Although the difficulties and trials of life are real, they do not result from any deficiency on God’s part. God is not incapable, nor is He unconcerned.
Perhaps this was the thinking of the people to whom Isaiah wrote. If God was so powerful, why were His people in foreign captivity? They had not stopped worshipping (Isaiah 1:11-15). They had not stopped fasting (Isaiah 58:3). Nevertheless, God did not intervene.
Why?
Their questions were likely similar to the one asked by the prophet Habakkuk. Feeling as if justice was not being served and that wickedness had the upper hand (Habakkuk 1:4), he asked God:
“Why do you look on those who deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he?” (Habakkuk 1:13).
Sin Means We Are Guilty
The text of Isaiah 59 provides the honest answer the Israelites did not want to receive. Rather than being innocent, they were no better than their eventual captors.
God’s unwillingness to respond to their prayers or fasts was not because of His limitations. It resulted from their sins. They were guilty. Isaiah clearly proclaimed:
“But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you so that he will not hear” (59:2).
What follows in the chapter is a laundry list of their misdeeds—sins of both omission and commission.
Sin Means God Must Act
But besides cataloguing their sins, the prophet also describes how sin had degraded their society. Instead of being a place where truth and justice were honored and practiced, the opposite was true. He wrote:
“Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey” (59:14-15).
In this passage, Isaiah depicts God taking matters into His own hands. If no one is going to intervene on behalf of justice, He would (59:16)! God thus acted both swiftly and decisively.
Sin Means We Need God’s Help
The text depicts an intervention. Whether the people realized it or would admit it, they needed help. Thankfully, God was willing to act on their behalf.
We should be thankful our Savior is willing to do the same for us today. John beautifully described this when he wrote:
“My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).
Sin still matters; sin still mars.
Consequently, we must be willing to acknowledge our sins as Isaiah did (Isaiah 59:9). Only then will we truly find value in the redemption offered by our Savior (see Ephesians 1:7)—redemption we cannot obtain on our own.
Only then will we be able to approach God confidently in prayer, knowing that “[t]he effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16).
Chad Ramsey preaches for the Gloster Street Church of Christ in Tupelo, Mississippi. You can access their Bible classes and Chad’s sermons on Gloster Street’s YouTube page.
Chad was - and still is - “my preacher” from when I spent my high school and early college years at Gloster Street. I’m thankful to be able to share some of his writings with you.
Chad, I hear your certainty: sin separates, repentance restores, God intervenes. It’s a clean map, but life doesn’t move in clean lines. When a child dies in rubble, whose sin drew that separation? When the innocent are crushed, what kind of God hides His face until guilt is confessed?
You quote Isaiah: “Your iniquities have separated you from your God.” But what if separation isn’t punishment, what if it’s the ache that makes us human? Maybe sin isn’t always rebellion. Sometimes it’s the crack through which mercy learns our name. Do you believe redemption can exist without shame, without the need to be found guilty first?