Pastor Tim Brown, Calvary Chapel Fremont, Wednesday September 2, 2009

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Isaiah 42    vv18-25  

18  What kryptonite did to Superman is what an idol will do to you.  What was kryptonite?  The only part of Superman’s destroyed planet that survived.  And when he came in contact w/ a part of his old life – he became sick/weak.  This is what an idol will do to you. An idol is a substitute for God – blind/deafen you to God.  It’s a reverse miracle.  The seeing become blind/the hearing, deaf.

Judas first followed Jesus because he had never heard/seen the like of this before.  His eyes were opened/ears unstopped.  Judas was the treasurer – money was his kryptonite/his idol.  It ate him away from the inside out.  Covetousness is the cancer of the soul, the kryptonite of the spirit and it brought Judas down.  He got to touch his old life everyday, feel it, dream about it, experience its seductive power – it deafened/blinded him to Christ.  He saw/heard less.  

Context: v17 – those who trust in idols…  I spoke often of idols because he spoke to the greatest needs/deepest bondages of the people.  I saw Israel’s fascination w/ substitutes for God playing a huge part in their downfall.  He witnessed the reversal of a miracle – people of God became people of the world.  This can happen now!

Vv18-25 describe what happens when that which is less than God grabs hold of your heart – when spiritual kryptonite exerts it deadly influence.  Idolatry sets in motion a process that ends w/ a hardened heart and a calloused conscience – blind eyes/deaf ears.

Cf. 6:9-10  Isaiah was told that the word he would speak would be instrumental in Israel’s deafness/blindness as they disobeyed.  The message of God is ignored at your peril.  One either believes or disbelieves the Word of God.  Where there is belief, there is a work of God.  Where there is unbelief, there is a work of hardening.  

The servant of God is supposed to hear the word of the Lord and see the glory of God – that’s what makes him God’s servant!  But the servant here is deaf to the word of God and blind to His glory.  His ears/eyes don’t function as they were intended.  Something has damaged/ruined them – unbelief – kryptonite of substitution.  To close your ear/eye is to harden your heart.

19  A servant who cannot hear/see is not much of a servant.  Nor is he much of a messenger for he cannot hear the message.  What if you had a deaf servant?  A blind servant?  Who would send a deaf and blind servant?  He wouldn’t know if he gave the right message to the right audience.

The servant is deaf/blind and yet at peace w/ God.  This is peace of callousness/complacency.  This is a false peace based upon a faulty notion of the covenant.  The people listened to I and said, “God won’t do what Isaiah says He will do – we’re the covenant people of God.”  False peace based on false hope.  

Many have a false peace today.  Many think that God would never allow a hell to exist let alone allow anyone to go there.  God can’t be less tender than us/we would never wish an eternal tormenting hell on worst enemy.  If we, as flawed humans, wouldn’t send anyone to hell, God, who is better than us, won’t allow this either.  

There is one main assumption in this reasoning that derails the argument: we assume that God views sin the way we view sin.  

Upstairs neighbor blasts the stereo/ask him to stop/he doesn’t/racket continues.  How could you invite anyone over to enjoy your hospitality while you were being invaded by this riot of noise?  And now the problem just isn’t the noise, it’s your neighbor – what kind of a jerk is he?  What kind of person conducts his life in such disrespect of other people?  And even if your inconsiderate neighbor is forced by the police to turn it off, he still glares at you w/ disrespect and hostility.  You can never really feel your family is safe.

Here’s the point – God hears the heart.  He feels the disbelief/ hostility/noise of a heart hardened against Him.  How can God bring any into His house while the racket of unbelief is blaring?  We reason, taking into account the love of God, but not taking into account the holiness of God.  God’s love doesn’t cancel out His holiness.  God’s love provides a heaven.  God’s holiness requires a hell.  It is hard for us to see this.  A friend of mine, wanting to identify w/ the poor, moved into a poor neighborhood.  Psychologically you can never identify because of wider resources in extended family.  There’s a despair you can’t know personally.  I can’t know the full weight of sin not sharing the full measure of holiness.

20-21  Isaiah represents the prophets and Moses the law.  In ministry of Moses and Isaiah (law/prophets) they have heard/seen many things – but remained unmoved.  

22  Result – ripped off/beaten down/hidden away/on their own.

Hebrew has no exclamation point - !  The way Hebrew adds emphasis is repetition.  This verse has five exclamation points!

We are ripped off/beaten down when God is not the focus of our lives.  When I pursue fulfillment through sin, it rips me off and beats me down…

    * Pornography robs wives of their husbands and vice-versa
    * Greed robs people of present enjoyment – this is not enough (pastors, too)
    * Independence robs children of their parents
    * Search for happiness robs people of happiness

With none to say: Give them back!  There’s no rescue squad coming after you.  Israel’s disobedience has once again made them deaf/blind to God.  Israel is the blind/deaf servant.  What good news the gospel really is!  The hearing and seeing Servant of God has come.  

23-25  Who can really hear the following?

God has become the enemy of Israel.  But even here, Israel doesn’t get it.  She didn’t respond to God when He was speaking to her and she doesn’t respond to God when He is spanking her.  What more could reveal her depravity?  

This is the real explanation of the captivity – not the power of Babylon, but the sin of Israel.  God didn’t put Israel on the shelf, she did it to herself.  Of all the men and ministries I hear and know of that end up in ruin and failure, there is not one I can think of that can’t be traced back to sin and hardness of heart against God.  They put themselves on the shelf.  What kryptonite did to Superman is what an idol did to them.  They have become blind and deaf servants – a miracle in reverse.  

May you be a miracle progressing.

May your ears always be hearing what the Lord has to say.

May your eyes always be seeing what the Lord is showing you.