So the Lord must wait for you to come to Him
so He can show you his love and compassion.
For the Lord is a faithful God.
Blessed are those who wait for his help.  (Isaiah 30:18, NLT, emphasis added)

And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]! (Isaiah 30:18, AMPC, emphasis added)

Review: In Part One, we briefly examined the context of Isaiah 30 and summarized the main points. In Part Two, covering Isaiah 30:1-9, we discussed the subtle ways the enemy of our souls deceives us into devoting our hearts to idols, rather than the One True God, the Maker of heaven and earth. In Part Three, covering Isaiah 30:10-17, we saw God explain to Israel how their rebellion against His ways would cause calamity to fall upon them. In Part Four, we will examine verse 18, which describes what God is earnestly doing as He watches over us and waits for us to return to trusting Him and whole-heartedly obeying Him.

Do you see how God explains why? Analyzing a passage of Scripture to uncover the reasons God does something is instructive and motivating. Go back and notice each therefore, for and yet in Isaiah 30:1-17 in the AMPC. God is telling Israel, and us, clearly that when we depend on and seek worldly things more than Him, that that worldly thing will bring us shame, humiliation and confusion. Why? Because the help of the world is worthless. God commanded Isaiah to write that message down as a lesson forevermore. Why? Verse 9 says because we are rebellious and will not hear His law and instruction, because we say by our conduct that we want to hear “smooth things”, that we do not want to hear about God’s holiness.

In verse 12 and 13, God says “therefore” (because of all that which I just said, which is that you despise and spurn Me), “this iniquity and guilt will be to you like a broken section of a high wall, bulging out and ready [at some distant day] to fall, whose crash will [then] come suddenly and swiftly, in an instant.” God says that what you depended on in place of Me will be smashed to utter uselessness.

Why? In Verse 15 God says I told you that “In returning [to Me] and resting [in Me] you shall be saved; in quietness and in [trusting] confidence shall be your strength” But, you would not. Not only that, but you said you would get away quickly from your enemy on your horses, “doing our own way.”  God goes on to say that because of that, those who pursue you will be the swift ones. You will be terrorized until you are utterly scattered and utterly alone. The Living Bible phrases it: “One of them will chase a thousand of you! Five of them will scatter you until not two of you are left together. You will be like lonely trees on the distant mountaintops.”

Applying Verses 1-17 to us today. Today, we follow the same path when we persist in engaging in idol worship. We may use alcohol or drugs or whatever to escape our troubles but eventually the very thing we depend on will cause us shame, humiliation, and confusion. It will become obvious how our idol worship is destroying us. Some forms of idol worship, as we saw before, are hair-splittingly subtle and the path to destruction may be longer, yet the end is always the same.

But look how God is waiting. Verse 18 is surely one of the most reassuring and comforting verses in the Bible. While we are in the midst of our detestable idolatrous lifestyle, actively spurning and rejecting God and going our own stubborn, sinful, vile way, God is all the time earnestly waiting, expecting, looking and longing to be gracious to us!

¹⁸ And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. (Isaiah 30:18a, AMPC)

Hear the passion in those words!  Let’s take time to examine this verse phrase by phrase. God took time to record a clear statement of the depth of His love for us. We owe His words careful attention.

And therefore. This therefore connects verse 18 with all the verses that came before. It means to me that every time we put something before God and, as is inevitable, end up terrified, alone and defenseless, God is eagerly watching and waiting to rescue us. Every time. We cannot err without God eagerly watching and waiting to restore us. “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer.” (I Peter 3:12, AMPC)

. . . the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines earnest as ardent (which means passionate) in the pursuit of an object; eager to obtain; having a longing desire; serious; warmly engaged or incited; really intent, fixed. “To be in earnest is to be really urging or stretching towards an object; intent on a pursuit.”

Ponder each of these words. Is it not the picture of the prodigal son’s father who was earnestly waiting to the extent that he had his eyes fixed on the far horizon and thus was able to see his returning son from far away? Luke 15:20 tells us that while the returning prodigal “was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity and tenderness [for him]; and he ran and embraced him and kissed him [fervently].” (AMPC).

When we reject Him and His ways, God is earnestly waiting, “expecting, looking and longing to be gracious” to us. He is moved with pity and tenderness for us, for He knows how we are made (Psalm 103). He yearns, He longs for the chance to be kind and forgiving toward us and to give us good and pleasant things, to be gracious.

Websters 1828 says gracious means “favorable, kind, benevolent, disposed to forgive offenses and impart unmerited blessings.” The root of the word grace connotes ready, quick, prompt, willing.” And then it says “from advancing.” To me, that means from a position of advancing, of reaching. It suggests the father of the prodigal, the loving and merciful father who was eagerly looking down that road and ran to embrace his beloved son.

In that culture and at that time, it was disgraceful for an honorable man to tuck up his robes and run. It would be like running down the street in our underwear today  https://rb.gy/d3xz3. Some commentators also say that the father ran in order to walk beside his son and, by his presence, spare his son the ridicule of the villagers. That seems consistent with how God always makes provision for each detail of our life.

But I also think that the father of the prodigal simply could not contain his emotions. His heart simply overflowed with joy. What a thing to ponder, that God is somehow, in some way, overcome by His love for us and His desire to bring us home to Himself. Selah, oh selah! Every word of God is flawless (Proverbs 30:5), and this sentence is no mistake. God obviously wants us to understand how much He loves us and how eager He is to forgive and welcome us back into the shelter of His arms.

And therefore He lifts Himself up, that he may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. The several commentaries I read generally concurred that this phrase “lifts Himself up” means God will “bestir himself, and will work gloriously on your behalf.” (Matthew Poole commentary). This is one of those phrases where, even though I’ve tried, I am not exactly sure what God means so I ask Him to make it clear and then go on with the rest of the text. The rest of the sentence clearly says that God is wanting to show us mercy and loving-kindness. Obviously, we need His mercy! And how stirring to be told that He is wanting to show us loving-kindness. That means He is longing to be tender and affectionate with us because He is fond of us. When you are fond of someone, you adore them, you are devoted to them, and you dote on them. Think about that a while!

For the Lord is a God of justice. Keeping the story of the prodigal son in mind helps me understand this phrase. We know God is just, which means He acts fairly. He does what is proper and orderly. He gives what is due. Yet we also know He is merciful and kind and that His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever. Recall that Psalm 136 has this statement in each of its 26 verses that describe God’s mercy and loving-kindness toward us, from the time of creation to the time the psalm was written.

So, because God is just and gives what is due, we experience the consequences of our rebellion and idol worship. Yet that same justice works for our rescue because when we repent, turn from our wicked ways, and turn to God, He is, again acting justly when He takes us back to Himself.

At the judgement seat, we will receive what is due to us for what we have done while on earth. (“. . . we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” (2 Corinthians 5:10, ESV). Proverbs 11:31 tells us we also receive our just due on earth. “If the righteous receive their due on earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner!” (NIV) God treats us justly here on earth as well as hereafter.

Now consider how God illustrated those two aspects of Himself, just and merciful, in the prodigal son parable. So long as the prodigal son lived the way of the world, his father was eagerly, earnestly waiting to rescue him but could not until the son repented, turned from his prodigal ways and turned back toward home. But, the instant the father saw his son, he ran to him and restored him to sonship.

So long as I keep going my own way in something, rebelling against what God has commanded rather than putting God first and obeying Him, God must wait to pour His mercy and loving-kindness on me. But the instant I repent and turn toward God, God is right there embracing me.  His eyes are always on me, His ears are attentive to my cry even in the darkest pit I may fall into.

Our earnestly waiting Father. I thank God for artists who devote their talents to Him. There are more than a thousand of God’s tenderest words for us in this picture of the prodigal son in his father’s embrace. See the father’s brow creased with the intensity of his feelings, the entire brow of the fine old noble head drawn inward, eyes crushed closed. See the hand, blue-veined with age but yet strong, work-thickened fingers spread and clutching as wide a span as possible of his son’s dear flesh. Can’t you feel the father pressing his head close to the boy’s?

Do you see the son, a little shorter, perhaps not yet having reached his adult height, reaching up and around his father’s neck? Don’t you know the father is clenching his son as close to his chest as he can? Don’t you know tears are overspilling their eyes and coursing crookedly across cheeks lifted in smiles of irrepressible joy?

Beloved, that is how our heavenly Father longs to embrace us.  This eager earnestness of our Father toward us is the same whether we have walked away from Him for hours, days or years. Think of young lovers, as eager to see each other when separated for a day as for a week. If that is human love, how much stronger and deeper is the love our Father has for us? Pondering that makes it easier—once I perceive the disgusting mess that dependence on self and this world have led me into—to turn back, in true humility and submission, to my loving, earnestly waiting Father.

Part Five: In Part Five, we will finish Isaiah 30:18 and start looking at the rest of the  chapter, at all that God is earnestly, eagerly longing to do for us when we return to Him.