I Am Your God...International Sunday School Lesson for December 12, 2010

ATTENTION:  Please note that this lesson on Isaiah 41:8-10, 17-20 is for the 12-12-10 ISSL.  You will find the 12-05-10 lesson, The Highway for God, directly beneath this message and on the right side.

Blessings,

Jed

I Am Your God

Isaiah 41:8-10, 17-20

International Sunday School Lesson

For

12-12-10

Commentary

By

Jed Greenough

Isaiah 41:8-10

 8 “But you, O Israel, my servant,

   Jacob, whom I have chosen,

   you descendants of Abraham my friend,

9 I took you from the ends of the earth,

   from its farthest corners I called you.

I said, ‘You are my servant’;

   I have chosen you and have not rejected you.

10 So do not fear, for I am with you;

   do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you;

   I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:17-20

17 “The poor and needy search for water,

   but there is none;

   their tongues are parched with thirst.

But I the LORD will answer them;

   I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

18 I will make rivers flow on barren heights,

   and springs within the valleys.

I will turn the desert into pools of water,

   and the parched ground into springs.

19 I will put in the desert

   the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.

I will set pines in the wasteland,

   the fir and the cypress together,

20 so that people may see and know,

   may consider and understand,

that the hand of the LORD has done this,

   that the Holy One of Israel has created it.

As we start today’s lesson the first verse (verse 8) starts with a “But” and so of course that demands that we know what is being referred to here and even though it is not included, we must look at the preceding verses where we see that other people, other nations, are in sight and they are not His.

God is speaking to them.  He tells them, “Be silent before me,” and “let us meet together at the place of judgment.”

The nations see what has happened to other nations and fear and tremble but who do they turn to?  Each other, telling the other, “Be strong!” and they create their idols…..

But Israel has God, not by their own design, but rather because He chose them and therefore unlike the nations, they need not fear.  He will strengthen them, He will help them, He will uphold them.

Like Israel, you and I have been chosen, we also are “descendants” of Abraham, and we like Israel, no longer need fear for He will strengthen, help and uphold us as Paul said in Romans 8:38-39

³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ 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.

As it says in today’s verse 10, God will accomplish that with His “righteous right hand”, who is Christ Jesus our Lord.

The alternative to our being chosen by Him is as it says in verse 9 to be “rejected”, or to use the words of the KJV “cast away”.  And if we are not cast away, we do not need to fear because He says, “I am your God”! 

God made a promise to Abraham concerning His descendants but if we didn’t know that we would just read this and think, “Wow! God really must have loved Abraham to still be taking care of his descendants this long after his life was over,” and it made me think about my own descendants.  Wouldn’t you like to know that your descendants were taken care of in this way?  Your children, your grandchildren can in no small measure be put on the path towards this goal because of the life you lead for God today!

But getting back to these descendants of Abraham, it says that they were “from the

ends of the earth, from it’s farthest corners”.  Now I know many who comment on today’s ISSL might say that where Abraham came from, Ur of the Chaldeans, would have been considered just that in Isaiah’s day, the ends of the earth.  But I am not from then and what is in sight to me are all of us, we that are coming and have been coming in to the fold, we are coming from all over the world, from the actual “ends of the earth, from its farthest corners.”

As we move forward in the passage to verse 17 again notice that once this verse could have been a prophecy concerning Israel returning from exile thus their thirsty state, but is that what is really in view in verses 17-20?

I think rather that we see the poor and needy and a thirst that is not like one experienced by those traveling in a literal desert but instead a figurative worldly, dying soul thirst.

Additionally, I see special significance that it is the poor and needy that search, because just as it was then, so as it is now, that those who are rich, those that feel self-fulfilled, these almost never thirst for God.  Jesus said the following:

Matthew 11:4-5 

 

 ⁴ Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: ⁵ The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.

These poor and needy that thirst will be satisfied:

John 7:38 

³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”

And Isaiah was given another prophecy concerning this subject:

Isaiah 55

Invitation to the Thirsty

 ¹ “Come, all you who are thirsty,
   come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without cost. ² Why spend money on what is not bread,
   and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
   and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. ³ Give ear and come to me;
   hear me, that your soul may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
   my faithful love promised to David. ⁴ See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
   a leader and commander of the peoples. ⁵ Surely you will summon nations you know not,
   and nations that do not know you will hasten to you,
because of the LORD your God,
   the Holy One of Israel,
   for he has endowed you with splendor.”

 ⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found;
   call on him while he is near. ⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way
   and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
   and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

 ⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,”
            declares the LORD. ⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
   come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
   without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
   so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, ¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
   It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
   and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. ¹² You will go out in joy
   and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
   will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
   will clap their hands. ¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
   and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the LORD’s renown,
   for an everlasting sign,
   which will not be destroyed.”

All of Isaiah 55 strikes a similar chord as today’s passage from Isaiah 41 but in closing, lets focus on the last verses from both.  55:13 says, “This will be for the LORD’s renown...”  41:20 says, “so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.”

I say, may we, the poor and needy that He has chosen and not cast away, that He has strengthened and upheld and we who He has quenched of our thirst, “be for the LORD’s renown” and that when people see us that they “may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this.”

For Discussion:

1. Research the incidents in which Abraham was called God’s friend.
2. Discuss the significance of verse 9’s, “You are my servant”.
3. Research the “right hand” of God.
4. What do you know about each of the 7 trees mentioned today?
5. Research the usage of “Holy One of Israel” especially as used in Isaiah.
6. Share the similarities found between Isaiah 55 and today’s scripture.

(Join me next week for the International Sunday School Lesson for December 19, 2010, The Mission of the Servant on Isaiah 9:7, 11:1-8)

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.