Dwell in the Word: Isaiah 20:1-6

Contemplate these questions as you dwell in Isaiah 20:1-6:

1. In this passage, Isaiah uses vivid imagery to depict the captivity and exposure of Egypt and Kush. How does this imagery illustrate the futility of relying on human help and the need for divine intervention? What lessons can we draw from this regarding our own dependence on God?

2. The people in this passage have looked to other nations for help but find that they, too, are powerless and exposed. How does this reflect a common human tendency to seek solutions in human efforts and resources rather than turning to God? How can we guard against this tendency in our own lives?

3. The question posed at the end of the passage, "And we, how shall we escape?" highlights the desperate need for salvation and deliverance. How does this question resonate with our own need for salvation from sin and its consequences? What is the ultimate answer to this question for believers in Christ?

Transcript:

Well, if the prophets of God don't find themselves in the most awkward of positions, often they are asked to do things that are a picture for the people of the circumstances that they will be in. Well, Isaiah is giving a picture to these people. It's a sign against Egypt and Kush that they're going to be led away. And as captives. This imagery here, you see, go lose the sack cloth from your waist and take off your sandals from your feet. The idea is that they're taking this off because, well, they are captives. They are being let away. They are at the mercy of someone else. God is speaking of this judgment that is to come. Now, I don't have particularly too much commentary to have on this other than this is what we have seen throughout the Book of Isaiah, right? This idea of punishment, of these other nations coming and taking people captive and doing these kinds of things. What I want to focus on here is not that the people are going to be walking around with their buttocks uncovered or that Isaiah did, but the imagery here that we see in verse 6, And the inhabitants of will say in that day, 'Behold, this is what happened to those whom we hoped, and to whom we fled for help to be delivered from the King of Assyria.

' In other words, the imagery is that these naked ones, they look to them for help, but they are exposed themselves. They are nothing themselves. They are captives themselves. And so the question that we look to here is what ends? Chapter 20, we see it here in verse 6 at the end, And we, how shall we escape? This is an important question for them. They have looked to humans for their refuge. They have looked to other nations to help them. They have looked all kinds of places, but they all end up the same, don't they? This is the story of humanity, right? We try to solve the problems, whether they are problems for us individually or problems as a whole. We look to human solutions, and then we find out that they're in the same state of affairs as we are. We are all stuck with the way things are. We are all affected by the curse, right? And so this question, And we, how shall we escape? We looked to these other nations, but they weren't able to do anything. And so I want us to dwell on that question, that imagery here. It's uncomfortable imagery, the idea of people being let away naked.

We don't want to think about that. Imean, there's reasons we don't like that. But it's a great picture for us of how we are exposed, how we aren't ready for whatever it is that we think we can accomplishwe're naked, and particularly we are naked before God, just like Adam and Eve were, right? Apart from the covering that Christ provides in his life, death and resurrection for us, and his ascension for us, that righteousness that we received, we're naked before God. We can't do anything to rescue ourselves. And if we look to other humans, we find that they too are naked. If they can't escape and we're looking to them, we are in just as bad a state of affairs. And so we understand that the point of all this prophetic language, all this imagery, is to point us to the fact that God is the only one who can save us. And we understand as Christians that what God has done for us in Christ, that God, the Son, took on our flesh, bore the wrath of God for our sin, rose again, and then now is seated at the right-hand of the Father. That is our hope.

That is how we are clothed. That is how we escape. And we can't forget that. That is our only hope. If we try to save ourselves from the curse or from anything apart from the work of God on our behalf in Christ, we will see that those hopes are naked as well. So may we put our hope in Christ alone. May we remember that as we think of this passage today, may we remember that our only hope is that covering we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.