The Inheritance of the Slaves of Yahweh Text: Isaiah 54:1-3
Introduction: The Gospel Paradox
The logic of the gospel is a glorious, head-spinning paradox. The first shall be last, and the last first. The way up is down. To live, you must die. To be rich, you must become poor. And here, in the heart of Isaiah's prophecies, we find another one: the barren woman, the one written off by the world as a failure, is the very one who will fill the earth with children. The desolate house will become a global empire. This is not just a word of comfort for a heartbroken Israel sitting in the rubble of exile. This is a foundational principle of the kingdom of God. It is the story of Sarah, of Rebekah, of Rachel, of Hannah, and ultimately, of the Gentile church, once barren and without hope, now the mother of multitudes.
This passage is pure, uncut postmillennial optimism. It is a direct command from God to His people to get ready for explosive, world-altering growth. This is not a prophecy about some far-off, ethereal kingdom that arrives after the world has gone to pot. This is a command to start buying more real estate now. It is a vision of the gospel's triumph in history, on the ground, in the dirt. It is a promise that the kingdom of Jesus Christ will not be a back-alley, hole-in-the-wall operation. It will be a tent that covers the globe. And we are commanded to act like we believe it.
But this kind of faith does not come naturally to us. We are far more comfortable with managing our decline. We prefer a faith that fits neatly into our two-hour Sunday service and doesn't make too many demands on our architecture or our ambitions. We are content with a little tent, a respectable peg or two, and a manageable number of cords. But God comes to us here, as He did to desolate Israel, and tells us to stop thinking so small. He commands us to get a bigger vision, because the victory of His Son is going to be bigger than we can possibly imagine. This is not a suggestion; it is a command. And it is a command rooted in the finished work of the Suffering Servant, described in the immediately preceding chapter. Because He was desolate, we will be fruitful. Because He was cut off, we will spread abroad.
The Text
"Shout for joy, O barren woman, who has not given birth; Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor; For more numerous are the sons of the desolate one Than the sons of the married woman," says Yahweh. "Enlarge the place of your tent; Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, do not hold back; Lengthen your cords And strengthen your pegs. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left. And your seed will possess nations And will resettle the desolate cities."
(Isaiah 54:1-3 LSB)
The Barren Woman's Song (v. 1)
We begin with a command that must have sounded like madness to its first hearers.
"Shout for joy, O barren woman, who has not given birth; Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor; For more numerous are the sons of the desolate one Than the sons of the married woman," says Yahweh. (Isaiah 54:1)
The command is to sing. But who is commanded to sing? The barren woman. In the ancient world, barrenness was not just a personal sorrow; it was a public shame, a sign of divine disfavor. It was the end of the line. And God tells this woman, this picture of Israel in exile, broken and childless, to erupt in joyful shouting. This is not the quiet hum of someone trying to be optimistic. This is a full-throated, window-rattling cry of victory. Why? Because faith is not based on what we see, but on what God has said. He commands her to sing before the nursery is full. This is the logic of faith: the celebration precedes the fulfillment because the promise of God is more certain than the circumstances of man.
Then comes the reason for this outrageous joy: "For more numerous are the sons of the desolate one Than the sons of the married woman." The Apostle Paul picks up this very verse in Galatians 4 and applies it directly to the church. The "married woman" is Hagar, representing the Old Covenant centered in earthly Jerusalem, a covenant of slavery to the law that could only produce children of the flesh. The "desolate one" is Sarah, the free woman, representing the New Covenant. She was barren, hopeless by every natural standard, but by a miracle of grace, she became the mother of the child of promise.
Paul's application is a thunderclap. The true children of God are not those born according to natural descent or religious performance, the sons of the "married woman." No, the true, teeming family of God will come from the desolate one, the Gentile church, once "without God and without hope in the world." This prophecy is about the great ingathering of the nations. The established, respectable religion of the day would be eclipsed by a miraculous explosion of life from the most unexpected of quarters. God's promise is that the church of Jesus Christ, born from a crucified and risen Messiah, will outnumber and outgrow every other people and nation on earth. This is not triumphalism; it is simple belief in what Yahweh has spoken.
A Mandate for Expansion (v. 2)
Because this promise is true, it demands a practical, physical response. God does not give us glorious promises so we can sit around and spiritualize them into fluffy feelings.
"Enlarge the place of your tent; Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, do not hold back; Lengthen your cords And strengthen your pegs." (Isaiah 54:2 LSB)
This is the language of confident, forward-looking, dominion-oriented faith. God says, "You are going to have more children than you know what to do with, so you had better start the addition on the house right now." Notice the active, energetic verbs: Enlarge. Stretch out. Do not hold back. Lengthen. Strengthen. This is not a people in retreat. This is a people preparing for a massive influx. This is the architectural blueprint for the Great Commission.
Think about what this means. You don't enlarge your tent by accident. It requires planning, effort, and resources. You have to buy more canvas, "stretch out the curtains." You have to get longer ropes, "lengthen your cords." You have to drive your stakes deeper into the ground, "strengthen your pegs," because a bigger tent catches more wind. A growing, expanding church will face greater opposition. The pegs of sound doctrine, fellowship, and prayer must be driven deep, or the whole enterprise will collapse in the first storm.
The command "do not hold back" is a direct rebuke to our timid, scarcity-mindset Christianity. We hold back because we are afraid of failure, afraid of looking foolish, afraid of the cost. We measure our resources and conclude that we can only afford a small tent. God says, "Stop looking at your resources and start looking at my promise. I will provide the children; you provide the space." This is a call for bold, ambitious, sacrificial living. It means building churches, planting schools, starting businesses, and having children, all in the confident expectation that God will bless and fill them.
The Scope of the Victory (v. 3)
Verse three lays out the result of this obedient expansion. The consequences are global and governmental.
"For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left. And your seed will possess nations And will resettle the desolate cities." (Isaiah 54:3 LSB)
The growth is not contained. It will "spread abroad to the right and to the left." This is explosive, irrepressible expansion in every direction. The Hebrew word for "spread abroad" is the same one used when God promises Jacob that his descendants would spread abroad to the west, east, north, and south (Genesis 28:14). This is covenant language. The promise made to the patriarchs is now being fulfilled in the church of Jesus Christ.
And what is the nature of this expansion? "Your seed will possess nations." Let us not be mealy-mouthed about this. The word is "possess," or "inherit." This is not talking about a vague spiritual influence. It means that the children of the barren woman, the spiritual offspring of Abraham through faith in Christ, will inherit the nations. This is the fulfillment of Psalm 2, where the Father says to the Son, "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance." How does Christ take possession of His inheritance? Through the triumphant advance of His gospel. As the church makes disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything Christ commanded, those nations are progressively brought under the lordship of Jesus. They are discipled. They are inherited.
Furthermore, this victorious seed "will resettle the desolate cities." Sin desolates. It turns gardens into deserts and thriving cities into ruins. Think of the moral and cultural wasteland our own civilization is becoming. The gospel does the reverse. It is a re-civilizing agent. Where the gospel takes root, order replaces chaos, productivity replaces sloth, and life replaces death. The church is God's urban renewal project for the entire planet. We are called to take the desolate places, the ruins left by sin and paganism, and rebuild them into outposts of the City of God. This is the cultural mandate, reissued and empowered by the gospel.
Conclusion: Stop Making Excuses
This passage leaves us with no room for a pessimistic, defeated eschatology. It leaves us with no room for a faith that is content to huddle in a corner and wait for the end. It is a direct command from the Lord of Hosts to get up, get out, and get building.
The promise is rooted in the substitutionary work of Christ in Isaiah 53. The power comes from the Holy Spirit. The blueprint is right here. We are the children of the desolate woman. The history of the church for the last two thousand years is the story of this prophecy coming true. From a handful of disciples in an upper room, the church has spread to every corner of the globe. And the work is not finished.
The question for us is simple: do we believe this? Do our church budgets reflect it? Do our family plans reflect it? Does our work ethic reflect it? Are we lengthening our cords and strengthening our pegs? Or are we quietly packing up the tent, assuming the story is almost over?
God is calling us to sing the song of the barren woman. He is calling us to the kind of faith that laughs at impossibilities, just as Sarah did. He is calling us to expect great things from Him and, therefore, to attempt great things for Him. The nations are Christ's inheritance. The desolate cities will be rebuilt. The tent is going to cover the earth. Let us pick up our hammers and get to work.