures only have value when they can be applied to our own personal lives. Without personal connections, they are historical curiosities to be debated, nothing more. How many of us have found ourselves in a somewhat similar situation, though, perhaps, far less dramatic? Yet the voice of the Lord tells us, “Fear not, I will help thee.” Faith is not possible without opposition. The greater the opposition, the greater the faith required. Sometimes we struggle to keep faith alive just long enough for hope to be born. Faith thrives in darkness. Hope thrives only in the light. Faith is the father of hope. Hope is the father of lights. There is a curious scripture in the New Testament.

James 1:17-18 

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

That is the message of Isaiah 41—‘with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.’ Connect hope with light. God is called the Father of lights. We are the lights. God is our Father. It is only in Christ that we have hope.  That is the constant message of Isaiah. Christ is at the center of everything Isaiah teaches. No matter how awful things appear, there is no situation that Christ cannot redeem us from. As we work through Isaiah 41, notice the images of power and how everything else pales before the power of Christ.  

Isaiah 41:1

Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment.

Does that not remind you of Isaiah’s message in Chapter 40?

Isaiah 40:28-31

Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles;