The Gospel Makes the Desert Sing Text: Isaiah 35:5-7
Introduction: Two Kinds of Thirst
Our modern world is a thirsty one. It is a parched and barren land, a spiritual Arabah. Men are dying of thirst, and they are trying to quench that thirst with dust. They drink from the broken cisterns of materialism, of sexual license, of political utopianism, and they find that the water is not only unsatisfying, it is poison. The secular project is an attempt to build a civilization in a desert, with no access to a river. They want the fruit of the garden without the water of life. They want human flourishing without God, which is like wanting a healthy body without a beating heart.
The prophet Isaiah presents us here with a stark and glorious alternative. He is not offering a minor renovation project for the wilderness. He is not suggesting we simply cope with the desert or manage our expectations of it. He is promising a cataclysmic, supernatural transformation. He is promising an invasion of life. This is a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah and the kingdom He brings. It is a description of the gospel's impact on a fallen world. And we must understand that this is not just poetry for a future, far-off millennial age. This is a description of what began when Christ came the first time, what has been continuing for two thousand years, and what will be consummated when He returns.
The world sees this passage, if it sees it at all, as a piece of quaint, religious wishful thinking. A nice sentiment, perhaps, but utterly disconnected from the brutal realities of life. But for the Christian, this is not a wish; it is a historical reality and a future certainty. The miracles described here are not just allegories; they were literal signs that pointed to a greater spiritual reality. When Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, He did these very things, and He did them as a down payment, as the first fruits of a cosmic restoration project. This passage, then, is a manifesto of gospel power. It tells us what happens when the King arrives. The desert does not get a new irrigation system; it gets a new nature.
The Text
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness And streams in the Arabah. Then the scorched land will become a pool And the thirsty ground springs of water; In the haunt of jackals, its resting place, Grass becomes reeds and rushes.
(Isaiah 35:5-7 LSB)
The Signs of the King (v. 5-6a)
We begin with the personal, physical restoration that marks the arrival of God's kingdom.
"Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy." (Isaiah 35:5-6a)
When John the Baptist was in prison, wrestling with doubt, he sent his disciples to ask Jesus if He was the "Expected One." Jesus' answer was not a philosophical discourse. He pointed directly to this passage from Isaiah. "Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them" (Matthew 11:4-5). Jesus was, in effect, saying, "Read your Bible. Read Isaiah. I am doing the things the Messiah was prophesied to do." These miracles were His credentials. They were signs that the kingdom of God had broken into human history.
But these physical healings, as glorious as they were, pointed to a deeper, more profound healing. The fundamental human problem is not physical blindness, but spiritual blindness. We are born blind to the glory of God, deaf to His commands, and lame in our ability to walk in His ways. Our tongues are mute when it comes to praising Him rightly. Paul tells us the natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him (1 Corinthians 2:14). His eyes are blind. His ears are stopped.
The gospel, then, is the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy. When the Holy Spirit regenerates a human heart, He performs this very miracle. He opens our blind eyes to see the truth and beauty of Christ. He unstops our deaf ears to hear the voice of our Shepherd. He gives strength to our lame wills so that we can begin to walk in obedience. And He loosens our tongues. The tongue of the spiritually mute, which could only curse or mumble in self-justification, is set free to "shout for joy." What does it shout? It shouts the praises of God. It makes the good confession: "Jesus is Lord." This is the first and greatest miracle of the new creation.
The Cause of the Transformation (v. 6b-7a)
The prophet now gives the reason for this explosion of life and healing. It is not a result of human effort, but of a divine intrusion.
"For waters will break forth in the wilderness And streams in the Arabah. Then the scorched land will become a pool And the thirsty ground springs of water..." (Isaiah 35:6b-7a)
The wilderness in Scripture is more than just a dry place. It is a symbol of curse, of exile, of being outside the place of God's blessing. It is the condition of the world under sin. The "scorched land" is the human heart, baked hard by rebellion, unable to produce any spiritual fruit. The reason the blind see and the lame leap is because God has done something dramatic to the environment. He has caused water to gush forth in a place where there was none.
This is the water of life, which is a clear biblical symbol for the Holy Spirit. Jesus stood up at the feast and cried out, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water'" (John 7:37-38). And John tells us plainly, "But this He spoke of the Spirit." The coming of the Messiah means the outpouring of the Spirit. The day of Pentecost was the day these waters broke forth from the throne of God and began to flow into the wilderness of this world.
Wherever the gospel goes, this river flows. It turns the parched ground of individual souls into pools of living water. It turns barren communities into fruitful gardens. This is the engine of Christian civilization. All the beauty, art, law, and liberty that grew up in the West did so because this river was flowing there. Our secularists are trying to maintain the garden while cutting off the river at its source. It is an act of suicidal folly. The flowers will wither, the fruit will rot, and the desert will reclaim the land. The only hope for our scorched land is a return to the source of the water.
The New Inhabitants (v. 7b)
The transformation is so complete that the very nature of the place changes, right down to its inhabitants.
"...In the haunt of jackals, its resting place, Grass becomes reeds and rushes." (Isaiah 35:7b)
Jackals are creatures of the desolate waste. They are scavengers that thrive in places of ruin and death. They are a biblical symbol of judgment and desolation (Isaiah 13:22, Jeremiah 9:11). The image here is potent. The place that was once fit only for unclean scavengers, a place of death, is now so saturated with life-giving water that it produces reeds and rushes. These are plants that can only grow in a marsh or on a riverbank. They are signs of abundant, overflowing life.
This is a picture of the church. The gospel goes into the haunts of jackals, into the lives and cultures defined by spiritual death and scavenging sin. And it does not just scare the jackals away. It transforms the very ground so that jackals can no longer live there. It becomes a place of abundant life. The old inhabitants are replaced by new creations. Where once there were jackals, feeding on death, now there are sheep, drinking from the living water and resting in green pastures.
This is the postmillennial confidence of the prophet. He does not see the wilderness as a permanent feature of the landscape. He sees the kingdom of God as an unstoppable force of transformation. The waters of the Spirit, flowing through the preaching of the gospel, will turn every desert into a garden. The haunts of jackals, whether in the human heart or in the public square, will become places where the reeds and rushes of true worship grow.
Conclusion: Drink and Shout
This prophecy is not a sentimental daydream. It is the strategic plan of Almighty God for the redemption of the world. It began with the miracles of Jesus, it was unleashed at Pentecost, and it has been advancing ever since, one transformed soul at a time, one reclaimed acre of desert at a time.
The application for us is therefore twofold. First, you must drink. If you are living in a spiritual wilderness, if your life is scorched and thirsty, the invitation of the gospel is for you. Jesus is the spring of water. You cannot earn this water; you can only receive it as a gift. Repent of your sin and believe in Him, and the river of the Spirit will begin to flow in your heart, opening your eyes, unstopping your ears, and loosening your tongue.
Second, having drunk, you must shout. "The tongue of the mute will shout for joy." The natural result of being healed by the gospel is to proclaim the glory of the Healer. We who have been given water in the wilderness have a glorious obligation to be conduits of that water to the thirsty people all around us. We are to be a people whose lives are so marked by the joy and life of the Spirit that we make the desert bloom. Our families, our church, our work, our community, these are the arid places where God has called us to be reeds and rushes, signs that the river of God is flowing here. The world is thirsty, and we have the only water that can satisfy. Let us therefore drink freely, and then let us joyfully shout the good news that the King has come to make the desert sing.