Isaiah 62:1

In Isaiah chapter 62 the Lord is continuing to tell us some details about the future when God is going to fulfill all the promises that He has ever made concerning the nation of Israel, and concerning all believers. God always keeps His promises. Of course, the promises will be kept because Jesus the Messiah will keep them. The Bible says in Isaiah 62:1, “For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.” During the time of the Old Testament when God established Israel, Israel could have become the greatest nation on earth from which the rest of the world would have been ruled, but it did not happen because of the failure of man. Man fails, but God does not fail, and He keeps His promises. God’s purpose is to set up Jerusalem as the center of the world, and He will do it some day. Notice that the Lord said, “I will not hold my peace.” In other words all that it will take is for the Lord to give the word and all the final events of the last days will begin, with the climax being Jesus ruling the nations of the world from the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem. The Bible says in Second Thessalonians 2:7-8, “…only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” Because Jesus is the Lord of all, He only needs to speak a word to accomplish all things.

The Bible says in Isaiah 62:2-3, “And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.” It is quite amazing what Jesus is going to do for the nation of Israel, considering how much they failed Him. They not only failed Him: they murdered Him. What God does for the ones He has called is totally unmerited and undeserved. But that is what grace is all about: the unmerited favor of God. The Lord has wonderful things planned for all of us believers, and we deserve none of them. What a great Giver of good things He is! God will lift up Israel to be greater than all the nations of the earth, and the nations of the Gentiles will come to honor Israel and to marvel at what the Lord has done for her.

God said that He will give Israel “a new name.” In the Bible names often have an important symbolism to them. The new name will symbolize God’s favor and blessings that will fall upon them. It says in Isaiah 62:4, “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.” Israel had been “forsaken” and “desolate” because they deserved to be forsaken and desolate. The sins that they had committed were horrendous. They became a nation of lying, and murderous, and hypocritical scoundrels. When you read about how much the nation of Israel had descended into degradation, it sounds very similar to what is happening in the world today. But when Jesus determines to love someone, He loves them unto the end, no matter how bad they become. His chastisements are but for a moment; but His mercy and loving-kindness is forever. “A smoking flax will he not quench, and a bruised reed will he not break.” “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”

It is interesting to notice that when the Lord told us about His determination to shower His love upon the nation of Israel, the Lord compared it to the love of a newly wed husband for his bride. The Bible says in Isaiah 62:5, “For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.” The greatest human love this earth can know is that of the love between a young man and a young woman who have been united by God and who have the rest of their lives to share together. Usually, they have great love at least at the beginning of their marriage. God comparing His love to newly-weds tells us something about God: He wants someone to love. God is love. He offers His love to the world, and He is going to find ways to demonstrate His love to those who through faith in Christ enter into His grace.

But until Jesus returns and establishes the Kingdom of Israel as it should be, and fulfills all of these promises, Isaiah 62:6-7 tells us what the Lord wants us to be doing. He says, “I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest, til he establish, and til he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” God wants us to be watchmen and spokesmen. We must be watchmen. In other words, we must never let down our guard. We must be watchmen because of temptations. Jesus said in Mark 14:38, ”Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.” You can be walking along and everything is fine, and then you turn a corner or open a door and all of a sudden you are presented with a great temptation. It is when people are caught unawares that they are most vulnerable. Notice that Jesus said to “watch and pray.” We are not strong enough on our own to face all the wiles of the devil. We must pray to the Lord for His help. Jesus told us to pray, “lead us not into temptation.”

We must be watchmen because of enemies. A watchman in the Old Testament was set upon the walls of a city usually in a watch-tower in order to constantly have someone on guard so that everyone could be forewarned about the enemies. For example, it says in Nehemiah 4:7-9, “But it came to pass that when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, And conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it. Nevertheless, we made our prayer unto God, and set a watch against them night and day.” This is not a world where everyone is going to be nice to each other. This is a world where there are enemies. The enemies will ruin you and will destroy you unless you pray to God for help, and unless you have the proper amount of watchfulness. Some of the enemies are false teachers. Concerning the false teachers, the Bible says in Jude 3-4, “Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” The only way we can keep false teachers from creeping in and creating havoc is to be watchful and to be on guard against them.

We need to be watchful in regards to the Second Coming of Christ. Jesus said in Mark 13:33-37, “Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.” Evidently a special reward will be given to those who actually are watching for and waiting for the return of Jesus. The Apostle Paul wrote in Second Timothy 4:8, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” One of the practical benefits of always looking for the return of Jesus is that the believer who does so is constantly reminded that what happens in this life is of little import compared to eternity, and is reminded that his or her hope is in Christ and in Christ alone. As we look for the return of Christ, we know that no program, no human being, no political movement, nor anything else will be able to do for us or for this world what Jesus will do when He returns. He will destroy the enemies of God, He will right every wrong, He will bring peace on earth, and He will establish the Kingdom of God. Jesus will do everything that needs to be done that no one else could ever do and that no one else will ever be able to do.

Christians are told to be watchful many, many times in the New Testament. Christian are told in First Corinthians 6:13, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” Paul said in Second Corinthians 6:5 that he had been “in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in watchings, in fastings.” Paul also wrote in Colossians 4:2, “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.” And he wrote in First Thessalonians 5:6, “Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.” Timothy was told in Second Timothy 4:5, “But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” The Apostle Peter wrote in First Peter 4:7, “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” Finally, Jesus said to the church in the city of Sardis in Revelation 3:2-3, “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come upon thee.”

Believers are to be watchmen, and we are also to be spokesmen. Of course, this refers to preaching, teaching, witnessing, singing, and in other ways communicating the good news about Jesus to the rest of the world. Someone might ask the question: when do I stop being a witness for Christ? When do I get to the point where I can say that I have done enough, and it is time for someone else to take my place? Here is the answer in Isaiah 62:7, “ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest, til he establish, and til he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” When you see Jesus sitting on the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem, then you will know that it is time to stop. Until then, there is work to do and the Lord has something that He wants you to do, and He has someone that He wants you to talk to. Of course, the Lord might change your responsibilities. There may be a time when you will go from being a full-time worker to being in a retirement mode; but there will never be a time when the Lord wants you to keep silence. The Psalmist said in Psalms 107:2, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy.”

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