Has it ever felt like God was not paying attention to you? That is how God’s people were feeling. They were in Babylon and it just seemed like God was not even awake to their need. They remembered the mighty things that God had done in the past, and they wanted Him to do those kinds of things now.
God hears their prayer and comforts them through the prophet. He encourages to remember His power and that He is in control. They have no reason to fear, unless they have forgotten just whose they are.
Today, in whatever you are going through, the only reason for fear is if you forget that you are His, that He loves you, that He has a plan, and that He is still in control. If that is true (and it is) what are you afraid of?
-Pastor Conley
Isaiah 51:1–53:12 (MEV)
1 Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug.
2 Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for I called him alone, and blessed him, and multiplied him.
3 For the Lord shall comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found in it, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
4 Listen to Me, O My people; and give ear to Me, O My nation: for a law shall proceed from Me, and I will set My justice as a light of the peoples.
5 My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, and My arms shall judge the peoples; the coastlands shall wait for Me, and for My arm they shall expectantly wait.
6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath. For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall grow old like a garment, and those who dwell in it shall die in like manner; but My salvation shall be forever, and My righteousness shall not be abolished.
7 Listen to Me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law; do not fear the reproach of men nor be afraid of their revilings.
8 For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but My righteousness shall be forever and My salvation from generation to generation.
9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Was it not You who cut Rahab to pieces and wounded the dragon?
10 Was it not You who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a pathway for the ransomed to pass over?
11 Therefore, the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing to Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head. They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
12 I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who shall die, and of the son of man who shall be made as grass,
13 and forget the Lord your maker who has stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth? And have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor as he makes ready to destroy? Yet where is the fury of the oppressor?
14 The exile shall soon be freed, and shall not die in the dungeon, nor will his bread be lacking.
15 But I am the Lord your God who divided the sea whose waves roared; the Lord of Hosts is His name.
16 I have put My words in your mouth, and I have covered you in the shadow of My hand that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, “You are My people.”
17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury; the cup of reeling you have drained to the dregs.
18 There is no one to guide her among all the sons she has brought forth; nor is there anyone to take hold of her hand of all the sons that she has brought up.
19 These two things have befallen you; who shall be mournful for you? Desolation, and destruction, and famine, and sword— how shall I comfort you?
20 Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of all the streets as an antelope in a net; they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of your God.
21 Therefore please hear this, you afflicted who are drunk but not with wine.
22 Thus says your Lord, the Lord, and your God who pleads the cause of His people: See, I have taken out of your hand the cup of reeling, even the dregs of the cup of My fury; you will never drink it again.
23 But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to you, “Lie down that we may walk over you.” And you have laid your back as the ground and as the street for those who walk on it.
1 Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city. For the uncircumcised and the unclean will no longer enter you.
2 Shake yourself from the dust; arise, O captive Jerusalem. Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
3 For thus says the Lord: You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.
4 For thus says the Lord God: My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there; then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
5 Now therefore, what do I have here, says the Lord, seeing that My people have been taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them make them wail, says the Lord, and My name is continually blasphemed all day long.
6 Therefore, My people shall know My name; therefore, they shall know in that day that I am He who does speak: Here I am.
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings good news of happiness, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
8 Your watchmen lift up their voices; they sing joyfully together; for they shall see with their own eyes when the Lord brings Zion back.
9 Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem. For the Lord has comforted His people; He has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The Lord has bared His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
11 Depart, depart, go out from there, touch no unclean thing; go out of the midst of her; be clean, you who bear the vessels of the Lord.
12 For you shall not go out with haste nor go by flight. For the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
13 See, My servant shall deal prudently; he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
14 Just as many were astonished at you, his visage was so marred, more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men;
15 so he shall sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall consider.
1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He has no form or majesty that we should look upon him nor appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we did not esteem him.
4 Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.
6 All of us like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was struck.
9 His grave was assigned with the wicked, yet with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; He has put him to grief. If he made himself as an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the anguish of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge My righteous servant shall justify the many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, thus he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.