"Fear not, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says the Lord, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: you shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small and shall make the hills as chaff. You shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and you shall rejoice in the Lord, you shall glory in the Holy One of Israel. The poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the Lord will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, the pine, and the box tree together: That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it. Produce your cause, says the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons says the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and declare unto us what shall happen: declare the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or show us things for to come. Declare the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. Behold, you are as nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooses you. I have raised up One from the north, and He is come; from the rising of the sun One that calls upon my name: and He shall come upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter treads clay. Who has declared it from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? Yea, there is none that declares, yea there is none that shows, yea, there is none that hears your words. I first will say unto Zion, Behold, behold them; and I will give to Jerusalem One that brings good tidings. And when I look, there is no man: even among them there is no counselor, that, when I ask of them, can answer a word. Behold, all of them, their works are vanity and nought; their molten images are wind and confusion." (Isaiah 41:14-29,RV) "Fear not." (Isaiah 41:14)
Another installment of the message of comfort. The title of this entire chapter might well be, "Fear not." This exhortation is parallel to the words so often used by the Saviour, "Be of good cheer." (Matthew 14:27)
He who says these words is the Creator, the One whose words are things, which contain the very living form and substance of that which they name. Therefore when the Lord says to us, "Fear not;" "Be of good cheer;" He supplies the courage and cheer. "You have put gladness in my heart," (Psalm 4:7) says the psalmist. God does not tell us to make ourselves glad, but He himself makes us glad. "For You, Lord, have made me glad through your work: I will triumph in the works of your hands." (Psalm 92:4) "The joy of the Lord is our strength." (Nehemiah 8:10)
God's word is His own life; it is charged with His own personality; when we receive it, we receive Him; therefore when we believe His word implicitly, we have Him and all His joy and peace.
Strength in Weakness
"You worm Jacob." (Isaiah 41:14)
Not a very flattering title, is it? But it is the truth. See how the fact is kept before us that the comfort of the Lord does not consist in telling us that we are pretty good, that things are not so bad as they seem, and that if we do not lose confidence in ourselves we shall win. He comforts us by telling us that we are but worms, but grass, nothing at all, and less than nothing. Thus He anticipates every possible doubt on our part. He takes away all ground for saying, "I am so weak and in so desperate a situation that I have no hope; I can surely never overcome."
He plucks courage from despair. From the depths He lifts us up to the heights. We often hear some half-hearted professor calling himself a worm as he prays or bears his testimony. We say "half-hearted," advisedly, because in the cases we have in mind they had well-nigh lost heart, and in tones of discouragement they sighed out that they were "but worms of the dust."
It was almost a wail of despair, although too feeble to be a wail, and the speaker seemed to think that he ought to grovel before the Lord, and apologize for presuming to come into His presence. But not in any such way does the Lord set the fact before us. When the Lord says, "You worm," He does not say it with anything like contempt. He does not despise us. We feel quickened, and breathe in fresh courage, as we hear the words from His lips. There is inspiration in the exclamation. It is a part of the everlasting comfort of the Lord.
Life From the Dead
"And you men of Israel." (Isaiah 41:14)
This expression is almost meaningless as it stands here, because it does not at all express what the prophet said from the Lord. It is very weak. In the margin of our Bibles a little compensation has been made by inserting the alternative reading, "You few men of Israel."
But even this does not say what the Lord said. What He plainly said, as it stands in the Hebrew, and as given by Bishop Lowth, is: "You mortals of Israel."
Literally, "dying ones." Christ says, "He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." (John 11:25)
It is true that God's people are a "little flock," (Luke 12:32) and to them He says, "Fear not;" but they are not only few, they are in a dying condition. They are frail as the grass. They have in themselves no vitality, no principle of life. But what matters that, as long as He is with them, and He is life. Their strength is the Lord himself. God has chosen us, as we learned from the preceding part of this chapter, but not for what we were worth. He chose us for what He could make of us and do with us.
Instruments in God's Hands
"I will help you, says the Lord, and your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: you shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall make the hills as chaff." (Isaiah 41:14-15)
See what He will do with us, weak and frail as we are: He will transform us into a threshing instrument able to thresh even the mountains, and make them small, and to make the hills as chaff. We are nothing, and less than nothing; "But God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are." (1 Corinthians 1:27-28)
Then let us never again say, "I am so weak, so insignificant, so poor and unknown, so helpless and unworthy, that I cannot do anything."
That may all be true, but it does not affect the case. We are not so feeble and despised, so weak and insignificant that the Lord cannot do anything with us. Remember that where the earth and all the starry heavens are now there was nothing until God spoke.
Darkness was upon the face of the deep until God said, "Let there be light."
Therefore although we be nothing, God can do wonderful things with us. The message of comfort which God sends to His people as a special preparation for His coming makes very prominent the fact that He is the Creator. Whenever we fall into despondency because of our sinfulness and weakness, we lose sight of the fact that God is the Creator, and practically deny it. Let us not do it any more.
Power Over the Nations
Verse 16 says to us poor worms whom the Lord will transform into threshing-machines for threshing mountains to pieces, "You shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them." (Isaiah 41:16)
Now read the prophecy in the 2nd chapter of Daniel, where we read that the stone cut without hands, representing Christ, smote the image which represented all the nations of earth, and broke it to pieces, and it "became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them." (Daniel 2:35)
Comparing the two texts, we see that the Lord associates His people with himself in all that He does. He even condescends to acknowledge the help of these poor worms in the work that He does. In a recent Danish translation of Revelation 17:14, where these same kingdoms are spoken of, we find this suggestive reading: "These shall fight against the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, because it is the Lord of lords and the King of kings and the called and the faithful and the true, who are with Him." (Revelation 17:14)
In Psalm 2 we read these words to Christ: "Ask of me, and I shall give You the heathen for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Psalm 2:8-9)
Now note that in Revelation 2:26-27, the same words are addressed to the saints of God, and the very same power that Jesus Christ himself receives is given to them: "He that overcomes, and keeps my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father." (Revelation 2:26-27)
To have the lowest place in the kingdom of God and Christ, is to be exalted to a place higher than that of the kings of the earth; while the weakest soul that can say with full assurance of faith, "Behold, God is my strength," (Isaiah 12:2) has more power than all the nations.
A Terrible Plague
"When the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine and the box tree together: That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it." (Isaiah 41:17-20)
In verses 17-20 we have undoubted reference to the time of trouble and the glory that shall follow. In Isaiah 34 we read of the earth in its desolation. This desolation begins before the coming of the Lord, and continues through the thousand years during which the saints are in heaven with the Lord, sitting in judgment on the wicked. The fourth plague, described in Revelation 14:8-9, dries up everything on the face of the earth. It is such a drought as has never yet been known. By one prophet it is thus vividly described: "The barns are broken down; for the corn is withered. How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. O Lord, to You will I cry; for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field cry also unto You; for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness." (Joel 1:17-20)
God's People Delivered
But in the midst of this terrible desolation, God's people will not be left to perish. God has not said that they shall not suffer; the disciple is not above his Master, and therefore should not expect to be exempt from suffering with Him. He was hungry and thirsty in the barren wilderness, but He was not forsaken, nor will they be. The promise is, "When the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." (Isaiah 41:17-18)
Very forcible is the statement that it is the God of Israel who promises this. That was just what God did for Israel when they came out of Egypt: "And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why do you chide with me? wherefore do you tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with you of the elders of Israel; and your rod, wherewith you smote the river, take in your hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there upon the rock in Horeb; and you shall smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel." (Exodus 17:1-6) "He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like a river." (Psalm 105:41) "Tremble, you earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob; Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters." (Psalm 114:7-8)
God's people will yet have reason to be very grateful for the record of that miracle, for before they are delivered from their sojournings in a strange land to the land of promise, they will need it as a basis for their cry for the same thing to be done for them. Their confidence in that evil day will be the fact that they have drunk from the Fountain of Life, and know that God gives living water. When the "time of trouble, such as never was," (Daniel 12:1) comes upon the face of the earth, "[God's] people will be delivered, everyone whose name is written in the book of life." (Daniel 12:1)
A Trial of Strength
The latter part of the 41st chapter of Isaiah is a call to the nations and their gods to give some proof of their power; to make their case good. "Produce your cause, says the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob." (Isaiah 41:21)
State your case, and prove it. Note that the "strong reasons" which the Lord demands are not mere words, but deeds. He backs up His cause by acts. He can point to what He has done in the way of delivering His people. He is the Saviour and Redeemer. What can the false gods show in the way of salvation of a soul? What can any self-righteous man point to in the way of delivering even his own soul from death, to say nothing of helping another? The oppressors who surround God's people, "Who put their trust in their wealth, and boast on the extent of their riches, Yet no one can buy himself off, none can make payment to God for himself. The ransom of their soul is too dear, and there is forever an end of him." (Psalm 49:6-8,Polychrome edition)
God tells the end from the beginning. He makes known things to come, by means of the Comforter. "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come." (John 16:13)
Thus His people are able to know what shall come.
"[God] inhabits eternity," (Isaiah 57:15) so that things past, and things present, and things to come are all alike to Him. Therefore whenever anybody either by word or act professes to be God, He has a right to demand that they tell something that is to come, or at the very least tell the whole truth of something that has taken place in the past.
Accordingly we find that many false prophets are gone out into the world, attempting to meet this challenge. Spiritualist mediums profess to tell things to come, and create a great sensation by telling people things that have happened in the past. But none of them bear the stamp of Divinity. Compared with the lofty utterances of Inspiration, they are as the peeping of frogs. When God speaks to them, none can answer a word.
Thus we have in this chapter an outline of the entire trial, from its call to its conclusion.--Present Truth, October 19, 1899--Isaiah 41:14-29.