Isaiah 54:11
O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.
The afflicted, tempest-tossed and uncomforted one is Zion, Jerusalem the holy city, meaning God's people and church, including those who are burdened. The Lord Himself will restore and adorn their ruined condition, laying their stones with beautiful colors and their foundations with sapphires as foundations of great beauty and value. The rebuilding includes making windows of agate, gates of carbuncle, and borders of pleasant stones.
Connected with this restoration, the Lord will Himself teach all the children and give them great peace, establish the city in righteousness, and keep oppression, fear and terror far away so they will not come near, showing that suffering will not be the final condition. Those who gather against her will fall, no weapon formed against her will prosper, and every tongue rising against her in judgment will be condemned, as the heritage of the servants of the Lord whose righteousness is from Him. She is called to awake, put on strength and beautiful garments, shake off dust and loose her captive bands, so that no unclean one will enter her again.
The promise to lay the stones with fair colors and the foundations with sapphires is conditional and will be fulfilled just as soon as the conditions God has given are met. The promise links becoming familiar with God's word and instruction and obeying His law with the peace, security and happiness of His people. The promise applies to God's people in the last days of this earth's history, who have already seen His salvation and are to continue seeing it.
The chapter is to be studied and encouraged when the liberty of the church of Christ is endangered and oppression of the church appears to give victory and rejoicing to transgressors of the Sabbath and evildoers, giving ground for courage instead of discouragement because God has victory for His people. At that time it calls for arousing from sleep and for true missionary work in public ministry and house-to-house labor, presenting the truth for this time in clear lines and in the power of the Spirit through sanctified ability. As part of the message of Isaiah 54 and 55, studied carefully with Isaiah 58, the verse shows what God's people must do to be saved, requiring more than sitting in church Sabbath after Sabbath listening to preaching or ministers hovering about the churches repeating the same truths to believers week after week, but a precious and extended saving work of working intelligently with God, planting the Word in many hearts, dealing out the bread of life to many hungering souls, visiting friends and neighbors and families, creating an interest in present truth, helping others take hold on eternal realities, and lifting up Christ before the world.
The verse is among the words Jesus directs to God's burdened people, assuring them that He will bear their burdens. Individually, it describes a helpless and tempest-tossed soul, who is to cast himself upon Jesus in childlike trust and seek His help and forgiveness with penitence. Its image of an afflicted, tempest-tossed soul also applies to someone overwhelmed by despair, who is urged to believe that Jesus is willing to save and to answer discouraging thoughts with words of faith, hope and truth.