LIBERTY UNIVERSITY

LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

LESSON MANUSCRIPT FOR ISAIAH 62:1-12

BASED ON MWGYW METHOD

A LESSON MANUSCRIPT

SUBMITTED TO DR. DENNIS WILHITE

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE

“MINISTRY OF TEACHING” – DSMN601

BY

ELKE B. SPELIOPOULOS

DOWNINGTOWN, PA

SEPTEMBER 27, 2009

 <Read ISAIAH 62:1-12 to Audience>

ME (Orientation)

I don’t know about you, but I have many days where I just don’t feel good about myself.

I don’t feel good about the way I look, about what I am doing, and about what is happening

inside and outside of my head. And all the while I am thinking, God must have noticed. He must

have noticed I am not as pretty, as thin, as intelligent, as willing to host guests at my house, as

able to effortlessly put together stylish outfits or beautiful table settings – whatever it might be. I

just don’t feel terribly great about myself. Not only God must have noticed, but I know for a fact

my husband noticed as I am rather grumpy around him, too. But God especially: the more I think

about it, the more I realize that my fellowship with Him is not the same. And the more I think

about it, the more I realize that the issue is with me. Probably something that I did that didn’t

make me feel terribly proud of myself contributed to this. And it impacted my view of myself,

but more importantly, it impacted my relationship with my Abba Father. I am not feeling as close

to Him right now. Something has to happen. But what?

WE (Identification)

How about you? Ever felt out of place, too? A feeling that you are just not part of the

cool in-crowd at work or at church or even in your own extended family? And again, your first

thought is what did I do? Whom have I offended? Who thinks my contributions aren’t terribly

worthwhile? You feel underappreciated, unmotivated and unloved. But the more you ponder it,

the more you start to realize the issue is inside of you not outside of you. You realize that

something happened that made you feel less worthy, and even more so, something that makes

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you feel disconnected from God – and now it’s playing out in the way you see the world around

you. And you are not happy in that place. Been there? How can we get back on track?

GOD (Illumination)

Good news, People, good news indeed on how we can approach this dilemma through the

Word of God!

We will reach back in time today to the writings of the prophet Isaiah, who lived during

the eighth century B.C. , during a time when the Assyrian Empire was expanding through use of

brute force and unbelievable violence displayed in their warfare. The land inhabited by the

twelve tribes was by this time divided into two kingdoms – the southern kingdom of Judah,

which was made up of the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, and the northern kingdom of

Israel, which was made up of the other ten tribes. Bitter warfare had already taken place between

these two kingdoms, but now the threat was an external one as the Assyrians continued to make

inroads in their victories north of the lands of Judah and Israel.

The prophet Isaiah’s ministry began in 740 B.C. , 18 years before the northern kingdom

of Israel would fall to these same Assyrian hordes. Isaiah’s writings address the sin of the people

that would bring about the fall of the northern kingdom, but also the sin of his own people, the

people of the kingdom of Judah. Not during Isaiah’s lifetime, but two centuries later, in 586 B.C.

Judah would finally also fall and its inhabitants would be exiled. It would fall not to the

Assyrians, but to the Babylonian Empire, which had since the gained preeminence in the Near

East after the demise of the Assyrian Empire.

Isaiah ultimately wrote not just about this more immediate future, but also about the

future, which would come later during the time of Jesus, and that future, which is yet to be

fulfilled. This is where we will investigate today: the promises of God yet to be fulfilled. Many

chapters of the book of Isaiah describe judgment, both on Judah and Israel, but also on the

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nations surrounding them. Yet in a beautiful passage within the book of Isaiah, in chapters 60

through 62, Isaiah writes about promises of hope and assurance for a people who, from Isaiah’s

vantage point, would be suffering unrelenting pain by the time their exile would be completed.

This passage has a chiastic structure. What does that mean? Let me explain it to you briefly. A

chiasm, or chiastic structure, in Scripture functions as a literary structure, in which thoughts are

placed in a symmetric order or pattern in order to emphasize them. So in other words, what

Isaiah is saying here is something he wanted his readers to pay close attention to.

Isaiah 62 is where we will be spending some time today. Why? Because after what I said

about simply not feeling right with God, imagine what the people of Judah would have felt when

they realized, long after Isaiah was dead and gone, how right he was and how much they had

upset their relationship with their God, the Holy One of Israel, as Isaiah loved to call Him. The

people of Judah suffered through a bitter exile in Babylon. During this time, they were weeping

and moaning over what they had lost, the beauty of their destroyed temple in Jerusalem. I am

sure you all know Psalm 137’s starting verses. No, you say? Well, maybe I am dating myself.

But if you were around in 1978, you learned Psalm 137, or at least a part of it when Boney M

popularized it with their song “Rivers of Babylon”. This is what it says:

“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.

There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs,

our tormentors demanded songs of joy;

they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?” (Ps. 137:1-4, NIV)

The longing of the exiled Israelites came out clearly in the next verse: “If I forget you, O

Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.” (Ps. 137:5, NIV) By the time, the Israelites

were allowed to return to Jerusalem, which is described in the Old Testament books of Ezra and

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Nehemiah, they were very serious about starting the relationship with their God anew. Idol

worship was a thing of the horrid past they had left behind as it had led to their captivity and

exile to Babylon, and the people vowed to follow the commandments of God.

Isaiah, centuries before, wrote words of great comfort to the Israelites in chapter 62, a

beautiful testimony to the faithfulness of their God. He describes the zeal the Lord feels for His

bride, for His chosen people. Isaiah uses the terms Zion and Jerusalem here to symbolize the

people of Israel. I mentioned the chiastic structure of chapters 60-62 in the book of Isaiah. The

center point of this chiasm is expressed here1. Isaiah’s words are the culmination of a triumphant

passage. The text is filled with hope and assurance for a people who will have suffered

unrelenting pain by the time their exile, as predicted by Isaiah in another part of his writing, is

completed. In this passage, God, through His prophet Isaiah, declares that His people will have

the status of a beloved wife to Him – imagine what type of standing that brings in the eyes of the

God of the universe!

From the early verses where a declaration goes out that the speaker (unidentified, but

alternately proposed to be either the prophet or God) insists on speaking up for the sake of Zion

until her righteous place is established through the recognition by the nations and her renaming.

All these signs are pointing towards a very highly esteemed status in God’s economy. God’s

people are described as having the status of a crown or a royal diadem in the hand of God, which

some scholars view as the bestowing of royal status2 and others view as indication of God ruling

as King and displaying their elevated and protected status3.

Likewise, the renaming indicated in verses 4 and 5 carries a high degree of Near Eastern

meaning. Not only does it underline the marriage symbolism, but the change from the name
1 John N. Oswalt, The NIV Application Commentary: Isaiah (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 641.

2 Buksbazen, 466.

3 J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah : An Introduction & Commentary (Downers Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity Press, 1993), Is 62:2

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“Forsaken” and “Desolate” to “My Delight Is in Her” and “Married” shows that Israel is

changed, made into a new people, fit to be desired and loved, a people God can truly rejoice

over. This “reversal of fortune” brings to mind a passage in Joel 2:25, which similarly shows

God restoring what was taken: “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has

eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.”

(ESV) The key insight for us has to be that it is God who is doing the work, not the people.

They cannot achieve this standing through their own efforts, but rather God has to be the enabler

through grace poured out on them.

Isaiah continues to describe how watchmen would be placed on the walls of Jerusalem

constantly reminding God of His promises. I always loved that image, but at the same time, it

bothered me a bit. Why would God need watchmen? If God is omniscient, omnipresent and

omnipotent, would He not remember the promises He has made?

Examples of watchmen (or watchwomen) exist in the Scriptures. There are several

examples from the New Testament; one of them is Anna the Prophetess in Luke 36-38 who prior

to Jesus’ birth would be in the Temple daily, praying and reminding the Lord of His promised

Messiah. But in my reading to prepare for this lesson, I read something that sounds more

plausible to me. Again, it has to do with Near Eastern thinking during the time of the writing of

the book of Isaiah. The watchmen could be those that people in this part of the world at that time

understood to fulfill a particular function in the Israelite kings’ courts. These officers in the royal

court were literally called “The One Who Reminds”, and they would advise the king on a regular

basis of the covenantal promises he had made. So this is imagery familiar to the readers of

Isaiah’s writings and is as such used to reassure them that God will not be forgetting His

promises because He is continuously being reminded.4

4 John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66. New International Commentary on the Old
Testment (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1998), 584.

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 Finally in verses 8 and 9, God Himself is clearly identified as the speaker. In imagery,

which again would have been very familiar to the people of Isaiah’s day, God swears by His

right hand and by His mighty arm that good things will come to His people. As far back as the

book of Genesis, this concept has been developed: one example is Gen 48:13–14, where Jacob

uses his right hand to bestow his blessing on Ephraim, the younger son of Joseph, and thus

bypassing the older son, Manasseh. The mighty arm of God would also be a well known

symbolism for God’s sovereignty through the retelling of the Exodus story. Robert Chisholm in

his “Handbook on the Prophets” demonstrates that the meaning of God’s sovereignty being

expressed through the symbolism of “right hand” and “mighty arm” are a guarantee to the people

of Israel that what God has promised, He will realize in their future.5

The chapter concludes with a beautiful passage of a road being built and the people of

God arriving to be restored through God’s promised salvation. Not only have the people of Israel

been brought into an everlasting marriage covenant, but God adorns them with beautiful names

that indicate how treasured a people they are to Him: The Holy People, The Redeemed of the

Lord, Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.

What had happened here? What is the change? In Isaiah 65:2, God had said about the

people of Israel: “All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in

ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations.” (NIV)

In Ezekiel, we find out even more about God’s holy character and why He had to punish

His people for their sinfulness:

"Son of man, when the people of Israel were living in their own land, they defiled it by
their conduct and their actions. Their conduct was like a woman's monthly
uncleanness in my sight. So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed
blood in the land and because they had defiled it with their idols. I dispersed them
among the nations, and they were scattered through the countries; I judged them
according to their conduct and their actions. And wherever they went among the

5 Robert B., Chisholm, Jr., Handbook on the Prophets (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 131.

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 nations they profaned my holy name, for it was said of them, 'These are the LORD's
people, and yet they had to leave his land.' I had concern for my holy name, which
the house of Israel profaned among the nations where they had gone. Therefore say
to the house of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your
sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my
holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will
show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations,
the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the
LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I show myself holy through you before
their eyes.” (Ez. 36:17-23, NIV)

The people of Israel had been punished for their sinfulness before God. Yet now, through

God’s grace, He has offered to heal the broken relationship, marred by sin, and restore it to one

marked by mutual adoration, love and trust. It truly highlights both the holiness of God and His

unending love for His people. Even more so, in the Isaiah passage, the prophet speaks of a

signal, or a banner, being lifted up over the peoples. I believe this banner is an image pointing to

the cross of Jesus Christ. God always had us in mind. We are His people through our adoption

into His family through Jesus Christ. When we are in fellowship with Him who wants to be our

Bridegroom, we have great worth. We are beautiful and adorned. We have nothing to be

ashamed of when we have become a child of God through faith in the completed work of His

Son Jesus Christ. We are God’s people.

YOU (Application)

I hope you see now what impact sin in our life can have on our relationship with our

heavenly Father. It separates us. God hates sin. He makes that abundantly clear throughout the

pages of Scripture. Yet what you saw today through the prophet Isaiah is that God is always

willing to come back into fellowship with you. More importantly, He desires it! When you turn

and submit to His leading, He is waiting to bless you with “the incomparable riches of his grace,

expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7, NIV), as Paul reminds us in his letter

to the Ephesians.

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 WE (Inspiration)

Taking this further, when we radiate this love relationship that we have with God, it

permeates the world around us. Have you ever noticed that when you are happy or when you are

in love, all of a sudden the world smiles back at you? It has happened to me so many times that I

have had a smile come back at me when I was happy inside. Didn’t even realize I was smiling!

But there it was – somebody else caught on to my happiness.

Our happiness when we are in relationship with Him who loves us so will pour out in the

same manner to the world around us and attract them to Christ. Not just in eternity to come, but

in the here and now God pours out this attention and delight over the ones who have been

redeemed by trusting in His sovereign grace, imparted to us through the death, burial and

resurrection of Jesus Christ, the One who “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of

all creation”. (Col 1:15, ESV)

As we have been adopted as sons and daughters into the family of God, we have joined in

Abraham’s heritage: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs

according to promise.” (Gal. 3:29, ESV), and as such can fully enjoy God’s blessings in this

life. After first coming to faith, many people seem to think that the goal achieved is eternal life

and having that goal tightly “locked down” by trusting in Christ as being sufficient to pay for

their sins. While indeed this secures salvation, it clearly cannot be the focus of Kingdom living in

the here and now. The Holy Spirit, residing in us as believers, produces the fruits of the Spirit

and allows us to live lives that are both honoring to God and useful to Him as we can be

deployed as tools for Him.

The blessings we can take away for our lives in this relationship with God can produce a

lasting joy and peace in our lives. As we submit to the Holy Spirit’s leading and prompting, our

lives are being molded ever more to resemble Jesus Christ, and we become conscious of the

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benefits of living in a constant relationship with God, not one that ends on Sundays after we walk

out of church.
At the same time, we need to remind ourselves that this relationship to a holy God

comes with His expectation of us holding up our part as one part of a relationship, described by

God in marriage terminology. The trust He bestows on us needs to find reciprocation in us.

Whether this is expressed in our complete trust in His provision and ultimate fulfillment of all

promises made, or whether this comes about in physical obedience by avoiding things that harm

us and that are unhelpful to further God’s Kingdom, we need to strive to live in a relationship

with our great God. We are loved, but we need to love back.

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