Isaiah 49:14-26 The Stumbling Block of Despair
Last week, we began in Isaiah 49, and the stumbling block of despair was introduced. The Servant found Himself in despair when He saw the work laid before Him. He felt like He had wasted His energy and His breath and that everything He had tried to do to comfort and heal God’s people was in vain (Isaiah 49:4). But He placed His hope in the LORD, believeing that the LORD would see His work and reward Him for it and that somehow the LORD would bring a blessing out of it for the people.
That is the strategy for overcoming despair that the Servant modeled for Israel and for us.
Now it is Israel's turn. The LORD has given her promises of salvation and the Servant as a model. He ended in verse 13 with the command to sing:
“Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people, and will have mercy on His afflicted.”
(Isaiah 49:13 NKJV)
Israel has every reason to sing for joy, but does she? Look at the next verse.
"But Zion said, 'The LORD has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.'"
(Isaiah 49:14 NKJV)
(Isaiah 49:14 NKJV)
Isaiah 49:14
For the first time, Israel enters openly into conversation with God. While all creation sings, she laments.
Before we move into a discussion of Israel’s response, let me just ask:
Q: Did Christ the Servant every say words like this?
Yes, He did, while He was hanging on the cross. “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (Matthew 27:46 NKJV)
The Suffering Servant identifies very deeply with Israel’s experience. In His mortal flesh, He, too, experienced the outpouring of God’s wrath and the feeling of despair when the Father turned His face away from Him.
Q: Even though He cried out like this, was this moment a crisis of faith for Him? Was He contemplating rejecting a relationship with God the Father?
No. It is okay to cry out to the LORD when you are under severe circumstances, but it should not be something that shakes your faith to the point where you seek comfort apart from God.
Here in Isaiah, Israel is not at the extremity that Christ was on that cross. Yes, she is oppressed and in distress, but God has spoken comfort her. He has promised that her oppression will end shortly and commanded her to sing for joy.
Q: Given all this understanding of God’s promises and commands, why would Israel still insist that she has been forsaken and forgotten? Why would she refuse to be comforted?
Part of the reason is that she has come to a place of weariness. Weariness can be a stumbling block in a good way because it prevents a person from continuing forward under their own power and prompts them to turn back to God (or at least, it should). So long as there is hope for the future, despair should not grip Israel, which is why, for the last eight chapters, God has been trying to instill hope in her. He has put the full force of His Godhead on display. He is omnipotent. He has the power over creation, kings, and idols. He knows all things past, present, future, seen, and hidden. He orchestrates all events and is ever-present in Israel's affairs. He loves her. He has claimed her and redeemed her. His word endures forever, and with it, His covenant promises to His people. Though she is hard-pressed, she should not despair.
I think there are a few other reasons a despairing person might refuse comfort, in general.
One reason is because they don't want to acknowledge that sin has caused their oppression and change their ways, which is the case with Israel. As God pointed out back in Isaiah 42:22-28, the Babylonians aren't the source of her problems. Her relationship with Him is. Her current exile was caused by her own sin because she would not walk in His ways, was disobedient to His Law, and pursued idolatry instead. It does not occur to her to reflect on her own behavior or even the true source of her torment, and as a result of her stubborn refusal to acknowledge her own sin, she will not be comforted by Him. It is a stumbling block.
When hope and assurances are offered and still rejected, then the issue is no longer despair but self-pity. They comfort themselves by saying, “My suffering is other people’s fault, not mine.” They play the blame game. We will talk about this more in a few minutes.
Another reason the person might refuse comfort is if the comforter hasn’t “been there,” that the comforter lacks an identification with their suffering. We can sympathize deeply with a person going through a particular trial, but our attempt to comfort can fall flat if the person doesn’t feel that we identify with their particular circumstances. The sufferer might think that only a person who has lost a child to cancer can truly identify with another parent who has lost a child to cancer and offer an effective comfort. The identification aspect is necessary to give effective comfort.
So, Israel’s cry reveals that she has run up against a stumbling block that is keeping her from being comforted. How does the LORD address this? He begins by offering three verbal reassurances.
Isaiah 49:15-16
First, He addresses Israel in her immediate circumstances and draws a parallel between Himself and her. He appeals to her as a parent to a child, an experience with which she herself can identify. Have you forgotten your own children already? Why would I forget Mine?
God reminds Israel that while people may forget her, He will not. The truth is that people do forget. We get prayer lists all the time, and while we may remember to pray for the needs in the moment, how often do we continue to pray for an extended length of time, even for years until the issue is resolved? People may sympathize deeply but fleetingly. God doesn't. And this promise is not just for Israel but for all who are called by God's name. When we, as believers, see our world beginning to crumble around us and feel powerless to do anything, He reassures us that this is not the end. We are not forgotten. If He brings calamity on us, it is only for a time and for a purpose.
Isaiah 49:17-21
His second reassurance is to cast a vision of a better future. Israel may be in captivity—may even die in captivity—but He guarantees her while she may lose a legacy of children in this generation, a remnant will be preserved.
Q: When we see dark days coming as Israel did, what worries do we have for our children and grandchildren?
Greater persecutions were in store for Israel's children than what she herself was experiencing when Isaiah delivered this message. The same is true for us. Will our children remain faithful when the persecution begins in earnest? Will they resist the world's bombardment or walk away from the faith and be lost to us? These are genuine concerns, and they can bring us to despair when we realize how little power we really have to protect or even prepare our children for what lies ahead. But God promised Israel a return of future generations to a renewed land. Many would be lost, but a remnant would return and flourish in the coming kingdom.
A new kingdom is coming for us as well. The Millennial Kingdom is both a physical kingdom and a spiritual kingdom, and the future generations in it—our future generations— will be of both a physical and spiritual nature. While we cannot foresee how the thread of our family lines or faith will continue, many may be brought into that kingdom on account of us. We, too, may exclaim, “Whose children are these? Where did they come from?”
Isaiah 49:22-26
God's third reassurance is a promise to remember Israel's oppressors. As He brings back her children, He causes her oppressors to bow to her, even as He did with the Servant in 49:7. The oppressors are mighty, but He is mightier, and He will take back what is His.
This reassurance is interrupted by a question—a doubt—on Israel’s part. “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of the righteous be delivered?” (49:24)
Q: Israel has witnessed God’s might works in the past. Why would she express a doubt that He can do this?
The LORD immediately quells this doubt with a very strong statement that she doesn’t need to worry about her oppressor. It is true that no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless the strong man is first bound, but God is stronger and that is exactly what He intends to do. He will contend with those who contend with her. He will feed them their own flesh and give them their own blood to drink, and all flesh will know that He is her Savior.
The False Comfort of Self-pity
Despair can be a stumbling block that keeps a person from being comforted, but it is a necessary thing to bring a person to the end of their own effort in empowering themself and prompt a return to God. God lets Israel wear herself out until she has come to this stumbling block. But despair only exists so long as there is no hope, but once hope is given, there should be no reason for despair. Thus, God begins to exhort her with reason after reason to hope.
Even so, Israel stubbornly resists. She throw up illogical arguments. She perseveres in doubt and despair even after all God’s reassurances and demonstrations of His power and sovereignty over her circumstances. In doing so, she treads a line between despair and self-pity. Self-pity offers a twisted kind of comfort and empowerment, and can become a stronghold that a person builds around themselves that the LORD must then tear down. Let's talk about self-pity.
Q: Most of us have met someone in life who is sunk in self-pity. What is self-pity? What are self-pitying people like?
At heart, self-pity is self-focused, self-promoting, and self-indulgent. It demands that others continually lift up and support the victim to that point that the effort becomes oppressive to the comforter. There is a twisted form of power in self-pity because it has a perceived "just claim" backing it (I have been wronged! I have been hurt!) and it can sway people's sympathies toward supporting its cause—for a while. It is kind like a fire, though. It seeks out the audience who will feed it and takes every opportunity to complain and point the finger because it is easier to turn the blame on others and make it someone else's problem to fix rather than acknowledge a personal failing. Thus, self-pity makes a person willfully blind and unwilling to deal with their own sin, as Israel models for us. They don't want to take responsibility for their actions or change their ways, and so they choose to remain in their oppressed state, even when justice is rendered over their "just claim" (in Israel's case, God humiliated Babylon to avenge her, back in Isaiah 47). If left unaddressed, self-pity can develop into a stronghold, a permanent mentality.
Q: Have you ever tried to comfort someone who is sunk in self-pity? If so, what did you say to them? Did it help?
Q: How do you keep from empowering self-pity?
When God addresses Israel's despair, He changes His tone from rebuke to exhortation.
Q: What is the difference between rebuke and exhortation? When do you use rebuke, and when do you alter your tone?
Self-reflection:
We are not immune from despair or the temptation to seek the false comfort of self-pity. The Servant provided a model for combatting despair that we ourselves need to model for others.
Q: What strategies can we use to us keep ourselves from falling over this stumbling block and succumbing to self-pity?
I have talked about the motif of reversals that runs through Isaiah's text—exalted things brought low, low things lifted up, mourning turned to joy, deserts to gardens, etc. Coming out of oppression requires a reversal of actions or attitudes that then brings about a reversal of condition. So . . .
Q: If self-pity is self-focused and self-indulgent, then what reversal or change of focus might break this kind of oppression?
Becoming others-focused. One of the comforts that God offered the Servant was that the trial that He was enduring would benefit the people in the future. A blessing would flow to others from that sacrifice.
Q: Is this an others-motivated reason to endure a struggle?
Even as He confronts the need for repentance, God recognizes the need for a comforter to identify with a victim's struggle. Keep in mind, this not a simple process. God's strategy for overcoming despair and self-pity will actually encompass the next several chapters.
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