40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 42:18-43:21 (Episode 484)

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

God has words for the deaf and things for the blind to see. Why does it sound like God talks out of both sides of His mouth? And the only true King and Savior is on his way. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Coming Home for Christmas: 1517 Advent Devotional Face to Face: A Novel of the Reformation by Amy Mantravadi Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of Psalms by Chad Bird Remembering Your Baptism: A 40-Day Devotional by Kathryn Morales Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. and while you're over there, check out everything else that 1517 is doing. Chad, we are in Isaiah 42. We wrapped up last time with, you know, God saying, hey, put a new song in your mouth, you know. Let's sing a new song, maybe a different song.

You've been singing the same old song for a long time, but a new song's coming, and that sounds pretty nice, and that sounds very, like, new coven-y, you know, like, all right, we're going to do a new song. He ended—well, re-ended—in verse 17, it started to sound like maybe he was also going to say some things that weren't quite as comforting as he talked about people, you know, turning back and being utterly put to shame. And, you know, these particular people are people who look at metal images and carved idols and say, you are our gods. So this is the dance with the prophets, right? You have, hey, there's a new song coming.

it's going to be a good one. You're going to like it. It's going to be my greatest hit ever. Also, let me tell you what's frustrating. And then we'll tell them exactly. And maybe it kind of makes sense. It is sort of a law gospel dance that you do. You're going to really need this new song because this new song is about, you know, how I'm going to bring about salvation. I'm going to do everything. And it's going to be really necessary because, I mean, look at you guys. yeah that's exactly right that's a perfect segue to what's coming up in in 40 to 18 and following because he's going to switch back to talking about israel as his servant but israel as a servant is not like the servant of the lord the messiah that we that we heard about earlier so what we're

going to see in 18 and following is a description of israel god's servant uh his messenger his dedicated one, but a blind and a deaf servant who has the word of God. God says all these things for him. And yet being, having eyes, he doesn't see and having ears, he, he doesn't, he doesn't hear. So that's what's coming up. So let me begin. I'll begin with 18 and I'll read, I think I'm going to read through the end of the chapter. That's going to take us through, through 25. hear you deaf and look you blind that you may see who is blind but my servant or deaf as my messenger whom i send who is blind as my dedicated one or blind as the servant of the lord he sees many things but he does not observe them you could translate that keep them as well so he sees many

things, but he doesn't observe or keep them. His ears are open, but he doesn't hear. The Lord was pleased for his righteousness sake to magnify his law, that is his Torah, to make his Torah big and make it glorious. But this is a people, talking about Israel, but this is a people plundered and looted. They are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons. They have become plunder with none to rescue, spoil with none to, say, restore. Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come? Then he asked this question, Who gave up Jacob to the looter and Israel to the plunderers?

Was it not the Lord against whom we have sinned, in whose ways we would not walk, in whose Torah they would not obey? So he poured on them the heat of his anger and the might of battle. It set him on fire all around. But, I would add the word still here, but still, he did not understand. It burned him up, but he did not take it to heart. I was reading, when I read through this this morning, I was thinking of all those passages in the New Testament, too, where Jesus uses this similar language to describe the blind guides.

of course talking about people like the the pharisees and the sadducees and this is a pretty common theme in isaiah where they we heard already back in chapter six and like you know they have eyes but they don't they don't see they have ears but they don't they don't hear and the psalms will pick up the same the same idea so the overall message here as he starts out is you know i've got this servant i called israel as my own uh they're also my messenger they're to give the good news to the people who are around them. They are my dedicated ones. The Hebrew there is a little bit ambiguous. You could also translate that one at peace with me. Others will take a little bit different slant and call it my ally. But, you know, the whole message is still the same. God has

chosen Israel to be his own, his servant. But even though they have eyes, they don't see because they really don't see what God has done for them. They have ears, but they don't hear his Torah that he's given to them. And the result of all this, as it's described in verse 22, is that they're plundered and looted. They're trapped in holes or hidden in prisons, trapped in holes, or you could also translate as like pits. Because, well, in the ancient world, a lot of times you would, if you didn't have a place to put prisoners, you put them in a pit, kind of like the brothers of Joseph stuck him in a pit for a while. I mean, it's a handy, natural place to store prisoners until you can get them wherever you want them to be. So they're

trapped in holes or hidden in prisons. They just become plunder. And then he kind of wraps this up by saying, well, who did that? I mean, who gave up these Israelites who didn't observe God's Torah, didn't listen to him? Who gave them up to the looter and to the plunderers? And he says, well, it was the Lord because they sinned against him and they wouldn't walk in his ways. They wouldn't obey his Torah. And so as God did frequently in the Old Testament, he poured on them the heat of his anger and the might of his battle. And still they didn't understand and they still didn't take it to heart, which all leads us to kind of what you were saying at the beginning here. Evidently, it's going to take somebody else, namely the Lord, to work salvation for his people,

because obviously they're not going to be able to do this on their own. I think it's a, I mean, intentionally sort of insulting thing at the beginning here. I mean, can you imagine saying, listen up, you deaf person, and focus your eyes over here, you blind guy, which is exactly how this starts. Here are you deaf, and look, you blind. What is this? And if you want to know about the impossibility of salvation, this is a good way to think about it. we just got done with the conference on the bound will. Well, how about this? Some people might say that God would never tell you to do something that you didn't have the ability to do. I mean,

command necessitates ability. But over here, he's saying, listen up, deaf boy, and look over there, blind guy. And I don't know if you know how absurd that is and how that sounds, but that is sort of the whole point he's like i i got i gotta make these deaf people hear and these blind people see uh well god's gonna have to do that i do like also that he says uh uh is there anyone as blind uh as my dedicated ones i don't think so uh is there is there anyone more deaf than my servant no that's it's pretty good yeah it's like the whatever the opposite of cream of the crop might be that's that would be what's happening here yeah it's uh i mean it's a it's a pretty powerful reflection upon israel's history you know god god went into egypt he rescued them he chose them he

brought them out he just lavished his his love and his gifts upon them he did all these things for them he gave them his torah he i mean as one of the psalms puts it you know what more could i have done for you it'd be like listed i mean is there something i i left out is there something I didn't do for you. I'm pretty sure I covered all the bases. I did every single thing for you. I just, I enriched you in every single way, including giving you my Torah. And then what do you do? Well, you don't listen. You make your own ears deaf and you blind yourself so that you don't see and that you don't hear. And so, well, I'm going to do what I have to do very frequently. I'm going to give you up into the hands of your enemies. I mean, that's the cycle of

judges, right? They rebel. God hands them over. They cry out. God sends a deliverer. There's peace. They rebel. God sends, gives them over to somebody else. This is the ongoing cyclical nature of rebellion and repentance and restoration that you see all throughout the Old Testament. And Isaiah's main message is, hey, this is going to come to an end because God is going to step into human history in the true servant of the Lord who isn't blind and deaf. And he's going to accomplish for Israel what Israel, of course, could never accomplish on her own. Yeah, I mean, the Old Testament is like this big, long narrative that should like just remove from you any thoughts of like if God just did more stuff or made himself more known, then you could like exercise your free will and believe in him or something. And you might say, like, well, I mean, if I saw him part a Red Sea with Egyptians hot on my trail, and then I walk through it, and then they all drowned in it when he closes it back up, then I would believe. Or, you know, if it rained down food every day from heaven, I would certainly believe that happened.

Or, you know, if the walls of Jericho came down because of trumpets, then, of course, I would believe. And just like none of this is true. I mean, this is what Isaiah is saying. He's like, I mean, what more can God do to give you like the evidence that this is the God you should believe in and trust in and worship? I mean, he really couldn't do much more, could he? And the answer is like, no, he couldn't do anything more to make you do it. So what's going to have a result is he's going to have to do it. I mean, you're just never going to believe, love, and trust this God on your own.

You're just never going to do it. Yeah. No matter what he does. Yeah, I was just thinking of the ministry of Jesus. So, I mean, yeah, let's even step it up, right? So you've seen the Red Sea parted. You've seen manna. You've seen all these miracles.

and yet you know it just you kind of just become numb to that like it doesn't even affect you so well let's send the son of god and let's have him oh i don't know walk on the sea feed thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and fish let's have him raise the dead you know all the string of miracles and yet what happens the same thing well well there's jesus tells a parable about this rejecting him uh you know but like hey i sent a lot of people to say some words to you and uh you know you kind of killed all those people and then i sent my son and um you're gonna kill him too right like it's not it's not just that uh jesus showed up and they're like been one thing if the you know they'd been like we remain unconvinced like that's not

exactly the response though instead they're like uh we're gonna kill you how about that that's that's what we're gonna do yeah yeah so you got you think of two scenarios you could either have god says well i'm gonna work even more miracles and they'll believe in me well that obviously you know was not something that's gonna happen or god could have said you know well i'm gonna give you a bunch more laws and all these laws will make it clear to you what you should do and can do so that you will obey me well neither one of those things are going to work i mean so the only conclusion is something new radically new has got to happen well yeah that's exactly what the gospels are all about god steps into human history and does what nobody else could do because

there was no other option than for him to make sure that salvation was accomplished yeah that's right all right well look at us finishing a chapter already well i mean and then you know the esv's got this header going i'm in time right by israel's only savior i guess there can only be only one that is not going to be them yeah they're they're prepping us here yeah this is uh you talked about the dance of uh the prophets dance of law and gospel so we're we're seeing it happen right here in front of our eyes, because all of that was obviously law. Israel being blind and deaf and constantly rebelling and handed over into the plunders and the looters. But now you turn the page, really, of course, in the original, you just keep right on reading. And the very next

verses say this, Isaiah 43, but now thus says the Lord. And I have this whole string of things that describe him he who created you oh jacob he who formed you oh israel fear not for i have redeemed you i have called you by name you are mine now that's a powerful way to begin that's a yeah that's some that's some good news there and then he goes on we'll come back to this but he goes on to say when you pass through the waters i will be with you and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. Why is all this true? He says in verse 3, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give, that's what the ESV has. I would translate that as a past

tense. I think it's in reference to what God did back in the days of the Exodus. So I'm going to translated as I gave. I gave Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes and honored and I love you, I give men, or maybe you could translate that, I will, I will give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. So stop there just for a second. So, you know, big pivot here from law judgment in the close of 42 to now to God saying, I'm your creator. I'm the one who formed you. I'm also the one who redeemed you. And I'm going to step up and I'm going to say your name. I'm going to call you by name. And in calling you by name, I'm going to make sure you realize that you belong to me. You are mine.

And whatever circumstances you find yourself in, are you passing through waters? I'm with you. You going through rivers? Don't worry about that. I'm not going to overwhelm you. Even walking through fire, it's not going to touch you. I always think of the three young Israelites in the fiery furnace when I hear that. And of course, the Son of God with them in the midst of that. So you're in the fire, won't even be burnt. Flame shall not consume you. And that's because, as he goes on to say, I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel. Then he, as he frequently does, Isaiah frequently does, and the other prophets frequently do this too. They'll draw this line between the old Exodus and the coming Exodus that's to happen with the coming of Jesus.

So he says, in former times, basically, I gave Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Now we, of course, just associate Egypt with what God did during the Exodus. This is kind of a, I guess you could call it a poetic expansion of that because Egypt and Cush and Seba are all in that same part of Northern Africa. So you got Egypt, you got Cush, you got Seba, which is right there. Seba was the firstborn of Cush. And this is all connected geographically with what's referred to as the Upper Nile region. So God is saying, listen, I took these nations and I handed them over as your ransom. That's what's happening in the 10 plagues when God destroys Egypt and the destruction of Egypt would have affected these other nations

as well. So you were held hostage and I gave them up as your ransom. I just handed them over so that you could go free. And because you're so precious to me and honored and I love you, I would go in further than that. I would give people, I would give men and peoples in exchange for your life. The message is, listen, I'm going to stop at nothing to make sure that when you're trapped, when you're in danger, I'm going to make sure that you're out of it. If you're held hostage, I'm going to redeem you. And this coming redemption is spelled out a lot of other places in Isaiah. In fact, we're going to hear it in the next few verses as this worldwide exodus that's going to take place in the coming of the Messiah. Yeah, God does this weird thing all the time where

where he basically announces that he's going to save you from his anger, right? Which you have here. So you have a chapter break. But, I mean, he says, all right, get ready for the heat of my anger and the might of my battle. And it's about to be fire all around, boys. It's going to get hot. The heat of my anger is coming, and I'm going to do battle.

And it's with you. And then if you just keep reading, hey, but don't be afraid, which is like a wild transition. I don't know. It seems like there's a lot to be afraid of, God. Sounds like you were trying to make me very afraid. Sounds pretty fearful to me. So your goal in this was not fear? That's crazy.

So, yeah, God does this thing. And this is like, this is really, I mean, if you don't have law and gospel, man, I just don't even know how you read any of this stuff, where like God speaks in two ways. And like when he's speaking law, it's like, hey, get ready for a fight. And that fights with me. And you're like, oh, no. Then all of a sudden he's like, hey, don't worry, I'm going to save you from me. Yeah. Yeah, you're so right.

I've had so many people come up to me over the years and describe basically what you were just talking about, that, man, the Bible was so confusing to me. I had no idea what was going on until I got law and gospel. Then it's like, oh, yeah, now it makes sense, right? Otherwise, you're like, what? Is it this or that? I mean, what's going on? Are we judged or are we redeemed?

Well, when you get law and gospel, you understand this juxtaposition. Well, as I said, like, God has two words, and, like, he speaks in these two words. And if you don't know that, the prophets particularly, you're going to be like, all right, God's bipolar. Like, it's obvious, seriously. What is this? And, you know, sometimes people will be like, well, it sounds like God's speaking out of both sides of his mouth. And that's just a sort of insulting way to sort of acknowledge what is happening. When you say that, and I've heard critics say, like, God speaks out of both sides of

his mouth, like, it doesn't make any sense. You're actually closer than you think, because out of both sides of your mouth, you're already saying, like, God speaks two ways. That's what you're saying. Both sides of your mouth means that when someone says that, they're saying, he's saying two different things. And you're like, hmm, you're so close. It's not really both sides of his mouth, but you are right that these do sound like two different and distinct words. Yeah, yeah.

Folks like that are not far from understanding the law and gospel. Yeah. Yeah. But this is not, you know, casting shade on God. It's just acknowledging the fact that, well, we need to hear two different things. Yeah, yeah. We got to hear the law. Otherwise, we never realize how sick with sin and dead in our trespasses we are and how much we have.

Just like he said in chapter 42, we've deafened our ears to God. We've blinded our eyes to his ways, and we deserve every bit of punishment that befalls us. Yeah. But he says he's created us and loves us and redeems us. And so he's going to do for us what we can't do for ourselves in calling us, being with us, protecting us, and redeeming us from the captivity from which we could never free ourselves. Yeah. All right. So that puts us at verse 5.

So let me read 5 through 7. Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east and from the west, I will gather you. And I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold. So we got all parts of the compass here. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name. We got a nice, nice pairing here of the exact same way that the chapter began.

So everyone who's called by my name, just like you said, I have called you by name in verse one. Whom I created for my glory, just like verse one says, he who created you. And then whom I formed and made, just like verse one says, he who formed you. So a nice envelope structure there from the beginning and the end. So this is the, we've talked about this so many times. this is this cosmopolitan exodus, which is not a reference to the Babylonian exile, excuse me, not a reference to the return from the Babylonian exile. First of all, people weren't scattered north, south, east, and west. They were in Babylon. So a very specific place that they

were taken. So a lot of people argue, well, this is in reference to just, you know, the coming return when Cyrus the Persian issues this edict and allows the Israelites to leave Babylon and to go back and to rebuild Jerusalem, rebuild the temple, and then recreate some semblance of normality there again under people like Ezra and Nehemiah and later prophets like Haggai. Well, that was a beginning, but it was far from the worldwide exodus that's described in the prophets. This is wherever God's people are in the world, his sons and his daughters, he is going to make sure that they have nothing to be afraid because he's with them first of all he's with them even in in their exiles and he's going to call them by name this field is created

for his glory in him he's formed and made and he's going to bring bring them home and that's precisely what happens in the exodus which jesus accomplishes in jerusalem as as he was talking about with moses and elijah on the mount of transfiguration the exodus where christ goes into the grave in his exile and then it comes forth from the grave and it's returned from the exile of death and like in adam all die so in christ all should be made alive so that's the that's the fulfillment of these promises when christ is resurrected that is the great return from exile in which uh life itself is bestowed and freedom is bestowed upon all of us yeah that's great. All right. Moving on. Verse eight, bring out the people who are blind yet have eyes who

are deaf yet have ears. Okay. We've switched back now. All right. You've heard the good news. Now listen up. We, uh, that, that was out of one side of the mouth to, to piggybackable. We're just saying this is out of the other side. So, uh, we're going to have a, a courtroom scene. If you can kind of picture these next few verses as this vast courtroom where you have the Israelites, but you also have the non-Israelites. God's going to gather them all together. And he's got some questions for them. The kind of the funny thing behind all this is that God's the one who ends up doing most of the talking. He calls them as like witnesses, but God is the only one who's really witnessing and talking. So first of all, he says, all right, these people who are blind and you

have eyes who are deaf and yet have ears, bring them out. Okay, this is his own people. Then he shifts his perspective in verse nine and says, all the nations gather together and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right and let them hear and say it is true. So this is God talking to the nations, the Gentiles, saying, you got some witnesses? Can your gods come and tell me the former things or can declare what's going to happen in the future? Let's hear from them. Isaiah has already kind of set this scene up before where, of course, they can't. God has spoken from the beginning. God has spoken what's going to happen in the end. So let's hear your

witnesses. So he's talking to the Gentiles then. Now he's going to shift back to his people. He says, you Israelites, you are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom I've chosen, that you may know and believe and understand that I am he. Before me, no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord. And besides me, there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, and there was no strange God among you. And you are my witnesses, declares the Lord.

and I am God, and henceforth I am he, and there is none who can deliver from my hand. I work, and who can turn it back? So in this great courtroom of Jews and Gentiles, God is saying to them, where are your witnesses? And then he says to his own people, you are my witnesses, and yet we know how poorly they have witnessed of what God has done for them. And so God sets forward and says, well, I'll speak the truth here. I'm God. There are no other gods. I'm alone, the one who has delivered you, who has created you. None can deliver you from my hand. And what I do, no one is going to reverse. I work, and then who can turn it back? Yeah, I mean, this is kind of what we were talking about before. At the end of the day, God's like, yeah, I'm going to do

everything uh you know if you if you want if i've this if this is going to be done i'm going to be the one uh that does it this is this is great i mean there's i mean you have him say it like um pretty explicitly like besides me there is no savior i mean so that that would include yourself obviously as you're saying so it's just him he's the only one yeah uh he's well Because he's the only God, he's the only Savior, he's the only one who's going to be able to accomplish what they need. And he's called them to be his witnesses. But as we've seen multiple times, their witnessing is not happening because they have blinded their eyes to God's ways and they've deafened their ears to his word. Yeah, and there's also this, I mean, this ending part is really great, too, because he says,

So this is my work, and because it's my work and not your work, who exactly can turn it back or who can undo it, right? There's no one. So when I do this work, it is complete and will not be reversed or undone. Yeah, salvation has been accomplished, and redemption is complete. nothing. It is finished, so nothing more can be added to it. There's no way you can undo the saving work of Christ. And once he has you in his hand, there's no one who can be able to pluck you out of that hand. God's work has been accomplished, and no one is able to come and undo that work because it's been done by the one and only God, the one and only one who could

accomplish this. And then in verse 14, he goes on, and here we have reference for the first time to Babylon, not the first time in Isaiah, but the first time in this particular section of Isaiah. The last time we heard about Babylon was when you have Hezekiah welcoming the ambassadors or the envoys from Babylon, and he shows them all this stuff, right? Even though Isaiah the prophet chastises him for this. Hezekiah did it anyway. So that was the last reference to Babylon. And now he's going to bring them up again. And this is going to be a reference to the return from Babylon. But even so, the return from Babylon was only a beginning, as I'll describe more in just a minute. The return from Babylon was kind of a down payment, you might say, of a greater

return that needed to be eventually accomplished. And that was only going to be accomplished when the Messiah came. So, verse 14 reads this way. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, for your sake I send to Babylon and bring them all down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans and the ships in which they rejoice. So, the parallelism between Babylon and the Chaldeans is talking about the same people, the same place. So he's going to make Babylon, who made you fugitives, he's going to make them into fugitives. So God is going to reverse things. He's going to make the captors captive. So for your sake, I'm going to send to Babylon and make them all to be fugitives, because I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.

and then verse 16 he's going to once more return to the image of the exodus thus says the lord who makes a way in the sea a path in the mighty waters who brings forth chariot and horse army and warrior they lie down they cannot rise they are extinguished quenched like a wick this of course is a clear allusion back to what happened in exodus 14 and 15 where god made a way in the Red Sea, a path in those mighty waters. He rescues Israel. Chariots and horses of the Egyptians, the army and their warriors, they lie down and cannot rise. Of course, so this is Isaiah's way of saying, or God through Isaiah saying, oh, what you read about what I did to the Israelites in Exodus 14 to 15, well, that was a prefigurement of what I'm going to do.

I'm going to do this again, except in a much greater way. He even goes on in verse 18 to say, in fact, don't even think about that. Remember not the former things. Don't consider the things of old, because I'm about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? So Jeremiah will say things like this. He says, there's going to be coming a time when you're not even going to talk about the

Ark of the Covenant anymore or the temple anymore, because there's something so much better that's coming that when you think about these former things you'll be like that was nothing i mean yes at the time it was fine but there's something so much better coming that everything in the everything in the old everything in the past just pales in comparison this is the this is the the message of hebrews right you got priests in the old testament but we got something better you know the tabernacle we got something better you had the old covenant we got something better. So this is the whole theme of the author of Hebrews as well. Remember not the former things because God is doing a new thing. Something much better is on the horizon.

And he then finishes this thought by saying, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. The wild beast will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, For I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise. So what God did for his people of old, great though it was, is not even in the same field as what he's going to be doing in the future. Because him giving water in the wilderness and making a way through the sea is going to be surpassed by the redemptive, perfected, fulfilled work of the Messiah. I like that.

And before they talk, they're kind of talking about, hey, I'm going to do this new thing. In verse 15, he says that, I am the Lord, your Holy One. And then he says this interesting thing where he says that he's the creator of Israel. It's like I invented it. Like I've made Israel out of nothing, like this old man and this old woman that should not have any kids. Like I really – I formed this. I created this whole thing. And then he says you're king, which is interesting considering that it's not like the most common way for God to refer to himself,

uh especially since you know israel kind of decided they wanted to have like a human king like a man as their king but here god refers to himself as actually like i am your king um and and of course the time is is coming where um they're not gonna have any more kings right uh but there will be one like with the that pilot rightly says this is the they're gonna this of the king of the jews right here uh if you're wondering who it is it's not anyone else it's this guy uh which is you know jesus of course but yeah i i always think it's interesting when when god posts the people crying out for a king uh like he said he doesn't do it often but like refer to himself as the king and in this particular set when you're talking about a new thing and also

like i am your king there there is sort of this um i don't know not to be lord of the rings about it but like there is this sort of return of the king element to this that like hey you had a bunch of like pretenders going on and that was all nice but the true king is showing up yeah you waited a long time for him well you rejected him when you asked for a king back in the days of samuel yep and god gave you a bunch of uh of kings almost all of whom were complete failures and even the ones who weren't were far from war were far from perfect although it should have you know made you realize you you should have turned to me as the one true king and remained with me as the one true king and of course that's what that's what the messiah comes to he comes through to uh to

we might say restore the kingship god's kingship over over the people of israel yeah and he does that by creating a new thing, by doing a new thing. So it's a beautiful pairing, actually, of these two rare ways of God talking about himself as the creator of Israel. We're not used to thinking of God that way. He's the creator of the world, for sure. But creating Israel? Well, yeah, he does. He calls into existence that which does not exist. So he makes from nothing this people. And then he reigns over them as king. And to demonstrate that he's a creator and that he is their king. He goes on to say how he's going to act in a creative and a royal fashion by making a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, destroying their enemies,

doing a new thing, bringing them through the wilderness, giving them rivers in the desert. In fact, even the animals like beasts and jackals and ostriches are going to honor God. We have kind of this whole creation joining in this praise of the creator who's doing these things for his people that he's doing the doing it all of course for the people that he's formed for himself and the result as we wrap up verse 21 is so that they can declare his praise now all of this is this is the prophetic this is the old testament way of preaching the gospel it's you know this is as i often say you kind of got to tune your ears to a different frequency to hear the way the Old Testament preaches gospel. Well, this is not the way that Paul preaches the gospel or John,

but this is the way that Isaiah preaches the gospel. It's laden with Old Testament themes and images and promises, but it's just as much good news because it's just as much describing what God is going to accomplish in the life of his people. And all of this is fulfilled when the Messiah comes as the creator, as the king, as the one who formed a people for himself and made them his own by destroying their enemies and then making us part of his kingdom. Yeah, in the Old Testament, I know we've said this before, but the gospel sort of in the Old Testament and the prophets, it comes in the form of a promise. It's still in the form of a word.

It's still in the form of a word proclaimed, but the way it reveals itself is in promise form. Whereas, you know, in the New Testament, it comes in the form of a promise kept. Whereas in the Old Testament, it comes in the form of a promise made. Yeah, that's a great way to distinguish it. And once you kind of get that, then this Old Testament gospel becomes much clearer. you realize, oh, okay, that's what's happening. God is making a promise. He says, I'm going to do this.

And then when you get to the New Testament, God basically steps up and says, okay, you know that promise I made? I'm keeping it. And it's kept perfectly now in the work of my son. Yeah, that's great. All right, and we are out of time, so we will leave it there and pick it up again next episode. Chad, I'll see you then.

All right, see you then. We'll see you next time.