Isaiah 41:14

The Bible says in Isaiah 41:14, “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” One of the themes of Isaiah chapter 41 is the commandment to believers to “Fear not.” Three times in this chapter this command is given, and the same command to “fear not” is given at least ten more times in the rest of the book of Isaiah. It is important to notice that it is a command. God does not want His children to fear. He wants us to be brave and strong. He wants us to be able to stand tall when a storm is raging around us, and to able to confidently say, “Jesus will provide. Jesus will help us.” God promises that He will help us. He says in verse 14, “I will help thee.” Notice that He said in the previous verse, in Isaiah 41:13, “Fear not; I will help thee.” And He said to us in Isaiah 41:10, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”

Since we are given a command to “fear not,” then that means that we have some control over either fearing or not fearing. We can obey or disobey this command. We can believe or not believe. We can trust or not trust. We can look at our circumstances and fear, or we can look to the Lord Jesus Christ and remember His promise that He will help us.

In Isaiah 41:14 Jacob is called a “worm.” This term is used to emphasize the smallness of man compared to the greatness of God. We are in a passage of scripture in the book of Isaiah where the sovereignty of God is being emphasized. In order to properly understand and rely upon the sovereignty of God, it is always good to also understand the nothingness of man and the smallness of man in comparison to God. The amazing thing is that even though we really are nothing, God still loves us; and He elevates us to be sons of God through Jesus Christ. David wrote in Psalms 8:3-5, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.”

In Isaiah 41:14 after God calls Jacob a “worm” and after God said that He would help the people of Israel, God identified Himself probably to explain why believers can be confident that God will help them. God called Himself, “the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” The word that is translated “LORD” is the Hebrew word “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” depending upon how one wishes to pronounce the Hebrew word. Jehovah is the eternally existing One: the great I AM. Jesus is always here beside us involved with His creation and involved in the lives of His children. He can never not be here and He can never not take care of us, because that is Who He is.

Jesus is our “redeemer.” The basic meaning of the word “redeem” is to purchase or to buy. The Bible says in First Corinthians 6:20, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” We belong to the Lord. We are His possession. A responsible person will take care of his or her possessions and protect them from harm or from damage. Of course, God is the most responsible of all. He will take care of His believers because we belong to Him.

It is interesting that God also calls Himself in Isaiah 41:14 “the Holy One of Israel.” Perhaps the Word of God is telling us that because God is holy, He is going to do the right thing and be responsible. It is a good thing and a holy thing to properly handle one’s responsibilities. An irresponsible person is not a holy person. One of the reasons that we are here on this earth is to do things the way that God does them. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God created. He constructed. He designed. He built. He took something and He made it better. The Bible says in Genesis 1:31, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” We should also be creating. That is, we should be constructing, building up, and making better. We must do so in order to be holy.

Everyone who serves the Lord Jesus Christ will have opposition. And everyone will have enemies. That is a fact. They will accuse you. They will attack you. They will persecute you. Jesus told you to love them and to pray for them, but what is going to happen to them if they do not repent and turn to Jesus themselves? Isaiah 41:15-16 tells us, “Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the LORD, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.” The enemies of God will be destroyed. It is that simple. There is a hell. Sadly, people will choose to go there forever. The enemies of God and of Christ are on the losing side of the war. The final chapter has been written. You can read the end of the book of Revelation and see how it will all turn out. If you believe in Jesus, you are on the winning side, and you will share in the victory. It says in Revelation 19:11-14, “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.” The Bible often refers to the wicked as “chaff” because chaff was known to everyone as that which is thrown away at the harvest. For example, it says in Psalms 1:1-6, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”

The Bible says in Isaiah 41:17-20, “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.” We are being told in these verses how much the Lord cares about those who are hurting, those who are in need, and those who are suffering. God is love, and of course, a true quality of love is to care about others. God says in Isaiah 41:17, “I will hear them.” This implies that those in need are calling out to God for help. God also promises that He “will not forsake them.” This is a very important promise that Jesus also made in the New Testament. Jesus says in Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave thee not forsake thee.” God also promises that He will change the circumstances from being meager and poor to being abundant and plentiful. That is why He says in Isaiah 41:18, ”I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.”

In the previous verses once again we were shown a situation where man is in need, and the problems will only be solved when God solves them. And the Lord wants us to know and to recognize His hand in taking care of us. That is why it says in Isaiah 41:20, “That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this.” That will probably be one of the emphases at the judgment. As each person stands before the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be shown in great detail just how much the Lord was involved and just how much He did for us in every event of our lives, whether we thought that event to be good or bad.

The Bible says in Isaiah 41:21-24, “Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you.” The purpose of these verses is to say this: if you are going to trust in someone, you should trust in the One who knows the future. That is why it says in Isaiah 41:23, “Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods.” Anyone that is purported to be a god is of no value if he does not really know what the future holds. That is one of the great benefits of trusting daily in the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not know what the future holds, but we do know who holds the future. That is why we can trust what He is allowing to happen in our lives. He knows the future, and therefore He knows what is best for us.

Concerning the future, The Holy Spirit began to reveal some truths starting in Isaiah 41:25 about the central Person of the future: the Savior Jesus Christ. It says in Isaiah 41:25-27, “I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name: and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treadeth clay. Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that sheweth, yea, there is none that declareth, yea, there is none that heareth your words. The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them: and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings.” The scripture tells us about “one from the north.” Jesus came from Galilee: from the northern part of Israel. It is interesting that the spiritual quality mentioned about Christ in Isaiah 41:25 is: “shall he call upon my name.” The prayer life of Jesus is mentioned. He is the Son of God, but looking at His human life, He relied upon the Father through prayer. If someone were to describe your life, would they say that your greatest quality is the amount and the quality of speaking to the Lord in prayer?

It also says about Christ in Isaiah 41:25, “and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treadeth clay.” This phrase mentions two facts about Christ: He is King of kings (“he shall come upon princes”), and He will come in judgment and will crush the enemies of God “as the potter treadeth clay.”

Isaiah 41:26-27 emphasizes the fact that there is no human being who has the wisdom or the knowledge to say what needs to be said or to declare what needs to be declared. Of course, Jesus brought the message that we all need to hear. Jesus is the “one that bringeth good tidings.” Have you received the good tidings of the message of the gospel? Turn to Jesus today and He will tell you about salvation, and grace, and forgiveness.

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