I woke up a few mornings back with the words "Are My arms shortened that I cannot save," on my mind. I knew that phrase came from the Bible, but had no idea where to find it. Later in the day, I searched and found it in Isaiah 59, where Isaiah asks Israel, "Are the Lord's arms shortened that He cannot save?"
Swell, my memory wasn't too far off. I kept reading. I was prepared to be encouraged by the passage, and wanted encouragement, being in a rather foul mood lately. But as I read, the verses went a different direction from what I had anticipated. Isaiah began to assail the crumbling nation of Israel for their unfaithfulness and disobedience. Isaiah was telling them that though God was most certainly powerful enough to save them, their sin had driven a wedge between them and the protection of the Savior.
Well, this was hardly what I needed. I needed some encouragement. I needed a reminder that everything was going to be OK. Yet, here I was being convicted by the accusation, "but your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that He will not hear.
Hmmm? I thought, maybe the Holy Spirit had handed me the wrong passage to meditate on today - I had gotten up pretty early. Might Philippians be better?
Dubious, and maybe even a little annoyed, I accepted the passage at face value, kept reading, and tried desperately to pin the sole application of Isaiah's accusation onto the nation of Israel. But my nemesis, logic, demanded that if I wanted to apply a share of the encouragement to myself (supposing I was to find any), then I should probably consider applying a share of the admonition to myself also.
I shuffled forward, "for our offenses are many in your sight and our sins testify against us, our offenses are ever with us and we acknowledge our iniquities: rebellion and treachery against the Lord. As if I wasn't already depressed enough - Now ouch, I have Isaiah rubbing salt in my wounds. This was bitter medicine. But Isaiah was going somewhere with this, and let's just say I'm glad I kept reading.
Isaiah went on to say that "the Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice and He saw that there was no one; He was appalled that there was no one, to intervene." God was looking down on stubborn and rebellious humanity and recognizing that there was no way we could solve our problems. There was no one to intervene, there was no human who could stem the tide of wickedness, there was no human who could even stand in the way of his own sinful nature. So since there was no one else, Isaiah said, "so His own arm achieved salvation for Him and His own righteousness sustained Him. He put on righteousness as His breast plate and the helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.”
"The redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins," declares the Lord. "As for me this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and My words I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants --from this time on and forever says the Lord."
Our great Savior knew that we would never be able to work loose that self-righteous wedge we are ever driving between his love and ourselves - so with His mighty arm He wrenched it out, with His amazing love He bridged the gap with a rugged cross.
When I woke that morning, I was looking for salvation from my circumstances. I was hoping for relief from the stress. I wanted victory from circumstances, but God had something much greater in mind when he offered me salvation. Not unlike Job, I was looking around, saying, "what did I do to deserve all of this?" And in a few short paragraphs, Isaiah had me looking around at the blessing of Salvation, complete release from the burden of sin, and asking, "what did I do to deserve all of this?" I was being humiliated by God's love.
Isaiah follows this with a rapturous prophetic account of the return of Jesus Christ and the Messiah's kingdom. It is here that we see the concept of beauty from ashes and joy from tears. We see the Messiah treading the winepress in his wrath against his enemies, we see a glorious kingdom. And, I was hoping Isaiah would just wrap it all up right there with a resounding Amen! But he didn't.
Isaiah references Moses at the time of the wilderness wandering and I thought uh, oh, where is he going with this? And then Isaiah says those all-too-familiar words, "all of us have become like one who is unclean and all of our righteous acts are like filthy rags, we shrivel up like a leaf and like the winds our sins sweep us away." Why bring up our depravity again? Let's just pull up short here on the promises of peace - no?
I kept reading. It seemed there was another angle to this. God says "all day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people walking ways not good pursuing their own imaginations, the people who continually provoke me to my very face." Their sacrifices are described as being smoke in God’s nostrils, an irritant. The truth is, Isaiah's friends and countrymen were sacrificing not to God but to the gods of their own imagination. My raw wounds were stinging again. I considered how I was sacrificing to the god of discontent, the god of worry and the god of anxiety - the gods of selfishness and imagined scenarios.
The message to me was clear; if you are going to trust in Almighty God, then you are going to have to let all of the little gods go.
And so now I return to the words that were playing through my mind as I woke that morning, "Are the Lord's arms shortened that he cannot save?" These come now with a deeper understanding of my own depravity and my own need of being rescued. Salvation from circumstances pales compared to our need of rescue from our own depravity. And it occurs to me, with a slow resigned shake of the head, that my circumstances may actually be the means God is using to rescue me from my depravity. Did not Isaiah describe the beauty coming as a result of the ashes, and the joy after the mourning? Oh, believe me, this is not what I have in mind. I want beauty without ashes and joy without weeping. But I can honestly say I want the joy and beauty that comes from being at peace with the Savior. Do I stand here again on the threshold of the essence of Faith?
I still need help with all the physiological, logistical, and emotional issues that annoy me. And, I recognize that the arm of the Lord is certainly capable of resolving all of that. I rely on that fact each day. But with Isaiah's help, I also recognize that temporal relief is not the great end. Far greater is the ongoing work of redemption that he is working in and through me.
Finally, when the Lord said that He looked and saw that there was no one to intervene - It's a bit of a challenge to me. I can do nothing to assist in the redemption of a fallen race. But to a degree, I can intervene. I can imagine a hundred ways that I could shed idolatry and stand with hope, between the chasm and the world. I can share what I know - that the Lord's arms are not shortened that He cannot save.
