(Isaiah 43:22-44:23; Acts 17:29-31)
Why is it that we never seem to learn? Granted, there are certainly individuals who learn from their mistakes—and, just as importantly, from the mistakes of others—and occasionally organizations that do; but if you take human beings as a whole, if you look at the national level and the world level, the record just isn’t good. The Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana is famous for teaching us that those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it; the great British historian Arnold Toynbee is famous for his insight that history is essentially cyclical, the same patterns repeating over and over. What does this tell you? Nothing you didn’t already know, that’s what. To take one example, appeasement worked so well with Hitler in the 1930s that we tried it again with the Soviet Union—for a while; we eventually wised up on that one, but did we learn not to do it again? On the evidence, no.
This is not, of course, a new phenomenon—not even close. The disinclination to learn lessons we really don’t want to learn is very, very human, and we can always find some way to rationalize that disinclination, some sort of excuse to justify it. The thing is, though, when rationalizations meet reality, what happens? You ever dropped an egg on a hard floor? If you went up to the top of the courthouse building and threw that egg at the road, do you think the extra momentum would help it break through the pavement? No—you’d just get a bigger explosion. When we refuse to learn from what went wrong the last time—when we convince ourselves that this time, it will be different—that’s what we get. Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
We can see that dynamic at work here in Isaiah—and you know, Israel had less excuse than most nations for this. They didn’t have to work out the lessons of history on their own, or figure out for themselves how to apply those lessons to their current challenges; these are, after all, things that even if you try your best, you can still get wrong. Israel, though, had people to do both of these things for them—they were called prophets. God sent his prophets to Israel, in part, to make sure that they understood exactly what lessons they needed to learn from their history—the primary one was “Trust me. Trust me. Trust me”—and that they knew exactly what he wanted them to do as a consequence. Time after time, when they did, good things happened; and when they didn’t, which was rather more often, bad things happened. But did they learn from this? In general, no—and sometimes, when bad things happened, they had the appalling nerve to blame God for those bad things and complain that he didn’t care about them!
That’s why we have this whiplash effect going on here in Isaiah. Three weeks ago, in the beginning of chapter 42, God announced his servant, who would bring justice to the nations, who would open the eyes of the blind and release those held prisoner in the darkness. Two weeks ago, in the end of chapter 42, we read this powerful image of God’s judgment on a people too hard-headed even to understand why they were being judged. Then, last week, we saw how despite all that, God immediately turns to his people with the promise of redemption and a statement of his undying love for them. And now we have this, as they still refuse to respond to him in the way that he desires: “But it was not me that you called, O Jacob!”
Now, these first verses might be a little tricky to understand, so let me lay out for you what’s going on here. In the ancient world, people believed in religion about the way they believed in magic: you do the ritual the god requires, and you get the results you want. Worship was essentially a form of manipulation; its purpose, as John Oswalt puts it, was “to appease the gods and satisfy any claims they may have on us so that we may use the power of the gods to achieve our own goals.” That’s not the worship God wants. The rituals he had commanded were essentially symbolic; what mattered was the spirit in which they were performed. What he wanted was for his people to give him their lives and hearts so that he could have a true friendship with them. The problem is, they were taking their cues from the nations around them, and they thought all they needed to do was to do the ritual correctly, and they were fine—and that wasn’t working, because it wasn’t the point at all, and so they’re complaining that God is wearing them out with all his pointless demands. To that, God says, “No, I’m not burdening you, you’re burdening me, because you aren’t really doing this for me at all! You’re doing this for yourself. All you’re giving me is your sins and offenses—and I’m sick to death of them.”
And Israel doesn’t get it, because they’ve bought into the world’s idea that worship is just a way to manipulate God—you do the thing, you pull the lever, and you get the treat. They’ve bought the idea that our worship is all about us, and what we want, and what we can get out of it. They don’t understand that worship begins with submission—with laying aside our pride, and our independence, and our own desires, and our own ideas of what we need and what we deserve. They don’t get it—and they’re not alone; too often, we don’t either. This is a universal human problem, because it’s a universal human tendency; it’s just another reflection of the desire to be in control of our own lives that drove our first ancestors into sin to begin with. This is the primal human error, that declares in the smuggest tones Frank Sinatra could possibly manage, “I did it my way.”
So if this is the problem, what’s the solution? Is there a solution? Nothing the world can come up with, certainly—a point Isaiah makes in verses 9-20 of chapter 44, where he gives us his most extended mockery of idols and of those who make and worship them. I particularly appreciate the picture in verses 14-17—a guy cuts down a tree, uses half of it to make a fire to warm himself and cook his dinner, then turns the other half into a statue, bows down before it, and says, “Save me; you are my god.” As Isaiah comes back to the language of blindness to describe the effects of this false worship—“They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand”—you can hear his frustration as he says, “No one stops to think, no one has the wit to say, ‘I burned half of it—should I really bow down and worship the other half?’” Those who worship such things may feed their bodies with the food they cook over that fire, but they feed their souls on the ashes it leaves behind. There is no life in this, and no salvation.
No, the only life, the only salvation, is in God; he is the only redeemer, and the only one who can save, because he’s the only real God. This is the point Isaiah’s trying to hammer through his people’s heads—it’s the core of the message God has given him—because it’s the point they’ve consistently failed to understand. Why else would they keep chasing after foreign gods and falling into idolatry? They believed those other gods existed, and had power, and could provide them some benefit. Perhaps they saw the bargain other nations had with their gods—just do the ritual and get the desired result; perhaps they saw the predictability that came along with that and decided they preferred that bargain to the relationship their God wanted to have with them, which made him much less predictable, and not someone they could manipulate. We really don’t know what exactly it was that kept tempting the people of Israel into idolatry. But one thing seems sure: that temptation only worked because the people of Israel believed that the gods of the nations really existed, and really had power, and really could do something for them. If they’d realized that their idolatry was not only disloyal but also profoundly pointless, if they’d truly understood that they weren’t going to get anything out of it, then they never would have gotten into it in the first place.
God can save his people, and he’s the only one who can. We see that message again and again throughout this section of Isaiah—in chapter 40, God asks, “What are the nations compared to me but a speck of dust on the scales?”; in chapter 41, he puts the gods of the nations on trial; in chapter 42, he announces the coming of his Servant; in chapter 43, he declares, “Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.” We see it here, in the ringing statement, “This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first, and I am the last: apart from me there is no God.” There is no other god in heaven and no other redeemer on this earth; there is no other name in heaven or on earth or under the earth by which anyone may be saved. There is no one else in whom we can put our hope and faith and trust. There is no other. Period, full stop, end of sentence.
Ultimately, of course, that’s a truth which is realized in Jesus Christ; thus the apostle Peter tells the Jewish leaders in Acts 4, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to humanity by which we must be saved.” That’s our message, to each other and to the world—and make no mistake, we always need to begin by reminding ourselves of that, because it’s so easy to get off into putting our trust in other things. We always need to make sure that we’re really living in the good news ourselves before we try to share it with others.
If we do that, though, if we keep that focus, I believe now is a particularly opportune time to be preaching this message. I know most folks are worried about the current economic situation, and I know our elders are worried about the way it’s affecting our church’s finances; but I do believe there’s a silver lining to this. You see, anyone who reads the headlines and watches the news has figured out something they might not have figured out before: they’ve come to the realization that the economy isn’t going to save them. Their jobs, their resumés, their paychecks, aren’t going to save them. The banks aren’t going to save them, and if they have any investments, those aren’t going to save them either. They’ve figured out that Congress isn’t going to save them; and judging by the opinion polls, folks are starting to figure out that the president isn’t going to save them either. With some of the rhetoric that got thrown around last year, I think a lot of people really believed they’d elected a new messiah; I think it’s starting to register that all they did was elect another politician. Which is something we should also remember two years from now, and four years from now—even if we end up with a new president and a whole new Congress, they aren’t going to save us either.
What’s more, we aren’t going to save ourselves. Our plans won’t save us. Our possessions won’t save us. Our big ideas won’t save us, and neither will our little ones. Our inspirations won’t save us, and our inventions won’t do the trick either, even if we can come up with any. All these are good things, and necessary; none of them are enough, even if we put them all together. We cannot save ourselves, and we cannot save each other; and none of the things we value can save us either. There is only one Savior, and he is Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God; there is only one God who redeems, and there is hope for the future—and for the present, for that matter—in nothing and no one else. This is the message God has given us for the world; our call is to share it freely.
Let me leave you with this. A lot of you have probably heard of the magic act Penn & Teller; they’re great stage magicians, intelligent, thoughtful, mischievous people, can be pretty profane, and have a lot more integrity than a lot of folks in show business. Penn Jillette—the big guy who does all the talking—is an atheist, and quite open about it. He had an interesting experience a couple months ago, though, with a gentle, kind Christian man who came up to him after one of their shows, complimented him on the show, and then presented him with a Gideon New Testament. Penn was impressed by his goodness and sincerity; even though he continues to declare himself a firm atheist, he accepted the gift and the message—in fact, he was honestly grateful for both, and quite moved by the whole encounter. Why? Well, he put it this way:
If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell, or not getting eternal life, or whatever, and you think that, well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward . . . how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell them that? I mean, if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe it, but that truck was bearing down on you, there’s a certain point where I tackle you—and this is more important than that.
“How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell them that?” It’s a good question, isn’t it?