Based on a series of sermons preached in PCC Prayer Meetings in 2020
27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? 28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding
Isaiah 40:27-28
It was a time of political turmoil and uncertainty. The Assyrians had overwhelmed the Northern Kingdom of Israel and were harassing Judah, intending to conquer it as well. God had brought about an extraordinary deliverance wherein 185,000 of the Assyrian troops were killed in one night. However, the Babylonian kingdom was growing increasingly powerful, and when the Babylonians sent envoys to spy on Jerusalem, Hezekiah somewhat foolishly encouraged them to add Jerusalem to their list of conquests by showing them all the royal treasures.
God, therefore, sent Isaiah to admonish him and to tell him that the Babylonians would conquer and destroy Jerusalem. Hezekiah did not seem too concerned since it would not happen in his lifetime. But we can imagine the grief and confusion that must have filled the hearts of God’s people. They had just survived a devastating siege, and now they are told that their children or their children’s children would experience something far worse.
It is in this context that God gave Isaiah a prophecy of comfort to preach to His people. “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God,” he begins (Isa 40:1). Then He proceeds to show how the LORD himself will visit His people in the flesh to be their shepherd. But lest anyone think that the Shepherd will be characterised by weakness like an earthly king, Isaiah reminds us that He will remain fully God. He is sovereign and omnipotent. He is perfect in knowledge and understanding. He is infinitely great, incomparable and ineffable. He is the creator and governor of the universe.
Now, we are coming to the end of this chapter of comfort, and Isaiah is seeking to elicit a response from the people for the wonderful truths He is conveying to them. For this purpose, he asks a series of rhetorical questions: Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? Hath it not been told you? None of these questions expects an answer, for they are designed to express incredulity. How could anyone in Israel not have heard and known of the greatness of God as reiterated by Isaiah?
But tonight, we must consider a couple of questions of Isaiah that actually demand answers, or at least a response.
The first question is in verse 27—
“Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?”
God is addressing His covenant people. Jacob and Israel are synonymous terms referring to God’s people under the Old Covenant. There was a time before the Northern Kingdom was sent to exile, when Israel would refer to the Northern Kingdom, whereas Judah would refer to the Southern Kingdom. But now that the Northern Kingdom has largely been destroyed or sent into exile, Israel refers to all who remain of the covenant people of God. Jacob was the name of the father of the twelve tribes before God changed his name to Israel.
What question does Isaiah pose to them? Why do you say, “My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?” he asks.
What are they saying? They are saying that God doesn’t seem to know the troubles they are experiencing. “My way is hid from the LORD.” The LORD does not see or notice the calamities we are suffering. He does not seem aware of how foreign powers are oppressing us, how we have lost our national pride, and how we have suffered the loss of loved ones and the destruction of our homes. If He sees, He doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it.
And “my judgment is passed over from my God.” My God does not care about the injustice that has befallen us. He does not seem to hear our pleas for deliverance.
What kind of statements are these? These are statements of unbelief, aren’t they? “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Faith is seeing with spiritual eyes what the bodily eyes do not see. Unbelief is simply failing or refusing to see or acknowledge what could be seen with spiritual eyes.
Jacob might not have eyes of faith to see, but surely Israel should be able to see. But whether as Jacob or as Israel, God’s nation seems to have lost their spiritual sight. They have begun to be overtaken by grief and despair. They are tempted to give up praying or trusting the LORD.
Have you not also, on occasions, murmured the same things in your heart as Israel did, dear reader? Have there not been times when you wonder whether the LORD sees or cares, or even whether He exists? Have there not been moments when you are tempted to entertain the idea that prayer makes no difference at all?
If so, the question that Isaiah is asking in our text is also for you: “Why do you say My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?”
This question demands an answer, or at least a response. Why do you think or say as you do? Can you not see that it is due to doubt? Do you not recognise the temptation of the wicked one? Do you not repent of your harsh thoughts against the Lord?
But as you think about how to respond to these questions, consider also Isaiah’s second question:
“Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding” (v. 28).
This second question is like the rhetorical questions he asked earlier in verses 21 and 25. But while the earlier questions were used to express incredulity rather than to demand an answer, here in verse 28, a response is expected.
What is the expected response? Clearly, it is a response of repentance and faith. It is a call to repentance for unbelief—for thinking that God does not see, or does not care, or is powerless to do anything to ease the suffering of the people.
How could you entertain such doubts in your hearts, Isaiah is asking? Surely, you know “that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.” In the following two verses, Isaiah will proceed to assure us of how the Lord strengthens the weary, but unless we believe that there is no limit to His knowledge and understanding, or to His power and capacity to do all things, we shall not benefit from the assurance that He will help.
Therefore, dear child of God, do not read the questions impassively as if they have nothing to do with you. Please read them, nay hear them, as directed to you. Then, seek with the Spirit’s help to answer them from the depths of your heart.
In particular, ask yourself these three questions as you meditate on the questions that Isaiah is asking.
1. First, do you genuinely believe that God is sovereign and infinitely powerful, as Isaiah teaches us He is?
If you do, then confess your faith to the Lord once again and empty your heart of all murmurings and complaints about the sufferings and inconveniences you have to suffer today.
But if you don’t believe, then you must repent of your unbelief, for unless you believe God is sovereign and omnipotent, you cannot draw any comfort from the promise in Romans 8:28 that all things are working together for your good.
2. Secondly, do you genuinely believe that God sees all things and that He cares for you? More specifically, do you believe that the Son of God lived, suffered and died for you, and that if the Father “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Rom 8:32).
If you don’t believe, then once again you must repent of your unbelief. For unless you believe that you are a sinner in need of salvation and that Christ came for sinners, you will have no hope in this life or in the life to come. If you do not believe that God gave His Son for you, then how can you have any assurance that God cares for you and will bless you?
But if you do believe, then blessed are you. Then reaffirm your faith in grateful prayer, and ask the Lord to remove any doubts you may have and to heal any discontentment about your present lot that you may be secretly entertaining in your heart.
3. Thirdly, do you believe that God hears your prayers and that He delights to give you the desires of your heart?
If you do not believe, then you must repent of your unbelief: for as James reminds us, he that wavers in his faith is like the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Such a person should not think that he will receive anything from the Lord. But if you do believe, then blessed are you. Continue to walk by faith, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. Do not neglect to pray, and pray believing that if you ask anything according to God’s will, He will hear you. And do not allow your prayer life to be stifled by prayers that only revolve around day-to-day comforts that rarely make any difference. Do not be satisfied merely with the mundane. Instead, call unto Him for great and mighty things that pertain to the furtherance of the Kingdom of Christ, and see how He will do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Amen.
—JJ Lim