“For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant.” (Isaiah 42:14, ESV)
When I was a boy, I remember watching the cartoons in the morning. One of the cartoons we watched was Popeye the Sailor. One of Popeye’s famous quotes is, “That’s all I can stands, cuz I can’t stands n’more!” Popeye would say this when he got to the breaking point, when his patience with the situation wore out.
Have you ever wondered when the Lord’s patience will run out? This verse in Isaiah was a message for the nation of Israel and stands as a message for all humanity. He has watched and has held His peace. Yet a time is coming when He will hold it no more and bring judgment.
In the passage, we see two things that are at the heart of the people’s problem. The first is their lack of devotion to God. In verse 17 of this passage we read, “They are turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, ‘You are our gods’” (v17). The people were devoted to lifeless things and not the living God. Would we not characterize our world in like manner? People are devoted to everything but God.
The second problem was that the people’s dull ear to the Word of God. In verse 23 we read the words Isaiah recorded, “Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come” (v23). The people acted as deaf people when it came to hearing the voice of the Lord. They did not desire to hear from God and they did not obey God. The passage goes on in verse 24, “. . . Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?” (v24).
This coldness towards God and His Word is a problem that the Lord patiently endures, for now. However, a day of judgment will come upon the unrepentant. You might think that this problem in Isaiah’s day was with the heathen nations alone, but it was not. You see, this was not a message to the heathen nations. It was to God’s chosen people, Israel. Look at verse 24, “Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned. . .” (v24).
We as a church ought to take this message to heart. From time to time, I kind of feel like the Lord, “For a long time I have held my peace.” We watch the world around us crumbling down in sin. We see school shootings and the saga of human sorrow. What do we do? We shout out, “Oh government, please save our society. Pass some laws. Educate our people. Grant us security.” In whom do we trust? Do we not know that the root problem is in the heart of man? Do we not know that only God can transform the heart?
The church in America stands guilty. Why do I say this? It is because we too look to human agencies to transform our society. We condemn the world for its lack of devotion to the Lord, but are not fully devoted ourselves. This is evident in our haphazardness towards worship, Bible reading, witnessing, etc. We want the Lord to transform the hearts of those outside the church, but do not realize that our own hearts need to change.
Perhaps the words of Leonard Ravenhill in a book, “Why Revival Tarries,” said it best. In a chapter titled, “As The Church Goes, So Goes the World,” he stated, “The church began with these men in the ‘upper room’ agonizing—today it is ending with men in the supper room organizing. The church began in revival; we are ending in ritual. We started virile; we are ending sterile.” Think about it!
Renewing the Heart 