Strength for the Feeble

Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance;with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lameleap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. (Isaiah 35:3-10 NIV)

“He has done everything well” (Mark 7:37), the people said about Jesus. But I bet that deaf man didn’t feel that way when he woke up that morning. Can you imagine being deaf and not able to talk? We complain about little things. We let the weather rob our joy. Imagine if life were silent, always. Some parents here are thinking, “That actually sounds nice!” Maybe for an afternoon. Not for life! Deaf and mute? What joy would you have? What hope would you have? If you were unable to hear or speak, would you be thinking, “God has done everything well?” I wouldn’t!

The truth is, it often seems like God isn’t doing everything well. Maybe, like that deaf man, you were born with a health condition that affects you every day. How is that good? Or maybe you’re healthy, but life is spinning out of control. How many of us are praying for strength just to make it through today? Who are we kidding? There are times when we don’t know how to make it through the next 5 minutes. “Just get me through this. Just get me through this night. I can’t even think about tomorrow…” Have you been there? Are you there? Your heart races. Your mind jumps. You feel the anxiety in your stomach. “God has done everything well!” Not in my life!

We sometimes think our world is so different from the world of the Bible. But listen to what it was like 2,700 years ago in the days of the prophet Isaiah. The nation of Judah was ruled by godless leaders. One after the other. Pride and drunkenness and greed were everywhere. People were turning away from God left and right. Their nation was deteriorating, and judgment was coming because of their sin. The few remaining believers in God were thinking, “What can we do?” It seemed helpless. It seemed hopeless. They had feeble hands. They had fearful hearts.

Is that so different from today? I don’t think so! Moral decay. Rampant sin. Unfaithful leaders who turn away from God. Signs of God’s judgment on our nation and the world. If you see any of that happening, God’s people have seen it all before. And it broke their hearts too. There’s so much to fear, isn’t there? What’s it for you? Your plans didn’t work out, so you tried something else—and it’s worse! You had an idea. People told you to run with it. So you did—and it’s a disaster! Now what? Guilt. Regret. Anxiety. Fear. All wrapped up together. Feeble. Fearful.

If that’s you, God has a message for you today. He says: “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come.’” If you feel feeble, you are! Strength doesn’t come from you. Whom does true strength come from? God! God doesn’t say, “You are stronger than you think.” He says, “I am stronger than you think, and I am coming.” Recently, a WELS pastor wrote a book that’s really helped my anxious heart. It’s called, “Three Little Words That Will Change Your Life.” Can you guess what those three little words are? “God is here.” Feeling feeble, fearful, anxious? God is here!

According to Isaiah, God comes to do two things. First, “He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution.” God comes to judge evil. It so often seems like everything is unfair. That everything is unjust. That the wrong people get their way. You get worked up just thinking about it! Don’t worry. God’s coming. He brings vengeance for the evil in our world. But God brings something else too: “He will come to save you.” Judge the world. Save his people. This is how God strengthened his feeble people long ago: He promised to come to judge and to save! So “strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way…God will come to save you.”

As I studied that last phrase, I learned something. Do you remember what language the Old Testament is written in? Hebrew. I looked up the Hebrew word that means “he will save.” Do you know what name comes from that Hebrew word? Jesus. “He will save” = Jesus. In Hebrew, people would have said Yeshua or Joshua. So this was God’s promise: “Don’t be afraid. Your God will come. He will Jesus you.” That’s exactly what God did, right? He Jesused us. Jesus came. Jesus paid for all sins—he was judged—with his death on the cross. He saved you and me.

And here’s a cool thing: Isaiah described what would happen when God came to save: “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” When God came, blind people would see. Deaf people would hear. Lame people would jump. Mute people would shout. So which of those did Jesus do? All of them! Jesus made deaf people hear and mute people shout. Every promise God made, Jesus did it. That’s how people knew that Jesus was the Savior! “He has done everything well!”

But God’s promises didn’t stop there: “Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.” Huh? What about that? Did Jesus do that too? Remember the story when Jesus went into the desert and turned the sand into a pool, so that his disciples could go swimming? You don’t remember that one? Good! It didn’t happen! So why does the Bible talk about the desert becoming a paradise? Because when the Bible talks about God’s salvation, it often jumps back and forth from Jesus to heaven to Jesus to heaven. As if life just continues non-stop from this world to the next—because it does! This salvation from Jesus wouldn’t stop at healing the deaf. It wouldn’t stop at the cross. It goes all the way to heaven, where everything bad will be undone. In heaven, even the dry desert will become a paradise. No lions or spiders or sickness or sadness. That’s heaven!

Want to go there? Me too! You just need to take the right road. Isaiah says, “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.” The road to heaven is the Way of Holiness. Are you on it? That makes me think of a Burger King sign I saw recently. It said, “Awesome people apply inside.” I thought, “I can’t even work at Burger King. I’m not awesome!” The onramp for the highway to heaven says, “Way of Holiness. Perfect people come on through.” Could you get on? No way! The Way of Holiness? Who could walk on that road?

Except the Bible adds, “The redeemed will walk there, and those the LORD has rescued will return.” There actually are people on this highway to heaven. Who are they? The redeemed. Like Job. A man named Job faced terrible suffering in his life. Yet, in the midst of his suffering, Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth” (Job 19:25). Later in this book of Isaiah, God says, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” Still later, God explains, “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you” (Isaiah 44:22).

Do you understand what this is saying? We have a God who redeems. We have a God who rescues sinful people like you and me. Martin Luther taught people to say: “Jesus has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.” Do you need strength for your feeble heart? You are redeemed. You are rescued. By faith in Jesus, you are on the Way of Holiness to heaven by God’s grace.

And when you get there, listen to this, “They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” Joy. That’s what you’re going to have. Joy will overtake you. This week, my wife and I watched a TV show about 9/11. There was a detail I hadn’t known. When the towers collapsed, dust shot out like a tidal wave. That dust wave knocked people over. Dust and dust and dust. That helped me understand this promise. Just not dust. Joy. Everlasting joy. Wave after wave after wave of joy. When you get to heaven, joy will overtake you. Everlasting joy. “Sorrow and sighing will flee away.” Forever. When you get to heaven, you’ll realize, “God has done everything well!”

But what about today? We still have to make it through today. Here’s where God challenges you to grow in your faith. God isn’t just doing things well when things go well. God does everything well. Do you know what’s included in everything? Everything. Joy and gladness and weakness and sadness. God does everything well. That deaf man didn’t wake up each day thinking that God did everything well. But that’s because he didn’t know that God was going to use him and his suffering to prove Jesus’ power as the Savior. For years, things did not seem to work well, until suddenly it all made sense in Jesus. Even his deafness was God doing something well.

Can you see that? I know this is so hard to believe. When you’re struggling, I know there’s a voice inside you saying, “But… but… but… There must be some mistake. This can’t be God’s good plan for me.” And God says, “Trust me. Even in sickness and sadness, I am strengthening my people.” Actually, maybe we could say that especially in sickness and sadness, God is strengthening us his people. He’s teaching us the most important lesson in life: To trust in him. With God, it’s never a someday. It’s not, “someday, God will actually get it right.” It’s not, “someday, I can have joy and confidence and strength.” No. Today. Even when life seems like a deep, dark hole, faith says, “God does everything well.” That’s a Christian’s quiet confidence.

The apostle Paul learned a powerful lesson from his own suffering: “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). A few years ago, our school in Green Bay, WI wanted to give away an autographed Packers football at an event. The Packers kicker—Mason Crosby—signed the football and even wrote his favorite Bible passage on it. Do you know what it was? “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:30-31). I thought that was so cool. Even the strongest NFL players stumble and fall, but who soars on wings like eagles? Those who hope in the Lord.

That means there’s hope for you today. Because your God has come. He’s come to save you! That’s what God commands me to tell you: “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come.” God is working in ways you can’t see. God is doing things that you can’t imagine. So, “be strong, do not fear; your God will come” God will lead you to that place where there is joy after joy after joy after joy after joy… There is strength for the feeble, because our God does everything well!