Two Journeys

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 65:1-16. The main subject of the sermon is how we behold God in His salvation and His judgment.

One of the hardest aspects of our faith, our Christian faith, is the invisibility of God. The God of the Bible is described as a majestic, radiant being who dwells in unapproachable light, His glory fills the Heavenly realms with such overpowering radiance that the holiest angels have to cover their faces even to be in His presence. This awesome creator God, this awesome ruler God, He is the source of everything in existence and He rules over all things actively. It is by His power that every atom in the universe holds together and keeps from flying apart. It is by God's power that the very being of all creation in the world has come.

Such a majestic God is also the source of all beauty. The saints and angels are arrayed in concentric circles, it seems, in the heavenly realms around God, constantly celebrating His beauty, and His omnipotence, and they're doing this with incessant praise. They never stop saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, who was and who is and who is to come... The Almighty." But this radiant, beautiful, powerful God is invisible. And that's hard for us. 1 Timothy 1:17 says, "Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen." John 1:18, "No man has seen God at any time." 1 Timothy 6:16 says, "[God] who alone is immortal, who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one ever has seen or can see. To Him be honor and might forever. Amen."

Our eyesight, our physical eyesight, is the source of much of what we know about the universe. And by our eyesight, light floods into our minds in various colors and shapes and teaches us what the physical world around us is like. We get so much information from our eyesight. Jesus said in Matthew 6:22, "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness." Now, in CS Lewis's classic, Till We Have Faces, one of the characters named Psyche, the Greek word for soul, talks about the strong feelings of desire, "It was when I was happiest that I longed the most. Do you remember? The color and the smell, and looking across at the Grey Mountain in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me to longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, 'Psyche, come!' But I couldn't not yet come. I felt like a bird in a cage when all the other birds of its kind are flying home. The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing to reach that mountain to find the place where all the beauty comes from. Do you think it meant nothing, all this longing, the longing for home? For now death feels not like going, but going home."

Beautiful, isn't it? There's a source of all this beauty, and we want to go there, we want to see it, we want to see God. But this hidden God we have to see now only by faith. This hidden God, this invisible God, is the source of all this beauty, all the life, all the creativity, all the love and peace and joy that's ever to be found in the universe, God is the source of it all. To be able to see him would be the perfection of sight itself, but we cannot. God is the invisible Creator, the invisible Sustainer, the invisible Emperor of all visible things that fill our eyes. But none of this is an accident, this longing to see what we cannot see. There is a spiritual realm around us. We talked about it last week, remember, in Isaiah 64:1, "Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down." Rend means to rip, to tear, "Make a tear in the heavens and come down."

We talked about it in terms of the baptism of Jesus. Remember when Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were torn open, in Mark's Gospel, and the Holy Spirit descended. We talked about it in terms of Stephen's moment of death, you remember, as he's being martyred, in Acts 7:55-56. "Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 'Look' he said, 'I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'" As though there's some kind of... I don't know what to call it, a membrane or a wall or something between us and the spiritual realms.

And through that membrane, we cannot pass, not yet anyway. We cannot reason our way through it, we cannot fly high enough to get over it. Or search for some secret portal, like in the Narnia Tales, CS Lewis, there's always some portal in different stories, like of course, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. There's the wardrobe. If you go back far enough into the closet, you'll come through into Narnia. And then we're into the spiritual realms.

But there isn't such a place. God is the invisible, he is the unseen, He dwells in a spiritual realm that surrounds us, we cannot reach it. And we cannot know anything about this mysterious hidden realm except that God, and here's the word, "reveals it to us." That He reveals things to us. That is the word that the bible and theologians always use, Revelation. That's the name of the final book of the Bible to which I'm going after the Book of Isaiah. So pray for me because I don't know what the book means. I know the big themes, it's the details that get me. And I'm going to preach in my usual verse by verse, chapter after chapter-style, and I'm hoping that by the time I get to some of those chapters that I'll know what they mean. So pray for me.

Natural Revelation and Special Revelation

But we're going to Revelation. But that's the word, "revelation," it is the purpose of that book, and really indeed of all Scripture, to reveal the hidden to us. To pull back the veil, the unveiling. A pulling back of the veil so we can see the hidden, the invisible God. But God has chosen to reveal things to us, to reveal Himself to us, to communicate to us of His existence and His nature and His purposes. Now, he does this in what theologians call "natural revelation," revelation in nature. So nature communicates to us. "The heavens are telling the glories of God." Psalm 19. Or Romans 1:20, "For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse." That's natural revelation.

But God does it even better, by what theologians call "special revelation." By the scripture and by Jesus. The special revelation of God by the words of the Bible. He unveils His truth through the words of the prophets and the apostles. Amos 3:7, "Surely the sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants, the prophets." Now God has done this revelation most clearly, in the person and work of His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the author... The Hebrews tells us, God's effectively final Word to the human race. "In the past, he spoke through the prophets at various times, many times, various ways, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son… The Son is the radiance of God's glory, and the Son is the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word." Colossians 1:15, Jesus Christ "is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation."

The Word "Behold"

Now, I've talked about this before, but this is why I'm beginning the sermon this way. One word, in the King James Version, again and again, that just comes out again and again, but usually is omitted in these newer translations, is the word "behold." And we're going to follow the word "behold" here. "Behold." Honestly, other than reading scripture, when was the last time you said, "behold?" Imagine a housewife, "Behold, dinner is ready." Wouldn't that be exciting? That would be amazing. Or a husband coming home, "Behold, I am here." Something like that. It'd be a bit odd. I mean, I think of it in terms of a magician, maybe even an amateur magician, "Behold!" and out comes the rabbit out of the hat. Something like that. Behold. I don't know, you have to say it with a deep voice. "Behold." But there's a sense of something being unveiled, something being displayed. And these English translations either just omit it entirely or they use the word "look." I'm going to say it like that, "Look, I'm doing something great." It just isn't the same, friends.

So I'm starting a campaign. The next translation needs to keep the word "behold" wherever it's found. And where is it found? In Isaiah 65, it's found in the King James Version nine times in these verses. Behold, behold, behold, it's like God's unveiling some amazing things in this chapter. And we're going to look at it this week and next week, we're not getting through all of Isaiah 65 this week. But look across, you're not going to see it in... ESV actually holds on to most of them, thankfully, praise God. But NIV does and others don't.

So, in Isaiah 61, it's there twice, and none of the translations, I think, have it. I think KJV does, but it's literally "Behold me, behold me," in the Hebrew. "I said, 'Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.'" And then Isaiah 65:6, "Behold, it is written before me, I will not keep silent, but I will repay." And then four times in verses 13 and 14, "Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry, behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty, behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame. Behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart, and wail for breaking of spirit." And then verse 17, "For behold, I create a new heavens and a new Earth, and the former thing shall not be remembered nor shall they come to mind." And then verse 18, "But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people a gladness."

Nine times, God says "behold," as though he's saying to the human race, "Watch what wonders I'm going to unfold before you. I'm going to unveil some amazing things before your very eyes, things you have not known. You wouldn't have any other way of knowing, except that I'm communicating them to you. Watch, oh human race, watch and be amazed at this. Look on with wonder at what I will display to you." So, I'm going to organize this sermon and an entryway into next week's sermon, God willing, by these words, "behold." So first, "behold me." God's saying, "behold me," as He reveals His saving grace to the gentiles. Secondly, "Behold my judgments," on wicked Israelites that have forsaken Him for idols in verses two through seven. And then thirdly, "Behold my servants singing while the wicked are shamed." Put to shame, verses eight through 16. So that's this week's message. And then next week "Behold my new universe that I am creating." And we're going to step into that and try to understand some of the most amazing and perplexing verses in the Book of Isaiah.

So let's begin with "behold me," God's saving grace of the Gentiles, verse one. God allows himself here to be sought by saying, "Behold me, behold me... " The first greatest revelation in this chapter happens in verse one, when God says twice, "Behold me, behold me... " Look at verse one, and I'll put in the "behold me" in the translation. "I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me. I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Behold me, behold me."

God Allows Himself to Be Sought

This is the amazing grace, this is the patience, and this is the humility of God, this majestic and holy God. The incredible grace of God who presents himself with astonishing persistence and humility to the nations of the world that don't seek Him or care about Him at all. They've not sought Him, they're not looking for Him, they don't know about Him, they're ignorant of Him. And He's standing and saying right before them, "Behold me." And the verse literally says, "I allowed myself to be consulted... I permitted myself to be consulted by you."

In other words, God took the initiative to reveal himself and draw from the Gentiles a yearning, a desire to seek Him and find Him. If God does not permit Himself to be consulted, if he does not permit Himself to be sought, we will never seek Him and we will never find Him. So the initiative is with God. Now, Paul the Apostle quotes this verse in Romans 10:20 to speak of the grace of God displayed in the amazing harvest of gentiles into the church of Jesus Christ, incredible grace of God, Romans 10:20. "And Isaiah boldly says, 'I was found by those who did not seek me. I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.'" He's talking there about Gentiles converted to a Jewish Messiah, becoming grafted into a Jewish olive tree, becoming honorary adopted sons and daughters of Abraham. They didn't know anything about these things. And Paul is talking about this incredible gentile harvest that's been going on now for 20 centuries, and we're part of it.

So these gentiles, they were not seeking the true God at all, they were pursuing their idols with darkened minds. Their idolatrous worship services were exceedingly corrupt, and lustful, and debauched, involving temple prostitutes and drunkenness and gluttonous revelries. God's humble persistence in revealing Himself to the gentiles is stunning, for the text says literally, "Behold me, behold me... " and I think he does that in the preaching of the gospel of Christ. God, in Christ, persistently stands before the audience. And as the gospel is being preached by missionaries, by evangelists, God, in Christ, through that evangelist preaching is standing before people and saying, "Behold me, here I am in Christ, ready to save you, ready to be the focus of your entire existence, ready to be your King, your Savior, everything. All you have to do is seek me, and you will surely find me."

Sought Now by Gentiles Who Were Not Seeking Him Before

So He is sought now by gentiles, who were not seeking Him before. They did not seek for Him. They were not looking for Him in their villages, in their compounds, in their cities around the world. And these unreached people groups around the world, they were not seeking the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were not seeking the true creator God, not at all. Romans 3:11 says, "There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God." None of them were, but God revealed Himself to them and by His sovereign Spirit, drew them. And the first they knew about it was a growing hunger and thirst inside to know this God. They wanted to know him. Where did that come from? God gave it to them as a gift. And they found Him through Christ.

This is amazing grace, this is amazing persistence, amazing humility to the gentiles, to people all over the world. So the centerpiece of the gospel is God. I mean, honestly, God is the Gospel. "Behold me," God's saying that to us, who were previously in the darkness, now in the light. That's salvation, God unveiling Himself in Christ to us. And God does the seeking first. Luke 19:10, Jesus said, "The Son of man came to seek and to save the lost."

And then, in that incredible encounter in John Chapter 4, Jesus with the Samaritan woman. Remember that day? She got up and was coming to the well just to get some water, and oh no, there's someone there. She's trying to avoid all people. Not just someone but a Jew of all things, Jewish man. She wants to get in there, get the water as quickly as she can, and get home. But then he stuns her by speaking to her, and then stuns her even more by what he says to her. And little by little by little draws her to hunger and thirst for the living God. It comes to a point in the conversation when Jesus talks about His true aim in being there. He had to go through Samaria. Why? Because he had to find her, and not just her but her Samaritan neighbors. And this is what he said, John 4:23-24, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father is seeking." He is seeking them, all over the world through evangelism and missions, He's seeking people. And through the Gospel, standing before them saying, "Behold me, behold me, come and worship me."

And so we seek God, and we do for the rest of our lives hungry and thirsty to know Him better, to know like Philippians 3, Paul says, "I want to know Christ." There's a hunger and a thirst and I hope that's what drew you to worship today, you wanted to come and worship this living God. Well, that seeking and yearning, that was first in the heart of God, your Heavenly Father. And because He yearned for you, now you're yearning for Him because He sought you, now you are seeking Him, because He loved you, now you love Him. We love because He first loved us. So just stop, if I could just stop and apply this right here, we're going to do some application right in the middle of the sermon. Just stop and wonder in amazement at this humble, patient, God, who stood in front of your soul all those days, persistently revealed Himself to you until at last you saw Him, at last you loved Him and you followed Him through Christ. Just stop right now and thank God for His grace in revealing Christ to you by His Spirit, you are now seeking Him because He first sought you so, give Him thanks and marvel that He has only begun to reveal Himself to you.

You have infinitely more to see about this God, He will be like for eternity saying, "Behold me," and you will never be done. So, that makes heaven a very exciting dynamic place, doesn't it? We'll be learning forever, "Behold me, behold me."

Now in Isaiah 65, God turns with, I think great sadness to address the rebellious Israelites, and to convict them of their persistent wickedness in rejecting this God and instead pursuing idols. So Verses 2-7, "Behold my judgments on wicked Israelites." God was amazingly patient with them as well. In Verse 2, He says, "All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people who walk in ways not good pursuing their own imaginations." Now Romans 10, I think is just the best commentary on these verses, the best way to interpret them. Apostle Paul tells us how to interpret Verse 1 and Verse 2 of Isaiah 65. Paul applies verse one to the Gentiles, and their amazing harvest into the church, but then he turns and contrast the receptivity of the Gentiles to the hardness of the Jews, and they're just consistent rejection, not universal, but almost universal rejection of Christ as their messiah.

And he's addressing that and he uses Verse 2 and applies it to Israel in Romans 10:21, he says this, "All day long" concerning Israel, he says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a stubborn or a disobedient and defiant people, stiff neck people, uncircumcised hearts and ears." Again in this though we see the remarkable patience and humility of God with Israel. For generations through the prophets, through these messengers, God had stood before stubborn Israel, like the father of the prodigal son waiting at the end of the driveway for the son to come home, yearning with his arms spread out, wanting the prodigal to come home, and yet they were stiff neck, they refused, they were hard hearted, they wouldn't yield. They walked in evil ways, they pursued pagan religions of their own imaginations, not part of God's revelation and yet God continues to persistently hold out His hands to them, reach out to them, but they refused. So, what is the nature of this idolatry? Look at Verses 2-7. These are evil pagan religions that have polluted Israel for centuries, they had consistently sinned right in God's face, defiantly embracing Canaanite rituals, pagan rituals, godless rituals.

Look at verse 3 and 4, "A people who continually provoke me into my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick who sit among the graves, and spend their nights keeping secret vigils, who eat the flesh of pigs and whose pots hold broths of unclean meat." So this is a paganism, a ritual, dark occultic religion that includes repulsive practices such as necromancy, and eating pig meat and other defiled meats in defiance of God's holy law. So they're spending their nights among the graves summoning the dead in some weird way, and they're chewing and swallowing pig meat in direct defiance of the dietary regulations that God had given them in the Laws of Moses. They eat the flesh of pigs and whose pots hold broths of unclean meat and their hearts are actually weirdly made proud by these bizarre rituals, they're actually proud of them. It's like one of those secret occultic religions where it's like higher and higher circles of knowledge. And as you went further and further into these deep secrets of Satan, you got more and more sacred in some weird occultic way.

And so in verse 5, they say, "Keep away, don't come near me, for I am too sacred for you." In the KJV, this is one of the more famous translations, KJV says, "Come not near to me for I am holier than thou." Ever heard of that expression, "Holier than thou?" That's coming right from this verse. But it's a weird context, it's talking about Jews who are doing pagan rituals and think it's making them holy. How weird is that? So they rejected God's definition of holiness, choosing instead one from paganism and their attitudes and actions were utterly repulsive and provocative to God. Verse 5, "Such people are smoking my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day." It's a powerful image. Have you ever gone camping? And you make a fire, a camp fire and the wood that's available isn't the greatest, it's a little green, maybe pine, a lot of sap in it and it's a windy day and you get the fire going but it does not matter where you stand, the wind's going to find you the smokes, you know what I'm talking about? You keep adjusting your chair, you try all 360 points of the compass, and no matter where you put it, the smoke stings your eyes. I can feel it right now, I had it recently. It's like it's... Man, it's awful, it's obnoxious.

Or another story, this is, my wife and I were missionaries in Japan, and we had a neighbor, older man who used to burn his garbage regularly and it did not seem to matter what the prevailing wind was that always found our living room. It just came right and then had a very distinctive, acrid, nasty odor, the burning garbage. And so God is saying, "These people who are living like this are smoking my eyes and in my nostrils, they're incredibly provocative and irritating to me." Fire that keeps burning all day.

Now, it's for this reason we just need to marvel at God's patience with the reprobate, God's patience with wicked people who will not repent. Romans 9:22 says, "God…bore with great patience the objects of His wrath prepared for destruction." He puts up with a lot, they are stinging His eyes every day by the way they're living their lives, and He puts up with a lot. But at some point, God's patience runs out. At some point, the patience is going to stop.

Verse 6 and 7, "Behold my judgments." God will not wait forever. At some point, the Day of Judgement will come. "Behold, it stands written before me, I will not keep silent, but I will pay back in full, I will pay it back into their laps." Verse 7, "'Both your sins and the sins of your fathers,' says the Lord, 'because they burnt sacrifices on the mountains and defined me on the hills, I will measure into their laps the full payment of their former deeds.'" God is a careful record-keeper. Romans 2 says that these people do not realize that day after day, by their stubborn unrepentance, they're storing a wrath against themselves, for the day of God's wrath, when His righteous judgments will be revealed.

That's what He says here. God had been silent, and they misconstrued the silence, they didn't understand what it meant. They said. "Oh, there's no God, or He's not holy or He doesn't care or... " They feel justified in their actions, God doesn't seem to do anything ever. But finally, the day is coming. "Behold", that's the behold here, "Behold the day is coming when the wrath of God will most certainly come." And he says, "It stands written before me…" He uses this language, "Behold it stands written." Reminds me of that famous phrase from the movie, 10 Commandments. You remember 10 Commandments and Pharaoh's there, Yul Brynner, and he would make some pronouncement, and then he would say. I'm not going to do his accent. But he would say, "So let it be written, so let it be done." Remember that? If not, see the movie and see what I'm talking about. So this potentate makes a statement and there's these court stenographers around ready to take every word from the King, because that's law when the king says it. Well, that's what the King of the universe, is saying, "It stands written before me, there's going to be a Judgment Day." It's definitely coming, it's revealed. And God is going to pay back into their laps all the deeds they have done. Again, I'm going to stop and do application right here.

Behold, God cannot be mocked. Do not misunderstand the fact that the wicked seem to get away with their wickedness in this world, do not misunderstand that. God cannot be mocked, we will reap what we sow, and Judgment Day definitely does come. Galatians 6:7. Revelation 2:23 says, "I am He who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each person according to what he has done." Revelation 20 depicts this, "I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne and books were opened, another book was opened, which is the Book of Life, and the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the book." It's payback time for God at that point. And the only possible salvation there is from this meticulous, holy, just, record-keeping God, is the cross of Jesus Christ, that's the only hope that we have. Flee to Christ, flee to Christ now while there's time, that's our message to Durham, that's our message to this community, to people, work places tomorrow, they're under the wrath of God if they're not Christians, urge them to flee to Christ, "Behold my judgments are coming," it's our job to make that clear. All over the world, people are involved in wicked idolatrous worship systems. Stone Age animistic tribes in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, still offer human sacrifices to the gods, to the spirits of the jungle and to the elemental demonic forces of the universe, it's still going on now.

Hundreds of millions of Hindus follow empty demonic rituals that are offensive to God and damning to their souls. David Platt who's president of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention writes about this in his book, Counter Culture. The horror that came over his soul watching a Hindu ritual.

This is David Platt, he said,

"I stood at the Bagmati River in South Asia, where every day funerals are held and bodies are burned. It is the custom among these Hindu people when family or friends die, to take their bodies within 24 hours to the river, where they lay them on funeral piers and set the piers ablaze. In so doing, they believe that they're helping their friend or family member in the cycle of reincarnation. As I saw this scene unfold before me, I stood in overwhelmed silence. For as I watched these flames overtake the bodies, I knew based on Scripture that I was witnessing at that moment, a physical reflection of an eternal reality. Tears streamed down my face as I realized that most, if not all the people I was watching burn had died without ever having heard the good news of how they could have lived forever with God."

This demonic ritual is a smoke burning in God's nostrils all day long. In the very next chapter of Isaiah, God willing if we'll have time to talk about, the way the book ends, Isaiah 66:24, it says, "They will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me, their worm will not die, neither will their fire be quenched and they will be loathsome to all mankind." Christ alone can save us from that eternal fire. Now, just stop for a moment, stop for a moment. It's just easy to put the paganism out there, out in the jungles of Irian Jaya, along the rivers of India, with the Hindu rituals, there is a paganism right here in America, it's just obvious if you know what to look for. There is a growing overt paganism in this country. People who live for money, for food, for sex, for sports, for earthly pleasure, paganism, not just in the jungles of Irian Jaya or by a river in India, but also in the investment offices of Wall Street. Also in restaurants in Brightleaf Square, in huge sporting venues in Houston, Texas, there is paganism in these places too.

And Christ alone can rescue the people who are involved in pagan worship in Wall Street and in restaurants and at Super Bowls. He can rescue them from their paganism. It's not true that everyone in Wall Street, everyone at the restaurant, everyone at the Super Bowl is pagan, I'm not saying that, but many are. 'Cause that's what their hearts are all after, that's what they're living for.

Thirdly, behold my servants singing while the wicked are shamed. Verses 8-16. God makes distinctions. Good grapes here in these verses, good grapes are saved, the bad ones are rejected. So the Jews in Verses 2-7 are wicked and essentially pagan, but not all Jews follow these pagan rituals. God is able to make distinctions.

Not all the Jews are bad grapes. In the large cluster of Israel, there was still some juice in some of them. God found a righteous remnant among all this paganism. Look at Verse 8. "This is what the Lord says, 'As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes, and men say, 'Don't destroy it. There's still some good in it.' So will I do on behalf of my servants. I will not destroy them all.'" Now Jesus told many parables of separation on Judgment Day. The parable of the wheat in the weeds, where it's all mixed up and they want to root them up. He said, "No, wait till the end." And He will separate the wheat from the weeds, and He'll gather the weed into His barn, but He'll burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Or the parable of the dragnet. "The kingdom of Heaven is like a net let down into a lake and it caught all kinds of fish." And then the fishermen sit down on the pier, and they separate the good fish from the bad. They collect the good fish in baskets, but they throw the bad away. Or again, the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, "When the son of man comes in his glory… He will sit on His throne in Heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left." So also in Verses 8-16, Isaiah reveals with the repeated word, "Behold." God is able to make distinctions between the righteous and the wicked.

Blessings for the Remnant

Look at Verse 9 and 10. He says, "I will bring forth descendants from Jacob and from Judah those who will possess my mountains, my chosen people will inherit them, and there will my servants live. Sharonwill become a pastor for flocks, and the Valley of Achor, a resting place for herds for my people who seek me." So, for the remnant, the genuine believing Jews and this and that extends them to the elect around the world I think. God promises to produce descendants who will inherit the Mountains of Judah and dwell there richly blessed. The Promised Land from Sharon in the west to Achor in the east will be fertile, a rich pasture-land for their flocks to graze in and lie down in peace. These are old covenant images of blessing in that way. But, given that Paul applies this chapter to Gentiles coming to faith in Christ, I think it's reasonable for us to look on them first as the spiritual blessings of coming to faith in Christ, the richness of the life we have in Christ, and then even better. The literal physical blessings we will have in the new H9eavens and the new Earth. And maybe the millennium. We'll talk about that next week. [chuckle] That'll be exciting. That's like two sermons in one. I have no idea how I'm going to preach the rest of this chapter in one sermon, but I'm going to try next week. We're going to try to walk through the idea of the millennium and try to come to some unity and understanding of that.

But in any case, whether you believe in a literal millennium or you believe in the new Heavens and new Earth, there are rich blessings that are coming, even physical. The righteous will inherit the earth, along with all of the descendants of Abraham. In Romans 4:13 it says, that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world. The meek will inherit the earth. However, there will come judgment and wrath on the bad grapes, in this image, the bad grapes. Verse 11 and 12, "But for you who forsake the Lord, and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for destiny, I will destine you for the sword, and you will all bend down for the slaughter for I called but you did not answer. I spoke but you did not listen. You did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me."

Blessings and Curses

These people turned their backs on God and His rich blessings. They forsook the Lord. It was not an accident, it was a willful choice. They embraced fate and destiny and lady luck. It's the way we would talk about it. Do you realize that Americans will bet if past habits... Americans will bet 4.7 billion dollars on the Super Bowl, or have already bet. Almost 5 billion dollars trusting in luck and fortune to make some money. Now, in this text, these people who forsook the Lord and turned their backs on that, and spread a table for fortune, and they're having a feast of paganism basically. God has destined them for slaughter. He tried again and again to call out to them, but they refused to listen. And so, we have blessings and curses.

And here we have again and again through this word, "Behold. Look." See this. Behold, how much blessing the righteous are going to receive, and how the wicked will be excluded. And what's really striking here, is God is telling it to the wicked who are excluded. "Behold, my servants will have this blessing, but you excluded ones will not." And it just seems very striking, that language. Here, look at Verses 13 and 14, "Therefore, thus says the Lord God, 'Behold, my servants shall eat, but you will go hungry. Behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame.'" Verse 14, "Behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you, shall cry out for pain of heart and wail for breaking of spirit."

Now, this idea of feasting, in the kingdom of heaven is regularly described and what God is doing here through the prophet Isaiah is saying there is going to be a feast and you are going to miss it. Now here's the thing, for God to tell us this ahead of time, is incredible grace. If you see it properly. There should be a longing in the heart of outsiders right now, saying, "I don't want to be excluded. I don't want to miss out on the richest most bountiful feast there could ever be in all of this, I don't want to miss it. I don't want to stay an outsider I want to come in, I want to be invited into the feast and I want to sit down at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven and I want to feast with Jesus I don't want to be an outsider."

But then on Judgement Day He's going to say this, and He has no hesitation to make people feel regrets at that point. "My servants will eat but you will go hungry, my servants will drink and you will be thirsty." You're on the outside. And they will live in torment and especially pain of heart and breaking of spirit. I've thought about that. There will be bitter regrets, in hell. People will remember their lives. They'll remember things about it, they'll remember that they had good things while they lived, they will remember. I think especially the times they heard the gospel and didn't respond and they'll regret it. They're outsiders. Verse 15, "You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse, and the Lord God will put you to death. But his servants, he will call by another name." You know what that means? I really believe, and others struggle with this, but I believe the redeemed will know exactly what's happening to the reprobates in hell.

They'll know their names, they'll know what's happening, because God's not going to hide it from us. We'll talk about that at the end of Isaiah 66 but it's openly taught. They'll go out and look out on them, and they'll know and we will vindicate the justice of God and all that God's not embarrassed about this, He has told us ahead of time what He's going to do. This is the time of Grace. This is the time when the door is open, come in. By the way, just a little application, on the Lord's Supper, when we have the Lord's supper I do something as a pastor called fencing the table. And what I say if you're not a believer, in Jesus Christ, do not partake. I want them to know they're outsiders.

I'm not trying to be mean, but I'm just saying there is no feasting, apart from faith in Christ. I want them to know that. You know what? I've said this before, I want you to celebrate the next time we'll do a Lord supper. Come to faith in Christ, get baptized, come enjoy. Yeah. But the Lord here wants the outsiders to know they are outsiders and what's going to happen. And we're going to get a new name, it says in Revelation 2:17, a transformed nature, and we will be radically different.

Verse 16, "So that he who blesses himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of truth and He takes an oath in the land, shall swear by the God of truth because the former troubles are forgotten and hidden from my eyes." So we'll be done with all of our false oaths, done with all of our paganism. We have been transformed, we have a new name, we have a new nature, and we're going to celebrate the grace of God forever in heaven.

That's what's coming in, that former sorrows will be gone forever, all sorrow and sadness will flee away forever. And death and mourning and crying, and pain, will be gone, and we'll be there forever. Now verse 17-25, "For behold, for behold, I will create a new heavens, a new earth." Next week, we'll talk about that. I hope you see now why I did this in two weeks. There's just no way we could get through all of this in one week.

Let me do a little more application we'll be done. This passage I believe, gives a clear warning to the outsiders to flee to Christ now while there's time. So if you know yourself this morning to be an outsider, you know that you're not a Christian, I'm pleading with you flee to Christ, now while there's time. Come to Christ Jesus is God's son, He died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for all of our paganism and our idolatry and wickedness and He took all of that wickedness on Himself and died under the wrath of God, to give us a perfect righteousness by faith alone come to Christ.

So you Christians, thank God for His persistence in saving you, H never gave up on you. And He never will. He's going to stand in front of you and say, "Behold me, behold me forever". And just praise God for that and look forward to seeing His face in Heaven. Just look forward to the beatific vision they call it the beautiful vision. The source of all the beauty where it all came from, you're going to see Him radiant and shining. God in Christ, the source of all beauty. Revelation 22:3 and 4 says, "No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him, and they will see His face, they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads."

Fourth be sober-minded about the future of the wicked.Take this seriously. I'm speaking to Christians. Look at these things, understand the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever, weep over it, be broken over it, like David Platt was. And let it motivate you toward evangelism, let it motivate you toward missions. Don't harden your heart toward lost people in your school, your classes, your dorm, your workplace, your neighbor, don't harden your heart. Open up, be willing to take some abuse from them as you might lead some of them to Christ. And then next week, we're going to talk about the rest of the chapter and the beauties of the coming world as God will create it. Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 63:1-64:12. The main subject of the sermon is intercessors and the coming of God's wrath.

Amen. Jesus said in the Book of Revelation, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, I am the first and the last, I am the beginning and the end." And so, in saying that, He gives us a sense of a sequencing of history, a beginning, a middle, and an end. An unfolding of sequential events in history that tells a grand and glorious story. And we need to understand that story based on the Word of God. And as we come for the second week to these two chapters, Isaiah 63 and 64, I am asking a lot of you, as a congregation today, we could do the easy thing, I could go to the famous verse that says, "All our righteous acts are like filthy rags." And I could preach the Gospel of saying, "Salvation is not by works, because our works are like... " I could do that, and there's an aspect of that, but that's not all that this chapter... That these chapters are saying.

So I'm want to challenge you to stay with me today, in terms of redemptive history, and understanding where Isaiah was at when he wrote these words, and what it was he was praying for and what he wanted to see happen going forward. And then step back and say, "Okay, where are we at in redemptive history? What principles can we take from these chapters that will enable us to get on board with what God is doing in our generation and the unfinished work yet to go?" So we're want to take timeless lessons from an immediate circumstance or situation in redemptive history and then move out. I'm called on, as a minister of the word, that I would study diligently 2 Timothy 2:15, that I might present myself to God as one approved, a workman who doesn't need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. And I want to do that today in Isaiah 63 and 64.

So what do I think is happening? Well, let's go back a little bit in Isaiah 60, begin in Isaiah 60, and just move on just to get a running start into today's sermon. Isaiah 60 gives us an incredible vision of Zion. And it says, "Arise and shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord shines upon you. Behold, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the people, but the Lord rises upon you and His glory appears over you." And then, in the rest of that chapter, there's this river of glory flowing into Zion, this glorious city. And the language is so overwhelming and so glorious and so incredible that it just goes beyond anything that happened in the city, the physical city of Jerusalem. And so there's this prediction in Isaiah 60 of a glorious Zion.

Then in Isaiah 61, it begins with these incredible words, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, and proclaim freedom for the captives, and recovery from darkness for prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God. To comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion." These words, as we know, were quoted by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself as He began His public ministry there, in His home town. And he was declaring himself to be the Anointed One, the Messiah, he said, "Today, in your hearing, this Scripture is fulfilled." And he announced the year of the Lord's favor, the year of His grace, He didn't mention, at that point, the day of vengeance of our God, but it's there in the text.

Then in the Isaiah 62, at the beginning of that chapter, we have, I think, Jesus speaking, just as he does in Isaiah 61. There He says, "For Zion’s sake, I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem's sake, I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn and her salvation like the blazing torch, and the nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory, and you will be called by a new name, that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand…. And no longer will they call you deserted or name your land desolate." So this is the vision that Jesus has, a passion in His heart, a burning passion for the final glory of Zion, whatever that means.

Now Zion, usually in the Old Testament, meant the City of Jerusalem, but here again, it just goes so far beyond the physical city of Jerusalem and what God had planned for that city, to something eternally glorious. What the Book of Revelation reveals is the new Jerusalem, it's want to descend from heaven, and it's radiant and beautiful and perfect. It is the people of God redeemed from every tribe and language and people and nation, it's the bride of Christ, and there's want to be a glorious wedding, a union of God with His people through Christ forever and ever. Isaiah 62. Now in Isaiah 62:6 and 7, it says, "I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem. They will never be silent day or night, you call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem, and makes her the praise of all the Earth."

And this I have seen to be a call for watchmen who stand on the walls of Jerusalem and look out into the darkness and see what's coming and call on the Lord, put him in remembrance. Which is an interesting thing because our omniscient God never forgets anything. But that's what we feel like in prayer, we're reminding God of His covenant promises, we're reminding God of the circumstances and the challenges that we face and we're praying on the basis of that. And so, I think, in Isaiah 63 and 64, we have patterns of that kind of prayer, that kind of intercessory ministry in light of the coming glory of Zion, the Eternal City of God.

Now last week, we saw the vision in Isaiah 63, at the beginning of that chapter, of a blood-soaked warrior coming off the battlefield, not in any way weakened, not in any way ashamed of the slaughter, but a picture of the final wrath of God, "Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, with his garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength? 'It is I speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.'" All those words are so poignant for us, there will come a Day of Wrath, a day of judgment a day of the Lord, and when he strides off the battlefield he will act in perfect righteousness and justice, and his actions will be for salvation.

It is I speaking in righteousness, mighty to save or to deliver my bride from all danger. And all of our enemies will be slaughtered, and I will have protected and rescued my bride and we will come into a place of perfect peace, and joy, and prosperity forever and ever. And so then there's this calling on the Lord, you who call on the Lord that you're posted on the wall spiritually, of Jerusalem, you can see it coming, you know what's going to happen and He's calling on you to pray, to put God into remembrance to give yourself no rest and to give him no rest till he finishes this salvation plan. Now as we get to 63 and 64 the rest of the chapter I just stopped right in the middle and we're just stepping through the intercession... You know Romans chapter 8 says "We don't know what we should pray for", we don't know how to pray.

And so we go to the Scripture and we know from Romans 8, the Holy Spirit teaches us what we should pray but he does it primarily through the word of God, and so we have a pattern of prayer here that we can just walk through and learn how to pray. And so he's talking about this at the end of 63, we can see the calling out that He does, Verse 15, 63:15, "Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and beautiful habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from me."

He is praying, verse 16, "For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name." And in verse 17, "O LORD, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart, so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage. 18 Your holy people held possession for a little while; our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary. 19 We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like those who are not called by your name ." And he cries out to God and then 64:1 "oh that you would rend the heavens and come down" and he's talking and he's saying, "Oh God, we're crying out to you, we're praying". So I think it's best to just bring these two chapters together and say This is Isaiah, praying, but he's also teaching us how to pray teaching future generations of the people of God, how to pray for redemptive history for what God is doing, but there's an immediate circumstance that Isaiah has in mind. So you go to the end of Isaiah 64 and there he says, verse 9, "Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people." He's crying out.

But was he talking about? Look at verse 64:10 Your sacred cities have become a desert; even Zion is a desert, Jerusalem a desolation." Verse 11, "Our holy and glorious temple, where our fathers praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins." Verse 12 "After all of this oh Lord, will you hold yourself back? Will, you keep silent. And will you punish us beyond measure?"

So what we have to do now, this is why I'm asking a lot of you as a congregation, I want you to stick with me. Isaiah was writing at a certain moment in time. I don't know exactly when, in Isaiah's life he wrote this, but it was at a certain point I know for a fact that Jerusalem was never burned in Isaiah's lifetime, the temple was never destroyed in Isaiah's lifetime. Didn't happen. The Assyrians invaded, but they were killed at the walls of Jerusalem they didn't enter Jerusalem. So what is he talking about here? Well, he's able, by the power of the Holy Spirit of God to get up out of his circumstance and fly ahead in his mind, over a century later, when that this exact thing would happen and the Babylonians would do this.

And they would do it because God was judging the Jews for their sins, and he's crying for God beyond that to show himself mighty and powerful, and restore and rebuild Jerusalem, and destroy the enemies of the people of God. So that's what Isiah, 63 and 64, about. But we're way, way beyond that. We're centuries after that, happened. After Ezra and Nehemiah came after the exile of Babylon, was done and they came in they rebuilt Jerusalem, and it wasn't that impressive honestly, and Haggai, rebuilt the temple, and it just wasn't that impressive, but they got the nation up and running again and they became the Jewish nation. But these words just seem to go far beyond anything like that. Alright, so how do we, as 21st century American Christians get anything out of this? How do we read these chapters and benefit? Do we just know it's just a moment in history? And that happened back then and Isiah is very concerned about the rebuilding of Jerusalem or is there something bigger for us and I think there is. Jerusalem the City itself and the rebuilding of the animal sacrificial system, the temple and the whole thing was a type and a shadow, a prophecy acted out in space and time for a future reality that hasn't been fulfilled yet.

And we could learn how to pray about that. And some of these themes are still going today. God's wrath, His power, the seeming weakness and defeat of the people of God, our sinfulness our struggle with sin our crying out to God, for Him to build not even at that point, the physical lower earthly city of Jerusalem, but the ultimate New Jerusalem, that's coming. That's what's going on here. So now what I want to do is I want to just walk through this with you, and just from these just teach you teach us how to pray. And then try to apply it to our circumstances.

Now we've already seen that the backdrop here in 63:1-6, is the overpowering vision of the coming wrath of God. And then we began, last week, to see how are we going to persistently intercede? How are we going to be watchmen on the walls, who give ourselves no rest and give Him no rest, 'til He establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the Earth? For us, we need to think now... We're not worried about the physical city of Jerusalem now, which Paul says in Galatians, the Jerusalem that's below is in slavery. We're talking about the Jerusalem that's above, and she is our mother. So the desire of building the heavenly Jerusalem, the building of the Church, the work of Jesus Christ, that's why... How do we pray for that?

And this, I think, teaches us how to do it. First, in Verses 7-9, the intercessor recounts the Lord's history of love. He goes back over Jewish history. Look with me at 63:7-9, "I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which He is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us. Yes, the many good things He has done for the house of Israel, according to His compassion and His many kindnesses." So I want to talk about how good God has been to Israel and to us. I want to go... I want to start my prayer time by remembering the goodness and kindness of God to me and to the people of God. Start there. All of his many acts, and His compassion for us, and his many kindnesses. For us as Christians, we've got the same database, the same record of God's goodness to Israel that they had. And we can praise God for The Exodus. We can praise God for the Red Sea crossing. We can praise God for how he delivered them through the desert, and how they conquered the Promised Land. We can praise God for all the same thing, but we have a lot more things we can praise God for, too. For since Christ ascended, the Gospel has been irresistibly advancing from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria into the ends of the Earth. And God's gospel now has reached you.

And you've seen all the goodness of God through Christ in your life and through the Holy Spirit. And he's done all these good things in your life so you can connect in the same way. You can celebrate the same thing the Jews did, but even more now. It's not either or, but it's both and for us as Christians. So I will tell of the goodnesses, the kindnesses of God. Start there in your intercession. God, thank you for being so kind to me. Thank you for all of the ways you've shown goodness, not just to me, but to all your people throughout the generations. Verse 8, he said, "Surely, they are my people, sons who will not be false to me." That's the adoption that we know in Christ. And so He became their savior. We have been adopted. We are like His Son. God said to Egypt, "Israel is my first born son. Let them go." And how it says in Deuteronomy, How God carried them as a son, as a father carries his son all the way you went until you reached his place. So that fatherly love for God. We know that, don't we? We've been adopted as His sons and daughters in Christ. We have the indwelling Spirit. And then that indwelling Spirit cries out, "Abba, Father," within our hearts. All right. "Surely, they are my people. They are sons who will be loyal to me." And so He became their savior.

Verse 9, "In all their distress, He, too, was distressed. And the angel of His presence saved them." We talked about that last week. That's Christ going forth in the pillar of cloud, in the pillar of fire. He's the Angel oh Lord. God's name was in Him. And he would not spare their rebellion. He would lead them and guide them, all the days of old.

The Intercessor Confesses Sin

But then next step, Verse 10, the intercessor confesses sin. "Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them." This is the regular pattern of the people of God. They consistently rebelled against the commands of God. They rebelled against God's Holy Spirit. And they didn't do all the things that God wanted them to do. And so God turned against them, to some degree, and became their enemy, and fought against them. We see this again and again in the Book of Judges where we'd have the Midianites invade, or the Philistines invade, or other Gentiles would invade. Ultimately, then, the Assyrians invaded. And they took away the northern kingdom. And then the Babylonians invaded, and they took away the rest. And this is what Isaiah is dealing with. Again, he can see ahead. He's already done with the Assyrian invasion, but the Babylonians are still to come.

And he's explaining why did God let the Babylonians burn the temple? It didn't make any sense why. Verse 10, they rebelled. They turned away. He fought against them. It's not an accident. It's not like God isn't powerful anymore. It's because he was disciplining them for their sins. They rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy, and Himself fought against them. So as watchmen on the walls, we have to do the same thing. As we come into the presence of God, it's not long before the Holy Spirit's want to start convicting you of sin. And you're aware of the sin in your life, and you're want to say, "I've rebelled. I have grieved the Holy Spirit. My sin is a grief to God." It says in Ephesians 5, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you are sealed for the day of redemption." All of our sins brings God to grief. And so for us, as we're praying and you're interceding, the Holy Spirit's want to start showing you things in your lives. And you're want to have to say, "I have rebelled, and I deserve to be disciplined. I deserved to be judged." And so, that intercessory prayer goes to confession of sin.

The Intercessor Prays Based on the Lord’s History

Then in 63:11-14, he goes back to the Lord's history. It's a history lesson. "Then he remembered the days of old of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea, with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put in the midst of them His Holy Spirit who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name. Where is the one who led them through the depths? Like a horse in the desert, they didn't stumble like livestock that go down into the valley. The spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So you led your people to make for yourself a glorious name." Now, the intercessor is following God's own command to put him in remembrance. Remember, God, how you did that at the Exodus? Remember, where are you? Where is the God who did all that? I don't understand where you are.

So as he looks back, he remembers the deliverance of God at the Exodus. And he says, "Now... " Again, he's transported himself. Isaiah has, too. He's looking at smoldering Jerusalem, the temples destroyed, everything's... He said, "What happened to the God of the Exodus? I don't... Where did you go?" And then in the 7 years that followed during the exile, "God, it seems like you're not even here." And he's crying out, and he's interceding based on God's history. And He's reminding God of all that He did. This is what Moses did with the golden calf. Remember, he said, "God, please deliver your people. Please rescue them. You're the one who brought them out of Egypt. Don't kill them now, now that they've committed this sin, because Egypt will hear about that and you will lose honor and glory." So, that's how Moses interceded. Same thing with the 12 spies, when the 10 spies led the people in rebellion. And God said, "leave me alone, leave me alone, I'm want to kill them, I'm want to kill them all. I don't want to make of you, a great nation." Moses said, "but then the Egyptians will hear of it and they'll think you weren't able to bring your people into the promised land. Where are you, O God, the mighty God who led his people out of Egypt?"

Habakkuk 3:2, I love that verse. Habakkuk 3:2, says this, "Lord, I've heard of your fame…" "LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy." I love that verse, isn't that great. God, I've heard your reputation, I've heard all the great things you've done. Do it again, do it in my life. Do it in my... Let me see your mighty hand. Let me see your deliverance. Do mighty things based on your past track record." Habakkuk 3:2. So many times, we struggle with that, don't we. We wonder why don't we see the mighty arm of God now. Why not? Why don't we see God just ripping apart human history for His glory, why don't we see God just do awesome miracles. And just... I've thought about that. We... I'm a trustee with the International Mission Board. We send missionaries and there's so much effort that goes into training them and funding them and all that. And they get out on the field and they suffer and they struggle and they get there and they get into some coffee shop and they share the Gospel with some person and the person doesn't come to Christ.

I'm thinking, Lord lead him to some elect person who needs to hear the gospel, after all of that effort, but God's ways are not our ways. We want to see God do mighty things, don't we? Want to see him do great things right in this community, right on the college campuses, we want to see him do incredible things. Renew those deeds in our time in wrath, remember mercy. Well, we know that if we're not seeing them now, it's not because God can't do it. God's past his prime, that was then, this is now, we all get old, we get over the hill that is not God. Our God is mighty and powerful. So that's not it. "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save nor His ear too dull hear." That's not it.

Now, here, Isaiah's calling on God in light of this destruction that's going to come. Reminds me of Psalm 74. There it says, "Why have you rejected us forever O, God. Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture." And then he's talking about the Babylonians. He says, "They behave like men wielding axes to cut through a thicket of trees. They smashed all the carved paneling with their axes, and their hatches and they burned your sanctuary to the ground, they defiled the dwelling place of your name." So its definitely talking about the destruction of the temple there. Psalm 74. Then he says, "Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand? Take it from the folds of your garment. Its like God just sitting back and watching it happen, move out your mighty right hand and do something O God. Destroy them." So, he's interceding.

Look again in verse 11-13, "Where's he who brought them up out of the sea, with the shepherds of his flock. Where is He who put in the midst of them, His Holy Spirit, who caused his glorious arm to go to the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them. To make for yourself an everlasting name that led them through the depths." The God of the Exodus, the God of the Red Sea, let's see His power, let's see that happen. And look at the request, look at verse 15, "Look down from heaven and see from your holy and beautiful habitation, where are your zeal and your might, the stirring of your inner parts, and your compassion are held back from me." So he's asking God to look down and to show his zeal and his might. In verse 16, the intercessor pleads with God based on His unshakable covenant commitment, "You are our father though Abraham does not know us, or Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O, Lord, are our father, our redeemer from of old, is your name."

This is the basis of our prayers, as Christians, as well, "God, our Heavenly Father, you have made an unbreakable covenant with us. You've sealed it in the blood of Your Son our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You have done the infinitely hard work of redeeming rebels and making us your sons and daughters, now do the easy thing, finish our salvation. Finish our salvation. Despite Satan and his demons constant assault, O God, finish our salvation, get us through. Despite the incessant assault of the corrupt world system on our souls, O God, do the easier thing, get us through this dangerous place. O God despite our own flesh, the inner lust of our heart, that connects with Satan's work and connects with the world. O God, save us. Show us your power," that's how we pray.

The Intercessor Laments Over the Lord’s Disciplines

In verses 17 through 19, the intercessor, laments over the Lord's disciplines. He says, "O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart, so that we fear you not. Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your inheritance. Your holy people held possession for a little while. Our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary. We have become like those over whom you've never ruled like those who are not called by your name." This is incredible." He's saying we have wandered from your ways. We have hardened our hearts against the Holy Spirit, but what's really amazing the intercessor seems to be finding ultimate, I don't know responsibility of that with God. Why do you harden our heart so that we wander from your ways. Now, this is that infinite mystery of God's sovereignty in human responsibility. I pondered this a lot, even this morning. The book of James tells us this in James 1, when tempted no one should say, God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone, but each one is tempted one by his own evil desire, his own lust he is dragged away and enticed. So God's not to blame, but I think what this prayer teaches us is this. God is the only solution to a wandering hardened heart. It all comes down to what God will do.

God, would you please interfere with the ways of my hardened, wandering heart and would you please turn me back to your ways? I think that's how we're praying here isn't it? We're saying, "Oh God, my ways... ", like the hymn writer put it, "are prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I Love." God, please, interfere with the workings of my heart. Please soften my heart, take out the heart of stone and give me the heart of flesh. That's what he's asking for. Now, in Verses 1-4 of 64, he's pleading with God to descend. Verse 1:64, I love, he says, "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down." It's actually a very famous verse for those that pray for revival. Praying for revival, in the church. I love it, don't you? Oh, that you would rip apart the sky, rend the heavens, and come down. It implies that there's like this membrane between us and the spiritual realms, right? And if God would just rip it open and come out, we could see his mighty acts.

The Bible speaks of God creating the heavens, plural, and the earth, it's plural in the Hebrew. So there's this Heavens in a number of verses give us some hints of what that might mean. So you got the first heaven, that's the blue sky, where the birds fly, they fly through the heavens, that's the air, the atmosphere, all of that. That's the first heavens. Second heavens, I think, is outer space. You've got the sun, the moon, and the stars. That's that. The heavenly realms. But then the third heavens, now that's the spiritual realm. You know how Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, "I know a man in Christ was caught up to the third heavens… caught up to Paradise." You have the same thing in Revelation Chapter 4, where John in the Isle of Patmos sees a door open, standing open in heaven, and he's invited and through the spirit, goes through the door and sees a throne with someone seated on it. He's invited into the heavenly realm.

So, when Isaiah is saying "Oh that you would rend the heavens" It's like "I wish that you would just rip that membrane between the physical world and the spiritual world, and come out and do something." Now he's asking here for a mighty warrior to come down.

Look at Verses 1-3. It says, "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you, as when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and make the nations quake before you, for when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down and the mountains trembled before you." I can't help but think about Mount Sinai here, remember when God descended in a cloud and lightning and fire to the top of the mountain? And the whole ground was shaking beneath their feet, and they were terrified. This image of the power of God is like, "Oh God, that You would rip apart the heavens and come down like that, like a mighty earthquake, like a fire." You want God to step in and save the day.

Now, look all over the world, Christians are being persecuted. And you can imagine if you're incarcerated in North Korea. You're persecuted by the Korean government there. As a Korean Christian, you are caught by the communist government and you're being tortured every day. You can imagine, if you could remember, Isaiah 64:1, he's like, "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down and deliver me, come down and kill my enemies and deliver me and rescue me, I'm crying out to you day and night for justice." Or you could see another persecuting nation like Iraq where Christians are persecuted from Islamic extremists or Eritrea, or Sudan and Somalia, also Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan. So many places Christians cry out and yearn for God to rend the heavens and come down to rescue them. Perhaps, this is one of the most perplexing things to us Bible believing Christians. We see God's people suffering all over the world, it's like "God, why don't you do something, why don't you rip apart the heavens and come down and make the mountains shake and deliver your people?" But you know what's interesting? You get this exact image, this exact image at Jesus's baptism. It's amazing to me, I meditate on this.

In Mark chapter 1, Jesus was being baptized, and when he came up out of the water, it says in Mark 1:10 "At that moment as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw Heaven being torn open." The only one of the Gospels that uses that expression. Torn open, ripped open, only what came down wasn't a powerful overpowering image of a warrior. You don't get mighty God coming down with a sword, looking to kill. What do you get instead? A dove floating lower and lower, The Holy Spirit come down like a dove and he lands on this lamb Jesus, the Lamb of God, takes away the sins of the world and you get this voice, this peace loving voice "This is my Son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased." So this is the way I understand the rending of the heavens then. Between the first coming of Jesus, and the second coming of Jesus, that first rending is what we get. We get a ripping open and the Holy Spirit descending in peace and love and mercy. This is the year of God's grace, the year of his favor, and the enemies of God are treated very well and God is very patient with them. And his own people, their blood is poured out and the blood of martyrs is seed for the church and God withholds judgement because many of the most vicious persecutors are themselves elect. Like Saul of Tarsus, who will later be converted by the testimony of these slaughtered martyrs. And so instead of a powerful warrior coming down through the rending of the Heavens, we get this peaceful dove and this voice, God the father's voice, and we get Jesus the lamb.

We get the same thing at Stephen's death. Do you remember when he was being martyred, when he's dying? They're throwing stones for telling the truth. And it says Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to Heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He saw the heavens rend, and he saw Jesus standing, and he said, "Look, I see Heaven open, and the son of man standing at the right hand of God." They didn't want to hear that, it made them even angrier. So they just are bearing down on him and killing him. And you know what he says, in a dove-like, lamb-like way, "Lord, don't hold this sin against them." And one of those consenting to his death was Saul of Tarsus. So, between the first and the second coming, we get the rending of the heaven and we get a dove, and we get grace and mercy. This is the year of the Lord's favor. So we understand 2 Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

So we should pray and we should pray, I think it's perfectly fine to pray for revival based on this. Before the heavens are rend and he comes down and makes the ground shake like a warrior, oh God, rend the heavens and pour out your Holy Spirit that we might be transformed, that we might preach the Gospel, that we might live lives worthy of the calling that we have received. Oh God, send forth your spirit for that.

God’s awesome power celebrated

Verse four and five, he says, "Since ancient times, no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you. You're the only God at work in human history, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways." We are praying, like theists, not like deists. We are praying to a, if we can put it very wrongly, but I'll go ahead and put it, to an interfering God, a God who does come down and gets involved. We're not like the deists who said that God stays out of it, made the universe like a big clock and wound it up and stepped away, and just lets it run. He didn't get involved.

No, we're praying. We're praying to a God who acts on behalf of those who call on His name. And then the intercessor confessed his sin once more. Versus 5-7 "You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continue to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?" Psalm 66:18 "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened." So you're giving yourself no rest in Him, no rest, and He's convicting you of sin, and you're crying out to God, and He's showing you your sin. And you're saying, "Oh God, forgive me. God, I don't want to be a sinner. I want to see my life change. I want to see the lives of those around me change." You're praying like that, confessing sin.

Verse six and seven, very famous, "All of us have become like one who is unclean. All our righteous acts are like filthy rags. We all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind, our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name, no one strives to lay hold of you, for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins."

How do we understand these verses? First, if I can just say to you who know yourself to be outside the Gospel, that you're lost. You cannot stand before such a holy God based on your own good works. They will look filthy. They are not acceptable, they cannot be used to pay for your sins. So I think that's valid. Come to Christ, trust in Christ. Your good works cannot save you, they cannot pay for your sins. But this is addressed to the people of God. It's like even our best works, as God's adopted people, are insufficient as a basis for us to intercede. They're not good enough, therefore we come, not in our name, but in the name of our mediator, Jesus Christ, and the basis of his perfect works, on the basis of His righteousness. He is the new and living way open for us into the presence of God. Our righteous acts are like filthy rags They're like garbage, like refuse, Paul said. Philippians 3: Even the best stuff I have to offer is not good enough.

Now, believe me, that doesn't mean we Christians can't do good works that will be rewarded by God on Judgment Day, that's not true. I do say they need to be purified. Do you remember how the God puts the fire to your works and the gold, silver, costly stones make it through the fire? I think that's just a symbol of him shining them up a bit. We don't do anything perfectly righteously, you know what I'm talking about. But I don't think we should take this verse to say we have no good works at all. I'm just saying they're not the basis of our standing before God, thank God.

 Finally in verses 8-12, the intercessor pleads with God to act. He said, "Yet, oh Lord, You are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter. We are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, oh Lord, do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people. Your sacred cities have become a desert. Even Zion is a desert. Jerusalem, a desolation, our holy and glorious temple where our fathers praise you has been burned with fire. And all that we have treasured lies in ruins."

Verse 12 "After this, after all this, oh Lord, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?" So just to sum up, this just kind of completes the whole section. He's praying like this, "Oh Lord, we, your sinful people, desperately need you to cover our sins and act on our behalf. Please, oh Lord, would you tear the heavens and come down to destroy our enemies, despite the fact that we deserve all the judgments you have wisely meted out to us. Please, oh Lord, no longer be silent or restrain your affections for us. Act, oh Lord."

So the intercessor turns to God, our Father. And we have two beautiful images, God the Father, God the potter. Aren't they both beautiful? "You're our Father, you adopted us. Don't give us over. Love us, cherish us. You're the potter, we're the clay. Shape us, oh Lord. Change us, and shape us, and make us what you want us to be."

It's also interesting that he asked God to have a selective memory here. "Remember all your mighty acts in the past, Oh God, please forget our sins. Would you please forget our sins, O Lord?" And that's what he's doing. He's like, "God, don't look to our sins. We know you're omniscient and you remember everything. But remember, your covenant commitments. Remember Christ, remember your mighty works in the past. Please cover our sins, do not forget our sins, do not remember our sins." That's what he's saying. And so Isaiah's prophetic vision over a century in advance moves him to teach us how to pray. He taught Daniel how to pray in Daniel 9. When he was in the exile of Babylon, he could have just taken this as a prayer manual and used it in Daniel 9. Look it up this is exactly how he prayed: "Oh, God, please forgive us, we are sinful. Please restore your people. Please rebuild the city, rebuild the Temple." But now we're past that. Now what we're saying is where are we at in redemptive history. We're your church. We're in the process of doing the Great Commission, but we're sinful, we're tangled up with the world, we're doing things that are grieving your Holy Spirit. Forgive us, O Lord. Change us, shape us. You're our father, you're the potter, work in us. Make us godly people. Transform us by your power.

So what applications can we take from this? At first just stand in awe of the vision of God here. God is awesome. Our God is a God who can make the nations shake, he make them boil like water, he can melt them like wax. He's a mighty God. Just stand in awe of a God like this. Start there. Secondly, we need to embrace that there is a coming wrath. The heavens will be rent a second time, but there's no dove coming that time. This time there's an army led by a warrior, He's coming. And at the second coming of Christ there'll be no salvation. Not coming to save any, He's coming to deliver His church from enemies, but he's coming to bring wrath. As I said last week, embrace that doctrine. It is true. Tell people that now is the year of God's favorite. Today is the day of salvation. Tell them there's time, there's time, that they should repent and trust in Christ. And then intercede, be one of the watchmen that God has posted on the walls. Give yourself no rest. What that means is stretch yourself in prayer. I would just urge that if this afternoon you probably had plans, but instead spend an hour going through Isaiah 63 and 64 and praying for this church and for The Church to the ends of the earth, for the building of the New Jerusalem.

Pray for missions, pray for lost people, pray for your own heart, repent of your sins. Whatever God's showing you is sinful take time to pray. Pray based on God's history of love toward His church. Pray with humble confession of sin. Pray based on Christ's resurrection from the dead. Pray with a deep lament for our wandering ways. Pray for God to tear open the heavens and come down in revival even. Acknowledge that even our best acts would be unclean apart from the grace of God and ask God to move out powerfully to finish His saving work in the world.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 63:1-64:12. The main subject of the sermon is intercessors and the coming of God's wrath.

I like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 63. We're beginning a two-part look at these two chapters Isaiah 63 and 64. As we resume a study through the Book of Isaiah, which is nearing an end, we're coming to an end of this incredible journey that we've been on as a church, for many years now. Not unbroken but we've had opportunity to look at almost all the Book of Isaiah. Now we're studying Isaiah 63 and 64, somewhat in conjunction but just having the first part today.

And I believe that it's helpful to look at these two chapters in light of intercessory prayer. Really a call to intercession that God is calling on us to pray. This is a marvelous gift, it's a vast privilege that's blood-bought for us. We have the privilege of coming into the presence of God. Apart from the blood of Christ, we would not be welcome, but now through Christ's atoning work we have open for us into the Holy of Holies, a new and living way. To the throne of power, the throne of grace, the throne of the universe. And not only do we have an invitation, but we really have a command to draw near to God, and to pray.

It's a responsibility that we have, to pray for the church, to pray for the work of God among the nations, to pray for the unsaved around us who do not understand their peril. But we do, we who have been biblically instructed. And if you don't understand it as you should, this sermon today, I think will help make even more acute, the kind of peril that lost people are in. And the kind of peril we have been delivered from by the blood of Christ.

So why do I think that we are called on to intercessory prayer? Well you could see, even though I'm preaching on Isaiah 63, I had this scripture reading go back to chapter 62, which is the last chapter that I had the chance to preach on. So, look with me if you would at Isaiah 62:6 and 7, you heard the reading there, I'm going to read it in a different translation, but this is what it says, in Isaiah 62: 6 and 7, "I have posted watchman on your walls O Jerusalem. They will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest and give him no rest till he establishes his Jerusalem and makes her the praise of all the earth."

So what does he mean watchmen on the walls? What's he talking about here? Well, watchmen are those who deprive themselves of sleep, so they can stand on the city walls and look out, peer out into the darkness through the long watches of the night, and see if there's any encroaching danger, any enemy that might come on the city unawares. And they are to deprive themselves of sleep. And the idea of Jerusalem and Zion, I think is best seen not as the physical city of Jerusalem, but we have learned through these many chapters in Isaiah, to see the word Zion to be ultimately the people of God, the place where God dwells with His people, the heavenly Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the church of Jesus Christ, that work of God. And so I think that God has summoned us to the walls spiritually, to be watchmen on the walls, and to, the ESV says, "Put the Lord in remembrance." Can I tell you, God doesn't need to remember anything? But that's what we do, that's the human way of talking about prayer. Or another translation has, "You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest."

So this is the urgent call to intercessory prayer, until God has established the new Jerusalem, the church of Jesus Christ. And he's calling people who are dead in their transgressions and sins, out of darkness into this marvelous light, that's the work going on in the world and we're called on to put Him in remembrance about that. And to pray and to plead with Him to establish His kingdom to establish the church Jerusalem.

Now in Isaiah 63 and 64, we have a valuable pattern, I think on how to do this and in light of what we should do this intercession. So for two weeks, we're going to go to God School in fervent intercessory prayer. Now, why do I think these two chapters together should be seen in that light? Well, obviously we have 62:6 and 7, but if you look at 63 and Verse 15, which I will not cover today, we'll do it next week, God willing. But look what it says. 63:15 says, "Look down from heaven and see from your lofty throne holy and glorious." So that's a cry up from Earth to heaven, for God to look down from His throne. That's prayer friends, that's what that is, calling on God to look down on Earth. And again, verse 16, "You who are our Father", this is addressing God in prayer.

And then again, Verse 17, "Why oh Lord?" He cries out, to the Lord, that's all prayer, verse 15, 16, 17. Then in 64:1. "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you." That's the fervent prayer for God to descend. And then in 64:7, he talks about prayer, he says, "No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins." So the striving to lay hold of God, we do that in prayer. There's no other way to do it. So I think it's best to just couple of these chapters together for these two weeks, and talk about intercessory prayer. Isaiah is talking to us about calling on God to descend in power. But our tendency is to not do that, to give ourselves rest and give Him rest, and to cease from praying. That's our problem, in 64:7, we don't do it, we don't pray. We don't know why we should pray, we don't want to pray, we don't know what to pray for, Romans 8 tells us. And so, these are great chapters to answer those questions and tell us why we should pray, and how we should pray and intercede. So that's the approach I'm going to take, and we begin by understanding the terrifying danger of the wrath of God. This is a really overwhelming picture of God, here in Isaiah 63:1-4. Look at it with me, look down at the text Isaiah 63:1-4, didn't get read this morning. We're going to read it now. Look at it.

"Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, with his garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength? It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save. Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress? I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothing. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redemption has come."

That's awesome. God is pictured as striding off the battlefields, after the battle is done. And his garments are spattered in blood. That's the picture here in Isaiah 63, this is the vengeance of the Lord, this is the day of God's wrath. It's approaching inevitably. And the danger here is just incalculable for the human race. We can't even conceive of this.

We wouldn't know it's coming, if the word didn't tell us. Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, rather be afraid of the one who has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell. Yes, I tell you fear him." So the people of God are called on to fervent intercession for the good of all people, in the light of this image, this picture of the coming wrath of God. That's the issue that we're dealing with here in intercession. Abraham interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah, most persistently. He gave himself no rest and he gave God no rest, as he interceded and pleaded that God would not sweep away the righteous with the wicked. Moses passionately interceded for Israel at Mount Sinai, at the time of the golden calf. When God said, "Now leave Me alone, and I'm going to wipe them out and I'm going to make of you Moses a great nation." And Moses plead with God in Exodus 32:12, "Turn from your fierce anger, relent and do not bring disaster upon your people." David interceded for Jerusalem, when his own sin, and the sinful senses, brought a terrifying plague on Jerusalem, and the angel of the Lord was between heaven and earth, and the sword was unsheathed, and he was slaughtering, he was literally killing Jews, and he interceded for the plague to stop.

Ezekiel interceded when God gave him a vision of angels that were commanded to go through the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of everyone that grieved and mourned over the wickedness and sins of the city. And they came back after a short time because it didn't take long. And then the angel, the avenging angel was send out to kill everyone that didn't have the mark. And at that point Ezekiel fell down before God. Ezekiel 9:8, "While they were killing and I was left alone, I fell face down crying out, 'Oh sovereign Lord, are you going to destroy the entire remnant of Israel in this outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?'" So those are four different examples, when the godly see the wrath of God about to be poured out they fall down before God and intercede, they pray.

More than that, we are to warn slumbering people that are surrounding us here in Durham, of the eminence of their danger. We're supposed to warn them, we know they don't. We know what's coming, and they don't know. John the Baptist did this when he was baptizing and it says when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees, coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath." Produce fruit in keeping with repentance and do not begin to save yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. But I tell you that, out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham. The act is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. So, a life of fervent intercession and light of the coming wrath of God, should lead inevitably to a life of faithful evangelism of warning people of the wrath that's coming, that they should flee to Christ. Those things are healthy for us as Christians, and that's what I think these chapters are. These chapters are a wake-up call first to the church, first to the church, and then through the church to the surrounding world.

Judgment day is coming. This chapter gives us a clear picture of it, we're going to see it in detail in a moment. It begins first with us to feel the weight of this vision to understand what these words are talking about, to feel it. As we search our hearts and our lives, and repent from sin in our lives, and be certain we're ready for the coming day of God's wrath, to prepare through Christ and then through us, we're called on to pray for the world that doesn't know the wrath that's coming. 1 Peter 4:17 and 18, gives that rhythm of first us then them. First us then them. 1 Peter 4:17 and 18 says, "For it's time for judgment to begin with the house of God. And if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?"

So these two chapters teach us how to pray in light of God's coming wrath. He will teach us the elements of intercessory prayer as watchmen on the walls and we have to begin by walking carefully through the terrifying image of the wrath of God in Verses 1-6. So walk with me through these verses. I didn't write them, but I stand under them like all of you. I want to know the truth. I want to be ready for what's really coming, I want you to be as well. Doctrine of the wrath of God is hard for sinners to accept. We don't like that picture, picture of God as a universally loving, universally accepting, patient, tolerant of all sin, ready to love, ready to welcome us at any time, that picture can become a partial truth which masquerades as the whole truth, becoming a complete untruth. That's J.I Packer in knowing God.

If you take that partial truth of the acceptance and mercy and grace and love of God and say that's the whole story, that is a complete on truth. I've said before, I'll keep saying it. I think it's vital for us to keep these two seemingly contradictory images of God alive in our minds. First Hebrews 12:29, "Our God is a consuming fire." Secondly, in Luke 15, our God is the father of the prodigal son. We have to keep them together, they we don't do it easily, we think it's one or the other, but we must keep them together. And the church becomes corrupt and hardened. If we emphasize one and not the other, emphasize the other and not one. We have to keep them together.

Father of the Prodigal Son, it says, "while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him, and he ran to his son, and threw his arms around him, and kissed him." So the image of God as a consuming fire, shows Him as infinitely powerful, a God who dwells in unapproachable light, a God who will by no means clear the guilty, who's commitment to righteousness is like the immeasurable heat of the raging sun, He will do whatever is needed to purify this universe of all evil, all things in the universe belonged to Him because He made them and He will not overlook wickedness or sin. That's our God as a consuming fire.

The image of God is the father of the prodigal son shows His grace and His mercy and His tender love and His kindness, His incredible patience to sinners like you and me. Culminating ultimately in the gift of His Son Jesus who died in our place under the consuming fire that we might be delivered. Just the idea of this holy righteous God embracing a son who stinks with pig filth it just never leaves me, thank God for His mercy Thank God. But we can't thereby say because that's the God we love that He isn't also a consuming fire.

Now, this passage Verses 1-6 pictures God as a mighty warrior, striding victoriously from a bloody battle field, it's terrifying, these verses are simply terrifying. They should cause all faith build readers who believe that this is true to tremble, to tremble at His word, for when the great day of God's wrath comes who is able to stand. So, the passage begins in verse 10, with the word who, who is this? "Who is it coming from [the battlefield of] Edom, from Bozrah…" Now Edom are the descendants of Esau, the ultimate picture of the reprobate in the Bible, both Jews and Gentiles, Romans 9 says, Jew and Gentile alike can be Edom, Esau. Esau was the reprobate son that traded his birthright for a bowl of stew, remember? And he then becomes a symbol of all the godless people in this world that live for their immediate appetites, and have no concern for the things of God. Bozrah is the capital city of Edom, that's all. So the image is of the wicked who live for their stomachs. You know how Philippians 3, Paul says, "For as I have often told you before, and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ, their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame, their mind, is on earthly things." That's Edom, that's Esau. We're surrounded by people like that. Every day.

The Year of the Lord’s Favor Ends in Judgement

Now, here we have picture the year of the Lord's favor, or grace coming to an end and now it comes the day of vengeance of our God. You remember how we talked in Isaiah 61, how that predicted the ministry of Jesus, which He began in his home town of Nazareth, the synagogue there, and he rolled to this place, Isaiah 61, "The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He sent me to bind up the broken hearted, and to heal the captives... Set liberty to the captives, heal the broken hearted, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor…" stops there. But Isaiah said, "And the day of vengeance of our God," he didn't read it. And many scholars had commented that basically Jesus' first coming opened the year of God's favor. But now this is picturing the day of vengeance of our God, which is certainly coming. So now is the time of God's favor. I tell you today is the day of salvation, today. Now, is the opportunity, this is the year of God's favor, but it will come to an end. It's coming to an end at some point, and this is picturing it, the day of vengeance of our God.

So who is this? Who is this person coming from Edom, with his garments spattered in blood, he is robed in splendor, he is striding forth in the greatness of His strength? Back in those days when there was a battle, a big battle, it was a vicious hand to hand thing. How did one soldier kill another soldier back then? There weren't weapons of mass destruction, they didn't exist. It was generally by the sword. So, you're spilling the other man's blood and it's spilled down on the ground, and just one after another... So when that enemy is dead the next one comes on you, and if you go on with that for an hour or whatever, the field is a bloodbath. It's just disgusting and it's covered with gore, but even more you look at the soldiers that survive and they are utterly exhausted. There's nothing left, they have nothing left to give, they've come to the edge, the limit of their physical strength.

You remember how Samson killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey, and at the end of it, he cried out that God would open up water because he thought he was about to die of thirst. It was not a minor thing. He really thought he was about to die, just from exhaustion and thirst. But this warrior, he's not like that at all. He's not like that at all. He has just slaughtered all of these people and he's striding off the battlefield every bit as energetically as he entered it, it didn't drain him at all.

Who is this Warier? It is Jesus!

Who is this? Who is this warrior striding forth in undiminished strength, robed in glory, with a robe spattered in blood? Who is this? Well, the answer in verse one comes out bold and strong, "It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save."

Who? Well, the approach I've taken in Isaiah 61 and then again in Isaiah 62, I'm going to carry over here to Isaiah 63. Isaiah 61, "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me," first person, "because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor," it's Jesus. And then I preached the last time we were in Isaiah in December, Isaiah 62 verse 1, "For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet till her righteousness shines forth like the dawn." Who is it that's not going to be quiet until Zion is radiant? I think it's Jesus. Zeal for the bride once so beautiful and radiant. That's how I preached it.

Now we get to 63, who is this coming off the battlefield soaked in blood? "It is I," it's the same person, it's Jesus. And this is confirmed for me, this image is confirmed in Revelation 19, with the second coming of Christ depicted there in the book of Revelation. Don't turn there but just listen, you've heard this before, Revelation 19:11-16, "I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called faithful and true. With justice He judges and makes war." Isaiah says, "It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save." Speaking in righteousness, justice. Right? So Revelation, "With justice He judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire and on His head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but He, himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the word of God. The armies of heaven were following him riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean." Listen to this, Revelation 19:15, "Out of His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty." So, treading a winepress is you're in a big vat there's all these grapes and you're just walking on them until they're all squished, and you get all of this slurry of grapes and all that up to however deep, and then you come out of that and you're just soaked in that.

Here in Revelation 19:15, it says, "He treads the winepress with the fury of the wrath of God Almighty, and on His robe and on His thigh, He has this name written, 'King of kings and Lord of lords.'" So note plainly two things about Jesus Christ in Revelation 19, first, He wore a robe, stained in blood, which came from trampling the winepress of the fierce anger of God Almighty. And secondly, He destroys His enemies without mercy by a sword that comes from His mouth, that is from His word. Now, if you look at Isaiah 63, he says, "It is I speaking in righteousness, mighty to save," and notice that He speaks in righteousness. This is essential to the teaching of the day of God's wrath. It is perfectly just, there's no unrighteousness here at all. This is perfectly righteous what God is doing, what Jesus is doing. He's not in any way ashamed of this slaughter. He's not sheepish about it, he's not pulling back from it. He wants us to know about it before it happens. He's not hiding it from us. Note also that this bloody conquest is a form of salvation, "It is I," he says, "Speaking in righteousness, mighty to save." So, "By this slaughter I am working salvation," that's what he's saying, by this righteous slaughter.

I think the only way I can really understand this, is this is Jesus rescuing His bride from all of her enemies. She's going to live in a world where there are no enemies at all. The world, the flesh, and the devil will be gone forever and the only way that's going to happen is by this bloodbath, that's what the Bible is teaching us here. But it is a work of justice and of salvation, that's what it says, "It is I speaking in righteousness, mighty to save."

Why are Jesus’ Garments Soaked in Blood?

Verse two, "Why are your garments red like those of one treading the winepress?" Answer, "I have trodden the winepress alone. From the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath, their blood spattered my garments and I stand all my clothing." Verse four, "For the day of vengeance was in my heart and the year of my redemption has come." So Christ is splattered with the blood of His enemies because the time has come to exact justice. He does this to work the vengeance of God. You know how God says, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay"? This is the repayment.

And He does it to work redemption for His people. He is unashamed of His actions. There's no squeamishness at all about this, there's no embarrassment, no sense of shame. This is the just action of God on sinners whose time has run out, the day of salvation has ended. The year of God's grace has come to an end. It's the day of vengeance of God. So also for eternity, God will in no way be ashamed of the fact that a vast multitude of people that He created are suffering in hell. He's not ashamed of that, He's warning us now, it's going to come, but when it comes, it will be perfectly just. Now, Christ alone can work salvation at the cross. Christ alone can work vengeance at the second coming. He's the only one that can do this.

I was talking to my kids about this as we drove in this morning. It's the same reason why God alone could shut Noah's ark, the door. Only God has the authority to end the opportunity of salvation for the Earth. And so He's the only one that has the right to effect this slaughter. Look at verse 3-6, "I have trodden the winepress alone, from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath, and their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothing. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redemption has come. I looked, but there was no one to help. I was appalled that no one gave support, so my own arm worked salvation for me and my own wrath sustained me. I trampled the nations in my anger, in my wrath I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground."

So Jesus treads the winepress alone, no one from the nations could join Him in this action. He looked for anyone righteous enough to join him and the text says He was amazed or appalled, filled with wonder at the fact of the universality of sin, the whole human race, there's no one righteous, not even one. No one can join Him from the nations. Ultimately, Jesus alone could address the issue of God's wrath, and that He does in the bible in two ways. He does it at the cross by dying under the wrath of God for His people on the cross. He's the only one that could do that. He was alone on the cross, the only one that could redeem.

Secondly, He's the only one that can bring about this slaughter at the end of the world, He alone. Jonathan Edwards in his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, meditates on just how overwhelming this image is. He's meditating there on Revelation 19, but Revelation 19:15 comes from this image, from Isaiah 63. This is what Edward said,

"We read of the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. The words are exceeding terrible. If it had only been said the wrath of God, the words would have implied that which is infinitely dreadful, but it is the fierceness and wrath of God, the fury of God, the fierceness of Jehovah, oh how dreadful must that be. Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them? But it is also the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, as though there would be a very great manifestation of His almighty power, and what the fierceness of his wrath should inflict, as though omnipotence should be as it were enraged, and exerted, as men are want to exert their strength and the fierceness of their wrath. Oh, then what will be the consequence? What will become of the poor worms that shall suffer it? Whose hands can be strong in that day and whose heart can endure? To what a dreadful inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery must the poor creature be sunk who shall be the subject of this!"

Just words. It's all I can do right now is just words, that's what this text is, it's words, but there's a reality coming behind the words, and by faith alone will we take these words seriously.

Why All This Wrath?

Why is this wrath coming? Verse four, "The day of vengeance was in my heart. God had stored up His wrath against the sinners, not forgetting any of their wicked acts, especially those done to harm His chosen people." The meticulous record keeping of God is behind the justice of this action. It says in Romans 2:5-6, "But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you're storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to what he has done."

Well, immediate application right in the middle of this, I just want to plead with you to flee the wrath to come, flee, find refuge in Christ now by faith. You don't see any of this now, not with the eyes, but you hear what these words say, you can get an image in your mind then you'll either believe or you won't. If you believe this is coming then that's a gift of the Holy Spirit to you, to take this seriously. To flee. To not live like Esau, like Edom, not live for your stomach, not live for your passions, your earthly passions, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, don't do that. Flee by faith to Christ, come to Christ. He alone can avert the wrath of God. He has done so at the cross for any who call on His name. So this is it, the day of salvation is still here, this is the day. This is the time of God's mercy and grace, this is the window of opportunity we have, come to Christ.

Now, to the Christian, if you know you've already done this, understand the wrath you deserved to experience, you should be humbled by this, it's very humbling. Grow in your estimation of the incredible grace of God and the love of God that He has shown to you, how God has forgiven you so richly. Meditate on the truth of what is coming and let it affect how you're living. Embrace the fact that God will have His day of vengeance. Don't minimize this, but feel the weight of it. Now, let's transition, pray in light of this coming wrath, pray.

Now, the first thing the intercessor does here in verses 7-9, is recount God's history of love. Look at verses 7-9, "I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which He is to be praised according to all that the Lord has done for us. Yes, the many good things He has done for the house of Israel, according to His compassion and His many kindnesses. He said surely they are my people, sons who will not be false to me, and so He became their savior. In all their distress he too was distressed, and the Angel of His presence saved them. In His love and mercy He redeemed them, He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old."

Now, right away do you see the movement from verse six to verse seven? I mean this is kind of hard to follow, but there it is. Look at verse six, "I trampled the nations in my anger, in my wrath I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground." Verse seven, "I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which He is to be praised." Wow, but I'm just saying, you have to see the goodness and mercy of God in light of this averted wrath. That's how we celebrate what God's done for us. We have been saved. If you say, "Saved from what?" Saved from this, saved from hell, saved from justice, what we deserved. So, we deserved as much as anyone else to be trampled as any of these wicked and their destruction was to benefit us, so that they wouldn't trouble us anymore. We don't know much about the persecution the way that our brothers and sisters in Christ do, but it's been a bloody 20 centuries. It's been persecution by the devil and his people against the true people of God for 20 centuries. And in the end, it's going to get much worse when anti-Christ comes and when there's all this organized persecution and beheading and martyrdom and all that.

When all that comes, He's going to come to deliver his bride and rescue her from all of her enemies. So we should just be thankful for that. And so, He begins by telling of the kindnesses, plural, of the Lord, the many acts of kindness. And so as we begin to pray, start with this, in light of God's justice, thank you God for saving me. Thank you for my salvation. Thank you that I can call you Father. And so he goes over all of God's covenant love, Hebrew is hessed covenant love, and His praiseworthy acts on behalf of Israel. And they flowed from God's compassions.

And look at the basis of all of these kind acts, the deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt, when God destroyed Egypt and her gods and destroyed Pharaoh's army at the Red Sea. The basis of it is verse eight. He said, "Surely, they are my people, sons who will not be false to me and so He became their savior." So the foundation here is the adoptive love of God. He has become their adoptive father and they have become his sons and daughters. The adoptive love of God.

Remember how God said to Pharaoh, "Israel is my firstborn son… let my son go," that adoptive love. And for us as Christians, now we understand the fullness of that adoptive love. Ephesians one, it says, "In love he predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace." We have been adopted into His family, and so that's His commitment to us, as our loving Father, He protects us.

And He suffers with us, look at verse nine, "In all their distress He too was distressed," that's incredible. Do you know how happy God is being God? He's happy all the time. He's not troubled. Psalm 115:3 says, "Our God is in heaven He does whatever pleases Him," He's a happy God because He has within himself the seeds of all of His own, His self-sufficiency, His happiness, His contentment comes from being God, and God is enough for Him. But His sadness, His sorrow, His pain comes from compassion because He links His heart with His suffering people on earth. Isn't that incredible? So God chooses to hurt, He chooses to suffer, like the Jews when they were in bondage in Egypt.

It says in Exodus 2:24, and 25, "God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them." He cared about them. So we should see the outpouring of wrath on the enemies of God as a form of His loving protection for the people of God. And He sends the angel of his presence, look at verse nine, "In all their distress he too was distressed and the angel of His presence saved them. In His love and mercy He redeemed them, he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old." Oh, this dear friends is none other than the Angel of the Lord who rescued Israel from bondage to Egypt and led them out, symbolized by a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire, led them through the Red Sea, led them for 40 years, and then into the promised land. This is the angel of the Lord.

The very one that appeared in the flames of the burning bush, to Moses. I believe it's the pre-incarnate Christ, why? Because Exodus 23, this angel was described. Exodus 23:20-22, "Behold I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to him, and do what he says. Do not rebel against him for he will not forgive your rebellion. Listen, since my name is in Him." It's Jesus friends, that's Jesus. This is the angel of his presence, who lifted up the people of Israel and brought them out of bondage through the Red Sea, through the desert wanderings and into the Promised Land.

And Jesus is going to come back in the end and this bloodbath is the final act of His protection and deliverance for His bride, the church. That's how we see it, that's what we understand it. Thank you God for loving me, thank you God for saving me.

The Intercessor Confesses Sin

But, tragically, and in confession we have to go to it, look at verse 10, you have to confess that you have grieved Him. Look at verse 10, "Yet they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit, so he turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them." Israel consistently rebelled against God, from the desert after the Red Sea crossing through the history and through Joshua, judges, and the kings, their rebellion was deeply grievous to God, and the Lord mourned over the sins of His people, just as he suffered because of their afflictions in Egypt. Because of Israel's rebellion God turned and became their enemy, and dealt with them as an enemy almost as pagans.

In verse 10, "They rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit, so He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them." By the way that one verse, verse 10 is one of the three references in the old testament to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God mentioned many times, but the Holy Spirit mentioned twice, in this one verse, one other time in another place. So this is God's Holy Spirit and He delights in the purity of His people, but He also grieves. He's an emotional being and when we sin, He's grieved by our sins.

So as we're beginning intercession first verses 1-6, we think about the wrath of God, verse 7-9, we give thanks for the deliverance we have received from God through the cross of Jesus Christ, and then verse 10, you confess your sins. You ask for forgiveness for the way that you have grieved the Holy Spirit of God. That's how we intercede, we grieve and mourn and wail and change your laughter to mourning and our joy to gloom. We humble ourselves before the Lord and He lifts us up.

Now, we're not going to suffer God's wrath. But when we sin, God in some other sort of way turns and somewhat acts like our enemy. He isn't our enemy, He loves us, but He will discipline us. And so it says in Hebrews 12, "Do not make light of the Lord's discipline or lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines or smites everyone that he receives as His son." So it could be that because of your sins, He's going to discipline you, because of that grief, but He's never going to cast you off because he has set his adoptive love on you.

So, in this chapter, we have seen the powerful striding of the Lord in wrath after slaughtering His enemies represented by Edom, by Bozrah the capital city. We have seen how this wrath is righteous and holy, and that it is a terrifying slaughter. We have seen how no one but Christ could address God's wrath at the cross, no one but Christ will have the right to pour out God's final wrath at his second coming, he trod the winepress alone. We also have acted out for us, the attitudes and words of a watchman on the walls. And we've begun that intercession by recounting the goodness of God to us, thanking God for our salvation, for His love for us in Christ. And we've begun to see how we can give ourselves no rest and give Him no rest, until He establishes Jerusalem as the praise of the earth. Now, next week, we're going to finish the lessons of these two chapters step-by-step.

Just a couple of words of application and we'll be done. I think I've already said it, but I say it again, just immerse yourself in these verses, and stand in awe of the coming wrath of God. Don't shrink back. This is the truth, I would be tickling your ears if I didn't preach this, if I skipped Isaiah 63, or got to the happy things and didn't tell you the truth. You know this is true, if you're a Christian, you know this is true. So tremble at it, God esteems, He'll say later in Isaiah those who tremble at his word. Tremble at this, this is serious.

And don't shrink back from it yourself. Don't be ashamed of it as though it's something ugly or shameful, this is true, warn people about it, plead with sinners to repent in light of these things. Plead with them while there's still time. At the end of his Pentecost sermon, Peter, it says in Acts 2:40, "With many other words he warned them and pleaded with them, 'save yourselves from this corrupt generation." We should plead with people. Or Isaiah 55:6 and 7, I love this, say to people this, "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the evil man His thoughts. Let Him turn to the Lord and He will have mercy on Him, and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon Him." Plead with people in light of that. And then, begin, maybe even this afternoon interceding. Give yourself no rest, give Him no rest, intercede in light of these things. Intercede for people you know that are lost in light of the things that we've learned here. Take up this challenge. You say, "Lord, I don't know what to pray for." Next week, we're going to go line by line and see what we can pay for, but begin even this afternoon and say, "I want to spend some time interceding for God to establish the new Jerusalem for His glory." Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Isaiah 46:3-4. The main subject of the sermon is that life is sacred from birth to death.

 Well, as Jared mentioned, today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Every January, I preach on the third Sunday in January on the sanctity of human life. Usually, I address the topic of abortion because the sanctity of human life date is set to remind us of the Roe vs. Wade decision back in 1973 legalizing abortion. And that issue never leaves my mind. But this morning, I really feel led by God to preach on the topic of euthanasia. I have a number of reasons for doing that, and one of them is that this past November, the state of Colorado passed their Proposition 106 making physician-assisted suicide legal among patients in that state with a terminal illness that have a diagnosis of six months or less to live. That Proposition 106 in Colorado was called by the name the End of Life Options Act. You could just see the satanic deception of that title, options, also sometimes called the Death with Dignity bill. Again, the idea of a certain kind of life that has dignity versus other type of human life that has no dignity.

And so there are issues that we have to address. It passed by a rate of 65% to 35%, so easily passed in the state of Colorado. In taking this dreadful step, Colorado became the sixth state in the union with such a law, joining California, Oregon, Montana, Vermont, and the state of Washington. Now around the world, this has been an issue as well. Other countries in Europe have gone much further down the road on the issue of euthanasia than we have. And I'm going to talk about them, some of those. In some European nations, requests can even be based on physical disability or psychiatric distress, not terminal illness or excessive pain. As I'll talk about later in the message, the Netherlands and Belgium have recently both extended their laws to cover children as well as adults, children ages 12 to 16. Many people, I think, rightly are worried about a slippery slope: where does this all lead? Most alarming to me as a pastor, as a shepherd of souls, is a poll done by Lifeway Research, which came back with this result: 38% of the people they polled who profess to be evangelical, to believe in Jesus Christ, and the Scriptures as an authority, almost four in ten agreed with this following statement, "When a person is facing a painful terminal disease, it is morally acceptable to ask for a physician's aid in taking his or her life." Agreeing with that statement and calling themselves evangelical!

In other words, “physician-assisted suicide is morally okay. At least in some circumstances.” How in the world is that pro-life? How did we get here? How did we get to that point? I think it's very obvious from my perspective. It’s because people aren't thinking biblically. They’re not going back to the Scripture and taking everything through the grid of the truth of God's Word. If I were to push beyond that, I think that there is a kind of a new mushy-headed definition of love or compassion that people have, and it extends also to the issue of homosexuality or gay marriage or transgender issues in which we're trying to be loving and compassionate in a way that's not biblical, and upholding personal choice, like the inerrancy of personal choice or the inalienable right to make these kinds of choices, including abortion and other things.

I think we need to turn to God's Word and root ourselves in what it says. Now, for myself, as I think about this topic and all the more as I went through the sermon this morning, this is an incredibly dreary topic. It's very sad. It's hard for me not to cry while preaching it. It's hard for me as I go through the details, especially when it comes to children when I think about suicide and think about the ministry of the church is called on to have. So let me just lay my cards on the table. What am I about today? Well, a good friend of mine and I had lunch this week. He's a physician, he said, "Please speak light and hope into this sermon." And so I yearn to do that.

So what's the positive light that can come out of this? Well, my desire as a pastor here is to help each one of you love life as God chooses it for you, love your life right to the end, however God chooses for your life to end. That you would embrace life, that you would be energetic about your life right to the end of your life, that you would delight in whatever God chooses for you, no matter how much suffering it entails. And that you'll run with endurance right to the end, the race that's marked out before you. And that you will store up treasure by leaving a legacy of hope and energy and love right to the end of your life. That's my desire. 

When I was running cross country as a high school athlete, my coach told us that we're all supposed to run to an imaginary point 10 feet beyond the finish line. In other words, finish the race. You don't know who's gaining on you, you don't have time to look around, so just run to ten feet beyond. Now we know that nothing, none of the feet beyond the finish line mean anything in the race, but what it does is it affects how you run the race. And in other sports, it's the same thing, like in basketball, you have to follow through on your shot. The ball's gone, what difference does it make what your hand does? It's because it affects how you shoot.

The same thing I'm told with a golf stroke, though I know nothing about it, but you're supposed to swing right through it, your follow through matters. It's the same thing in tennis and baseball. So to bring that over to theology here, how you think about death will affect how you live. How you think about death and suffering will affect how you live every day. And also I believe that we are in training right now for how we'll die. We're actually preparing right now for the mentality, the attitude we'll have right to the end of our life. 

Paul says these amazing words, meditate on this, he says, "I die daily." I mean, just ponder. What does that mean? I die every day. Well, there's a death to self to the flesh that's essential to a healthy Christian life, that carries us right to the end of our days in which we accept whatever suffering God brings in our life in a very healthy, robust way, and I want us all to do that. So that's the light I'm speaking. That's the hope I wanna give you. But also horizontally, we have a responsibility to other people, and we are here to shine a light in a dark place. And the ministry we have to offer to others, for the most part, in terms of outsiders, they don't want. They don't want what we have to give. We're persuading spiritually suicidal people to live.

We also should be willing to persuade literally suicidal people to live as well, to give hope to people right to the end. And we need to do that. So this affects not only our vertical attitude toward God every moment, but also our ministry. So that's what I'm about today. Now, above everything, I wanna preach the Gospel. And Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is a great time to remind ourselves of the only hope that we have, and that hope is the gospel of Jesus Christ. You saw in the two testimonies and in the great job that Philip did explaining the Gospel how the water doesn't save, but Jesus saves. Jesus has the power to save sinners, and he has the power to give hopeless people hope, eternal hope. So, if you're in that hopeless condition today and you're listening to me, I just wanna speak a word of joy and hope to you. All of your sins can be forgiven through simple faith in Christ, not by your works, but by just trusting in Christ, crucified and resurrected. And I just wanna make an appeal to you to cross over from death to life, and to leave death behind and live forever with Christ, and then run your race the rest of your life with endurance to serve Him. That's the gospel. And that's why I'm here today. 

So I wanna zero in on that disturbing poll of 38% of people who self-identify as evangelicals who have drunk the poison, the mental poison of euthanasia, and who think it's morally acceptable to kill yourself or to help another person kill themself for their certain conditions that you meet. I think that's absolutely false, it's absolutely wrong, and I think the only way we're gonna combat it is to destroy the idea with truth. So I'm here with the weapons of truth and righteousness to blow up false ideas, to blow up false doctrines, like Paul says we do it in 2 Corinthians 10.

I believe that all kind of false doctrine and immaturity is overturned by the ministry of the Word of God. As we learn in Ephesians 4, that he gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers, I'm a pastor-teacher, to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature. Mature. Well, what does that mean? Then we will no longer be infants blown back and forth and tossed by the ways of false doctrine and the cunning and craftiness of men and their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up in him who is the head, Christ. So I don't want us blown back and forth by these false ideas that are going on in our society today. I want us rooted and established in life and in truth. So we have to fight.

The Word of God alone can give us lasting roots so that we're not easily moved like immature infants, blown back and forth on the waves. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” He never changes. Hebrews 13:8. And just as Christ never changes, God's word never changes. It is eternal. It is the same yesterday and today and forever. God hasn't changed his mind on euthanasia. And we must not change our minds, though we're under immense social pressure to give up on some key tenets of our evangelical faith. We must not give in, we must be rooted in an unchanging word on let's say our views on the exclusivity of Christ and of the Gospel, that individual people all over the world need to believe in Jesus for salvation.

Let's not give up on that. Let's not be easily move from that. It's gonna be under attack. It's already under attack. Let's not give up on the Gospel itself, that sinners are saved by grace through faith in Christ, not by works. We're not giving up on that. We're not giving up on the biblically taught precept of the sinfulness of homosexuality. Just because it's popular, we're not gonna be moved away from that. It is spiritual poison. We want to dissuade our friends and co-workers and neighbors that are drinking spiritual poison to stop drinking it and live and not die. And that's loving to do. And we're not going to be confused on gender. We believe what the Bible teaches that God creates people in his image, male and female. All of these things are rooted in the unchanging Word of God. And it says in 1 Peter 1, "All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our Lord stands forever. And this is the word that was preached to you."

All right, so as we come together on Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, we come together under this banner of this sanctity of human life, and what I'm advocating today is we're zeroing in on the end of life here, where ordinarily on this Sunday, I would zero in on the beginning of life. But the text that Dave read for us covers the whole thing. This is not an expositional sermon on Isaiah 46. I'll return to expositional preaching next week in a later chapter of Isaiah, but Isaiah 46:3-4 says this,"Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel," listen to this, "You whom I have upheld since you were conceived and carried since your birth, even to your old age and gray hairs, I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you, I will carry you, I will sustain you and I will rescue you." 

So from conception in the mother's womb, even to the very end of life, God is he who creates and sustains us and rescues us, that's what... He promises his personal direct involvement in every moment of our lives. From the moment of conception in our mother's wombs until the very end of our lives, it is he who sustains us and upholds us. So based on this, we're speaking of the sanctity or sacredness of human life from conception to death, right to the very end. Now, the word sanctity means sacredness, set apart unto God. Like other Scriptures say, “Holy to the Lord”, belongs to God, it's sacred to him. And we know from Genesis chapter 1, God determined to create the human race, male and female, in the image of God, and in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them, sacred holy humans in the image of God. And we believe, as we said, life, human life, is sacred from the womb. 

As many Scriptures teach, Isaiah 46, you heard, but also Psalm 139:13-14, the Psalmist says, "You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." So God was actively involved in knitting you together inside your mother from conception on. But then a few verses later in Psalm 139:16 it says, "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." So God has a plan for every day of your life, right to the very end, all of those days, not some of them, all of them, right to the end of your life. So as the scripture says, "In him, we live and move and have our being." And God alone has the right to both give life and take life away, and he does both every day. He has that power. He has that right. Job understood that when he heard that all of his children, all of them, ten of them, were killed in one moment with a natural disaster, a hurricane or tornado, or something like that. This is what Job said, "At this Job, [Job 1:20-21] Job got up and tore his rob, shaved his head, fell to the ground, and worshipped and said, The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised." That's our reaction to both birth and death, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. That's his right, his role, his prerogative.

So when it comes to life and death, the Lord is the one that gives, the Lord takes away, and he alone has the right to do that. Now, let's talk about euthanasia. What does that mean? It's a long word. It's a complex word, not everybody knows what it means. Euthanasia comes from the Greek “eu”, the prefix meaning good and “thanatos” meaning death. Good death. Good death. Sometimes people speak of a “mercy killing”, something like that, etc., but the idea is a death that is good by whatever definition. Commonly, we would say euthanasia is the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve suffering. That's one definition. It can also be referred to as assisted suicide. Now, ethically, there are different categories of euthanasia. There are two primary categories and two secondary categories in that ethical system giving us a matrix of four possibilities. There is active euthanasia and passive euthanasia. And then the second category is voluntary or involuntary. So the first has to do with how the death actually comes about, and the second has to do with the understanding or the disposition of the person that's going through it and their choice in the matter. 

All right, so active voluntary euthanasia. In that case, a person is willingly choosing to die and acts to carry out this choice. What distinguishes that from just simple suicide is the assistance of others in doing that. So others help them to kill themselves. That's active voluntary euthanasia. Active involuntary euthanasia, in that case, a person that has not assented, has not expressed willingness to have their life taken from them is deliberately terminated by another. That's active, involuntary euthanasia. Passive voluntary euthanasia is a dying person voluntarily declining medical assistance, which would prevent them from dying. In other words, there's nothing active introduced to the case, but just things that could be helpful are withdrawn, and the person wants it that way. And then passive involuntary is where a dying person who could be medically prevented from dying is denied a variety or a range of life-saving treatments, those are the four possibilities. Now, another issue, and that is the question of a difference between involuntary and non-voluntary. In that case, it's like, I'm not willing, I'm aware of what's going on and I am not assenting, or a person who literally has no idea what's going on, literally none. They're unconscious or they have dementia, Alzheimer's, and they have no idea what's going on, so that adds two more opportunities or issues.

All right, so here's what I'm saying. As I sort through these categories, I believe all active euthanasia is immoral of any type. It's immoral, it's wicked. Again, what is that? It's the introduction of an element to the case that itself, that feature produces the death. So not the terminal illness, that's not it, it's something that has been added, usually barbiturates, where the person is just drugged to death, they're given an overdose of barbiturates and they die. But there are other ways that people die, and I don't wanna go through the details, it's just so depressing. But there are just different things that are introduced to the case and that produces death. All of that is immoral and Christians should stand against it.

 Passive, I’d struggle to call it euthanasia, but the more I meditated on it the more I started thinking, maybe we just need a real definition of euthanasia. There are good deaths actually. And we'll talk about it later, but when God chooses to take one of his children out of the world, it's a delightful thing to him, and it's good for us to die and go and be with Christ. So I guess it's like I don't wanna call all these euthanasia, but to stick with the ethical categories, passive means at that point, you're not going the nth degree with the medical community, you're not going... always, one more step. One more step, one more step. At some point you're stopping knowing there's still more the medical science can do, but you're not going to do that anymore. At that point, I just think people are going to make those kind of ethical choices all the time.

The first person I ever, first human being, I ever saw die, I was on a mission trip in 1987, in the hills, the very rural area of Pakistan. It was a 20-day-old infant that had double pneumonia and a very low blood pressure and a variety of other illnesses etc. They were brought to our I camp, and the medical doctor there from Great Britain did everything he could in that remote area to keep the baby alive. In the last two hours, all it was was CPR, and they were just pushing on the baby's chest and doing nothing to cure it of any of the things that were killing it. And at some point we prayed and we stopped pushing on the chest and we just left it to God and prayed. And the child died very quickly after that, so that would be a picture of passive. You’re stepping back and you're saying, we're not going to do any more medical things here. 

Now you know that ethically you're going to face lots of those types of situations, many different types of situations. Could be a teenager that gets in a terrible car crash, and they're non-responsive. Maybe what the medical community might call brain dead, etc. There could be other issues. You might have a terminal illness. Terminal cancer, it's almost always terminal, but there are experimental procedures that could be done. There's always perhaps one more thing or not always, but so often there is. It's not unethical to say at this point, I feel that we have made a reasonable effort to get healed. If God wants to heal this loved one, he can do it by a direct action by miracles, but we're not going to take those further steps. I don't think that's immoral, I don't think that's unethical, I think people are going to make those kind of decisions a lot. So those are the distinctions. 

Now, I believe that when it comes to active euthanasia, this is a terrible slippery slope, that we don't know where it's going to lead. We don't know what effect it's going to have in our society, these six states think it's all right for physicians to assist people to kill themselves. It says in Galatians 5:9, “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” Where is this all heading?

It could be the definition of euthanasia might be expanded to include those who are suffering from chronic depression or maybe just tired of living, or maybe those no longer productive in society. Perhaps the government would get to the point where it decides who should get what level of care and when all in the name of the collective good, but what's to prevent the government from actually eventually stepping in and determining who needs to be terminated, no matter what they think in that. You don't know that we're not heading toward that type of dystopia, that type of evil society that could get there and what steps led to it beforehand, but what's going to stop that?

 Now, as we talk about why people say they want to die, what reasons they're giving, we have to step in and start to argue against these indicators saying, “this is worthy of death.” A poll was taken on what people consider to be states worse than death, or I would rephrase it, “I'd rather die than go through X.” And so they started listing some of these things like bladder and bowel incontinence, the inability to control your bladder and your bowel. Fifty-five percent said they'd rather die than go through that. Relying on a breathing machine to live, 52% said they'd rather die than be hooked up to a machine that would help them breathe. Cannot get out of bed, 50%, is a state worse than death. Confused all the time, 48% said it was a state worse than death.  Needing care all the time, continual care, 38% said it was a state worse, I'd rather die than need care all the time, on down: relying on a feeding tube, living in a nursing home, one-third of the respondents said they'd rather die than live in a nursing home. At home all day long, can't get out anymore, moderate pain all the time, confined to a wheelchair was on the list. Now, how much worse if some of these things get stacked up on each other, one after the other, to some people, almost obvious that you should wanna die, I just wanna stand and fight all of this, so you can live an incredibly worthwhile life with all of this going on, all of it.

Now as Proposition 106 was heading toward being voted on back in November, the Denver Gazette came out against it, a secular newspaper, but came out against it in an editorial column, September 26, 2016, and brought up some things that were just straight scary for me. Listen to this, to qualify for assisted suicide, you have to be of sound mind, they say, you have to know what you're doing to meet the condition of Proposition 106, but nothing in the law requires even a cursory psychological evaluation. There’s nothing legally enforcing to say that you are of sound mind. Some people who choose suicide might simply be suffering a minor bout with depression. Statistics in Oregon, one of the states that allows it, show that 66% of those who choose to end their lives did so because of a loss of will to live, not because of excessive pain. They just don't wanna live anymore. Also, the law required a terminal diagnosis within six months, but a John Hopkins’ study show that doctor mistakes on that issue are common. How in the world can we know the future, how can we know definitely this person's gonna die within six months? You're just looking at statistics based on that disease. You don't know what will happen.

Dr. William Tofler said it is nearly impossible to predict the course of an illness six months out, and many patients given such prognoses live full rewarding lives long past the six months. A greater concern comes in reference to pushy relatives with serious financial incentives for that person to die. The Colorado bill contains no oversight to protect individuals from coerced or even forced consumption of suicide pills. And listen to this, it grants immunity from prosecution for anyone there at the time of death, and there's no good reporting system in terms of whether there's abuses. It's just “open season” on the elderly at that point. One woman, Kay Chaney, was found competent to take her life despite her own dementia and the involvement of an adult daughter seen by the doctors as "somewhat coercive" in demanding the lethal pills.

 Another man, Michael Freeland, had suffered from suicidal depression for years before he ever became ill, and so people had been around this individual, counseling and urging and speaking hope into his life so he wouldn't commit suicide. Then he got this diagnosis and he was given the medications to take his own life, despite the fact that his house had been cleansed of all deadly weapons so he wouldn't kill himself. Do you see the schizophrenia here? So which suicidal people are we gonna minister to and which not? I tell you what, we'll just minister to the suicidal people who really secretly really do wanna still live. How do we even know? We just have to go in the name of life and hope to everyone and speak Christ into those situations. That's what we're called on to do as a church. One of the main reasons that people seek it is they don't wanna be a burden to their family or a burden to people around them. We have to speak against that. There's no burden. I'm gonna talk about that at the end of the message, but it's not a burden to care for another person. 

What's happening in Europe is even worse. It’s just much further down the road. The Dutch government has decided to expand their euthanasia law to include people who are not even physically or psychologically sick at all, not even in the least. They just believe that their life is completed. The Dutch health minister read a letter to Dutch Parliament in October, defending this measure. Edith Schippers, said, “It is needed to address the needs of older people who do not have the possibility to continue life in a meaningful way, who are struggling with the loss of independence and reduced mobility, and who have a sense of loneliness partly because of the loss of loved ones and who are burdened by a general fatigue, deterioration, listen to this, and loss of personal dignity."

Can I just tell you? We have dignity always, if we're human. It doesn't matter if we're having trouble with our bladder or trouble with other physical functions, etc. We always have dignity. That's what today is all about. The sanctity of human life, just a lesser word is dignity, the dignity of human life, always. But as I mentioned, even worse, the Dutch government has expanded the scope of protected physician killing to include children. With their parents' permission, a child between the ages of 12 and 16 years old may request and receive assisted suicide. Now, listen to this. Initially, the law allowed children to receive it even if their parents objected, but after domestic and international criticism the law was changed to require parental consent. My mind blew up on either side of the equation. Like on the parental consent, what parent would consent? Ever? But then imagine where it's not even needed, they're not even consulted. Just suffering from life. Tired of living. It's a slippery slope. And where is it all heading? How shall we Christians think about this? What shall we do? And I wanna finish the message by just zeroing in on three themes: waiting on God, living and suffering well, and caring for parents, those three themes, and we'll finish with that.

First, waiting on God. The fundamental problem I have with all of this is the human arrogance of taking something from God that belongs only to God. That's the biggest problem I have with this, period. This is not our right. We don't have the right to do this. That includes suicide. In Bunyan's classic, Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian and Hopeful are in Doubting Castle, and they're in this dungeon and they're getting beaten up every day by the Giant Despair, and the Giant Despair comes and hands them instruments whereby, as Hopeful said, “Why should we become our self-murderers? But he hands them a blade, he hands them a poisoned arrow. That's euthanasia, and he's persuading them to die, to kill themselves. That's despair, that's depression. They finally break out with the Word of God, the “key of promise,” and they get out. It’s an allegory, but it's just saying that it's all about depression, dark thoughts that come over us. But first and foremost, it's just a sin for us not to wait on God and let God be God and wait under his hand, be under him, and let him decide what will happen in our lives.

Now, an example of somebody who committed this sin was King Saul in the Old Testament, remember that? Remember in 1 Samuel 13, when he's under dire straits concerning a battle, an impending battle with the Philistines, and Samuel hadn't come, it seemed, at the appointed time, and he finally just couldn't wait anymore. Remember, he just wouldn't wait anymore, and he took matters in his own hands and offered an illicit sacrifice to God that God had not told him to do, confusing the kingship and the priesthood, which he was not permitted to do. As soon as he was done offering the sacrifice, Samuel showed up. Should have waited a little bit longer. But these dire words, Samuel spoke to Saul, [1 Samuel 13:13-14 ]“You have acted foolishly, you have not kept the command of the Lord your God that he gave you. If you had, he would have established your kingdom for all time, but now your kingdom will not endure. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him to be leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord's command.” In other words, Saul, because you couldn't wait on God, but took matters in your own hands, your kingdom is forfeit to you going forward after. Your descendants will not become king. 

Wow, that's how important it is to wait on God. Psalm 130 says, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits and in His Word, I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than a watchman waits for the morning, more than a watchman waits for the morning.” Well, Saul carried that mentality out the rest of his life right to the end of his life. So Saul's final moments on earth, where in the middle of a battle with the Philistines, you remember the story, he was severely wounded, and he was with his armor bearers, he's on the battlefield, and as he perceives his situation, he's not going to survive and he doesn't wanna be grabbed by the Philistines. So he says to his young armor bearer, this young man who he is with there, who idolizes him, looks up to him and says, run me through with my sword. In other words, euthanize me. But he wouldn't do it because he was the Lord's anointed. He wouldn't do it. Saul took matters in his own hand, did not wait on the Lord and fell on his own sword, when the young armor bearer saw what his hero had done, he imitated him and killed himself, too.

Providence, the doctrine of providence, the idea that God has worked out everything down to the tiniest detail. That includes the day of our birth, the day of our death. It’s all part of a vast, complex system. If we think that we understand it, we don't. It's got big gears and little gears and it's got electronics and wires and chips, and if some child looks at it and says, this wire is worthless and rips that out, or this chip isn't needed. What do we know? We're just born yesterday and know nothing, but even the very hairs of our head are all numbered, Jesus said. And God has ordained sparrows falling to the ground in death as part of his big glorious plan that definitely then would include the death of his people. It says in Psalm 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” So God has worked out how and when we're going to die. Now, throughout church history, some of his saints have gone out gloriously as martyrs for the cause of Christ, and God ordained that. That was part of God's plan. William Tyndale was burned at the stake. Great suffering and died for the glory of God. 

Over a century before that, John Hus, the same thing. Jim Elliot laid down his life for the Waorani people in Ecuador. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Others just die of natural causes like any other person would, any non-Christian would. David Brainerd was a great missionary in the 18th century, he died about as horribly as anybody I've ever read in church history. He died of tuberculosis. And Jonathan Edwards — he died in Jonathan Edwards' home — he recorded the events of his death. It took, according to the record, four weeks of active dying in order to die of coughing up blood, of spasms so bad that at any moment everyone around David Brainerd's bed thought that was it, he couldn't endure and yet he went on for four weeks. If ever you think about extreme suffering, David Brainerd is an example of it. And yet in the midst of those four weeks of absolute agony, there were just rays of heavenly sunshine that would come in and he would speak of his hope in Christ, and how eager he was to be with Christ, and how ready he was to die and how much he wanted to be with Christ. And he gave an incredible testimony. And at the end of his life, one of his last words was this. Actually for me, a little scary, but it's good to know. This is what David Brainerd said. “It is another thing that men suppose it is to die.”

In other words, it's gonna be different than you think it is. And I'm saying you're in training right now for it, get ready for it. Get ready to not choose the flesh, the easy way out, to cling to Christ, to trust in him more than ever before, to cling to him and to be willing to suffer for his glory, to believe that “our light and momentary troubles are as nothing compared to the surpassing glory that far outweighs them all.” Now, other Christians like Walter Martin, the “Bible Answer Man,” he was kneeling in prayer when his wife found him. I'm like, I'll volunteer for that. When the time comes, oh, Lord Jesus, I want the Walter Martin treatment, not the David Brainerd treatment. I wanna go out with minimal pain and coughing and strangulation in my own blood, I don't want that. I would like to just be in prayer, and I guess Christi would find me. I guess in this scenario for us, maybe we could go out in prayer together, you know, they found them kneeling in prayer, but we know it's just not that way, and the thing is we don't choose. We don't get to choose that. That's the very idea I'm trying to destroy. That's not up to us. That's something only God can choose.

So how then shall we live? How shall we suffer? How shall we die? We have to embrace suffering in the Christian life, this life is hard, do not be surprised when you suffer. It's a hard life. Let's imitate Jesus who in Gethsemane said, “Father, if it is possible for this cup to be removed, may it be so. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Not my will but yours be done. As Christians, we must imitate that right to the very last breath of our lives, not my will but yours be done. The Apostle Paul, was said over him, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” His life from that moment of his conversion until the day he died was a life of continual suffering day after day after day for Christ. And what he said is, “I want to know Christ, and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead.“ I want to find Jesus in my sufferings.

And he had so much suffering. He was persecuted. He also had sufferings that are inanimate object-type sufferings, like shipwrecks. He had all of it, and was all part of his life of suffering. And specifically, God gave him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment him, and three times he pleaded with God to be healed. To be delivered from this message, this thorn in the flesh, and the same message came every time. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” That's an anti-euthanasia statement. My grace is sufficient for you. I will get you through. Keep hoping in me. Keep trusting in me. Be willing to suffer right to the end. Because my strength is made perfect in weakness. So I was asking my kids as we drove in this morning, I said, “Can you imagine what would happen if Christians were not supposed to suffer like...” My son asked me, “Is it good to suffer?” And I said, “Under God, it is.” So why? So, well imagine, let's just go with an alternate reality universe here. Imagine at the moment that anyone becomes a Christian, they immediately from that point on have nothing but success and no suffering. 

That's like the prosperity gospel, like times 1,000, right? Immediately blessed with no pain, nothing but success and wealth and all that. Do you realize how amazingly effective... No, effective our evangelism would be. If people knew, you become a Christian, look what happens to you. I want that, yes. But why do you want it? What do you want? What you want is all the worldly stuff you've always wanted. But if, on the other hand, you have Paul and Silas singing in the Philippian jail, and they don't have anything that anybody could want on earth, and they're filled with joy and confidence and peace, and they're eager to go and be with Christ, which is better by far. Now, somebody could say, I want what they have, even though I don't see any earthly benefit. Now that's a genuine conversion, So it is actually very wise for God to put Christians on display in suffering, and so we need to live. And so if I could commend one verse that would will teach you how to think about life and how to think about your own death, I would commend Philippians 1:21, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Or you can put it this way: for to live is Christ and to die is even better. Or another way: for me to live is Christ and to die is even more Christ. So Paul, do you wanna live? Yes, I really wanna live. Why? Because I wanna know Christ and his sufferings and his service, and I wanna bless people. I wanna serve them. I wanna do the life that God... I am excited to live my life, I want to live right to the end of it, as many days as God gives me, I wanna live. Okay, Paul, do you wanna die? Yes, absolutely not in any suicidal way, but I wanna go through that doorway into heaven and see him face-to-face and be free forever from death, mourning, crying and pain. Yes, I want that. And that's better by far. Okay, you're healthy then. You're healthy. It is a healthy way to look at life. And it's a healthy way to look at death. So that's what I'm commending. Not a culture of death. 

Finally, we're called on to honor our parents. What that means is we're called on to care for the elderly as they get older and weaker, and as they draw near the end. Now that's gonna mean different things for different people.  But Jesus upheld it against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who said because they had some money that they were devoting to God, they didn't have to honor their parents with it. And he said, “You hypocrites.” So we have to be committed to caring for our parents, and that's gonna mean different things for different families, different things for different ones. But Paul says, 1 Timothy 5:8, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially for his immediate family, he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

So we are committed to care for the elderly. Now people have different ways of doing that. There are gonna be different ways, but it's your commitment to say, I care about my parents. And then by extension, our spiritual parents. There may be some elderly widows and widowers that don't have anyone to care for them, and the church is supposed to be there to care right to the end of life. And we care best, at least first and foremost, by speaking hope into people who are struggling as they reach the end of their lives, not by handing them some drug by which they can kill themselves.

Close with me in prayer. Father, I thank you for the time that we've had in your Word. I thank you for the power that you have given us to speak the truth into darkness and to glorify you. And Father, I pray that you'd help us to live for your glory and to embrace life and turn away from death. Thank you for Jesus, for his death on the cross and his resurrection. In his name, we pray. Amen.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Galatians 4:4-7. The main subject of the sermon is God's perfectly timed sending of the Son into the world.

It's a different kinda feel, isn't it this morning? Or nearly, obviously, we have Christmas on a weekday or some other day than Sunday, but it's kinda fun to be here with all of you, and I'm glad that you have decided to spend your Christmas morning with us, part of it. And I love Ross was praying this morning and talking about us as a family of families. Isn't that great? And as Chris was just praying a moment ago, we have that feeling of having been adopted even as the text says, into the family of God. And so, we are not alone in this world, we have brothers and sisters in Christ, and so, welcome. I'm delighted to share this Christmas morning with you.

This morning, we began, maybe, I don't know, a new family tradition, some of you have different traditions, maybe at this time you would be, I don't know, drinking eggnog and opening gifts and sitting by a crackling fire and just enjoying all that. We were sitting by a crackling fire this morning in a whole new way. One of my kids found a way to stream a crackling fire into our Smart TV. So we were there on the flat-screen TV, and it was really kind of amazing, I don't know who found that out, but that was pretty cool. At one point, Christi asked that we turn it down. So I said, we can just put the fire on mute for a while if you'd like. And that was pretty cool. And there's no cleaning up or any of that kinda thing, we're in a whole different age now of streaming fire, so I don't know if this gonna be a tradition, one year doesn't make a tradition, but it's just a different kinda feel, isn't it? You know, we're all different. We celebrate Christmas differently, we have different traditions, we have different ways of doing that, and there are different reactions. I was listening as Walter was reading the Christmas story and just looking at the different way that characters in that story reacted to the news. 

And I get the feeling that the shepherds reacted with great exaltation, they went back glorifying God, that everything was just as they had been told. But then you've got Mary quietly pondering these things in her heart, and I think both of them... Both of those ways of celebrating are fine. And the joy that comes in knowing that Christ has been born.

And so, we're gathered together today to celebrate that, and you're here in a church, and so it's right for us to focus on Christ. Many of us use that expression, the holiday spirit, or the spirit of Christmas, I was thinking about that this week. And the word spirit, and what does it mean the season... The spirit of the season, etcetera? I think it's an attitude of mind and heart that knits the population together in some loose way. And there are just different aspects of that holiday spirit, there is a secular aspect, and there is a sentimental or traditional or cultural aspect, and then there's a sacred or a spiritual or scriptural aspect.

That's the most alliteration you'll ever hear from me in my life, and that's not even the outline of this sermon. But I was just thinking about these different things, like secular, is just that spirit of the age, and Christmas is a big part of it. And I was amazed when we were missionaries in Japan, to see a lot of the outward trappings of Western... The Western-style of Christmas there in Japan. I'll never forget just walking through a Japanese Mall, and here are all these young Japanese men and women who were there working for the mall, and they were dressed up like elves, and they had the Red Caps and that whole thing, and we're hearing the seasonal music, Silver Bells and Jolly Old St. Nicholas and all that. And I realized, I mean, at that point, the Japanese people were the largest, single largest unreached people group in the world, less than I think 1% of them were evangelical Christians. So it's a completely lost nation on the outside of Christianity looking in, and that's why we were there, and we were delighted to be working for the gospel there, but there was all the outward trappings of Christmas in a very secular sense.

And I experienced that just a few days ago on Friday. I made the vast mistake of driving the Streets at South Point at 3:00 in the afternoon, like, I guess half of the rest of you were there too, I must think most of you are there because I've never seen so many cars in that place in all my life. And it took us like, half an hour just to leave. They didn't want us to leave, I guess, it was just hard to go. And it was just a vast sea of cars and humanity and people buying last-minute gifts and all that, so that's that secular spirit, and we all understand what that's about. And then there's that sentimental side. And so, when I think about the sentimental side or the cultural side of Christmas, I think about just all of those traditions that we have, and you have family traditions, but we in the West, in the English speaking world, we have cultural traditions that are just part of growing up in America or in England, the Western, the English style.

I think a lot of that came through Victorian England, merry old England, 19th century. I did some research on this, I didn't realize that at the turn of the century, from the 17th... No, the 18th to the 19th centuries, just around 1805, 1810, somewhere there, Christmas was nothing in England. I think that might have been the hold over the effect of the puritan view of Christmas as not being something that Protestants should celebrate. And so, it was just a completely nothing holiday. Nobody did anything for Christmas in the early part of the 1800s. But then Queen Victoria came in and everything changed. She had a German Prince that she married, Albert, and he brought in a lot of traditions from Germany, and a lot of those things that are part of our culture, our Christmas celebration came into England at that point, such as the Christmas tree, the lighted Christmas tree and it was literally lighted with candles, which I think, unbelievable danger, but they thought it was worth it. And you think, on every branch, there is a lit candle. Probably in the palace, they were able to have people watching it 24/7, but anyway, that was the lighted Christmas tree, came in, in that era. 

And there were magazines that were very popular in England at that point that would show depictions of the Royal Family and how they would celebrate. So there were candies on the tree and different other decorations on the tree. There were gifts under the tree, and a lot of those traditions came in maybe from Germany or maybe they just started them at that point. Christmas carols were big and started to become... Christmas cards, all of those things have come over into our culture, in a huge way.

It was around that time in 1843 that Charles Dickens wrote his famous classic Christmas Carol. And recently, Calvin and I had the opportunity of streaming the actual book. I'd never read... I had never read A Christmas Carol. I've seen three or four different depictions or adaptations, but to listen to Dickens...I mean, the words that he put, he was just a genius at the English language and just a great rich narrator. And just listening... And there were aspects of that story that are almost always cut out of the movies, maybe just they didn't want it to be too long. But I zeroed in on The Ghost of Christmas Present, and he takes this wretched miser, Ebenezer Scrooge on a kind of a trip, a spirit trip, kind of a city-wide and maybe even somewhat worldwide tour of Christmas to unfold all the happiness that Christmas brings to people all over the land. And the Spirit Himself is this overwhelming giant, this huge being with a big booming voice and a powerful personality. And he takes Scrooge on this kind of mystical spirit flight through the streets of London to drink in all of the holiday cheer, as they go from place to place. As they're clearing away snow, a snowball fight breaks out and it's all of good cheer. This is right in the Christmas Carol. And then you're brought to a meat shop selling all manner of meat, which only Dickens can describe. I mean, like, five lines of different meats and the way they were prepared, and the rich descriptions of the meat shops. And then the grocery shop, crowded with shoppers buying last-minute things and then leaving their packages there accidentally on the counters, and then coming back in. And all of these details about Dickens and the way he would see Christmas. And I think Dickens zeroed in on the human interaction, so he would go to the houses of the poor and see how the Christmas spirit brightened their otherwise drab experience. Like the Cratchit home as we know and you see what their meager fees did to lift their spirits. And the Spirit had a torch by which he sprinkled sparkly things down, and then the Christmas spirit, the holiday cheer spirit would just infuse the situation. And all of this joy and mirth and temporary alleviation of suffering would come as a result.

He took Scrooge to a distant desert moor, where the miners lived out their bleak existence and a poor miner and his large family broke out into a Christmas song. And there was this joy because of the Christmas song. Or to a distant coastline, where there's these crashing waves and there's this remote lighthouse, and there's just two men, and they're toasting each other with a Christmas toast, and they're singing, they break out in a song. And then we move out across the heaving waves and there's a ship and the master of the ship is there, and all of these crew members, and each one is saying something about Christmas or singing something or thinking happy Christmas thoughts. To Dickens, this was the essence of the Christmas spirit, eat, drink, and be merry. 

And as I thought about that, I thought, you know, actually, that is a great gift from God, isn't it? Honestly, every gift that we experience, every good thing there is in life comes from God. Every good and perfect gift, James 1:17, comes down from the Father of the heavenly lights, and he never changes, like shifting shadows. I love that verse. So it is a blessing for us to partake in these things, to enjoy them, to enjoy food, friends, and family, and fun. That's alliterative too. I didn't realize that. It's just happening today. I don't think it's ever gonna happen again. But all of these things are just following, the enjoyment of being together, the anticipation of a gift and opening up and somebody giving it to you, and just the excitement of that, I mean, it never ends. But what about tomorrow, when it's not Christmas anymore? What then? 

You know, what about the rest of the year? What about next year? What about the rest of your life? What about eternity? What does that spirit, the sentimental spirit do for you then? And I would say nothing, it doesn't do anything until it returns again next December. Jesus fed the 5000 with five loaves and two fish. And as I was thinking this morning, I think it must have been really excellent bread, must have been, if you can even think this is possible, the best fish you could ever eat. Some of you know why I have to hesitate to say that, but some people like fish, and if you like fish, that was the best fish you could ever have. I think this because when Jesus changed the water into wine, it was exquisite wine, high quality, but what happened the next day? They're the people seeking Jesus out the next day because they want their bellies filled again.

And Jesus said in John 6, Do not labor for the food that spoils, but for the food that lasts or will feed you for all eternity. And this, The Son of Man alone can give you. So, the Christmas joy of Charles Dickens, every detail of it is actually gift from God, but I look on it somewhat like scraps that fall from the heavenly table. That's all it is. If that's all it is to you, it's just scraps that fall from the heavenly table. God has so much more to give you than that, so much more to give you. Yes, that, we Christians can enjoy all of those same things, but we know that there's something infinitely better in Christ, and that's the gift of salvation that we celebrate.

So, I wanna lift our minds and our hearts up to the sacred celebration, the sacred spirit of Christmas, the scriptural spirit, the Holy Spirit. And unlike the ghost that is in Dicken's novel, The Holy Spirit really wants to lift our hearts and move us to a different time, back in time to see. And we can go to prophetic scripture, as we've already talked about, we can go back to the Apostle Paul's writing, which we're going to do in a moment in Galatians 4, but the Spirit wants to lift you out of the immediate circumstances to something better, and he ultimately is gonna bring you to Christ, not just the baby in the manger, but Christ the Savior, Christ the risen, exalted ruling Savior. That's the journey that I wanna take you on. Because for us as Christians, what we're celebrating here is a theological mystery, it's something we will never fully be able to articulate or understand, maybe the greatest theological mystery in the Bible, and that is the mystery of the Incarnation, how God, the infinite God of the universe, the second person of the Trinity became human, became flesh, became Immanuel, God with us. 

As John 1 says, in the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. And we have seen his glory. That's what we celebrate. And so this... The more we meditate on this, the infinite majesty of the God of the Bible, the God who created the universe by the word of His mouth and the breath of his power, that God who has eternally existed in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, that God, there is nothing in all creation that we can use to compare to God. There's nothing like him in creation. And God the Son reigned in glory with God the Father before he was born, working with the Father and the spirit in a very mysterious way. Created the universe, God the Son. His power is infinite, his glory is so overwhelming that even the holy Seraphim who have never committed any sins were covering their faces and their feet as they served him. 

And yet this infinitely holy, powerful God laid aside the outward trappings of His majesty and came to Earth as a humble baby. Athanasius, who wrote on the incarnation, several centuries after Jesus said this, the Lord did not come to make a display, He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display, the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders, but for him who came to heal and to teach, the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put himself at the disposal of those who needed him, to be manifested according to as they could bear it. Not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by exceeding their capacity to receive it. In other words, we couldn't handle a full disclosure of his personhood, of his glory, and so, He lowered Himself to what we could handle as we came to understand by word alone and by the Spirit, that He is God.                                          

So we've come to celebrate this mystery by the power of the spirit in a study of His word. So turn in your Bibles to Galatians, chapter 4. And we're going to look at what Paul writes there and walk through it briefly this morning. You've heard the text already, but let's look at it again. It says in Galatians 4:4-7 when the time had fully come, or in the fullness of time, God sent His son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. The Spirit who calls out Abba Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. So we begin as we just walk through it with the phrase in the fullness of time. Or when the time had fully come. I like the fullness of time. The idea here is the purpose of history, that history has a very intentional purpose in its unfolding. That history is a story that is unfolded logically and theologically, from beginning to middle to end, it's not willy-nilly, it has a purpose, it's rational. 

And many question whether there is a purpose to life, whether there is a purpose to history? Shakespeare and his suicidal character Hamlet, through his character Hamlet, said this, history is nothing but ‘a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing’. In other words, everyday life, and then the stringing together of days like that, history is utterly meaningless. It's like the ravings of a lunatic, that's what Hamlet thought. But we Christians know better, we know that it's not the ravings of a lunatic, everyday life has meaning and all of history has meaning. And there is a consecutive unfolding of history from the mind of God lived out on the pages of history, right up to this present moment. We believe that history is a magnificently complex tapestry filled with significance and meaning, a narrative first established in the sovereign mind of God, and then unfolded from the mind of God established before the foundation of the world, then unfolded in space and time in history by His sovereign power. 

Isaiah 14 puts it this way, ‘This is the plan determined for the whole world. This is the hand stretched out over all nations, for the Lord Almighty has purposed and who can thwart him, his hand is stretched out and who is able to hold it back.’ This is the plan, this is the hand. Also in 1 Corinthians 2:7, Paul writes, ‘We speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden’, listen to this, and ‘that God destined for our glory before time began.’ It's incredible. So, history has a purpose, and we go beyond that, there's a consecutive unfolding of history. The idea of an Alpha and Omega, and every letter in between, a sequencing. And so, Jesus said in Revelation 22:13, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the first and the last, I am the beginning and the end.’

So Jesus is history, he's the point of history, he's every day in between the first day, the last day, every day. History means nothing, it really is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, if there's no Jesus. But he ultimately is history in every sequential day, so he's the beginning, the middle, the end. And Galatians 4 tells us that Jesus was born in the fullness of time. Or you could think of it like a piece of ripe fruit, when the fruit was ripe and ready for the picking, it dropped off into the hand of the one who picked it. Before that it wasn't time, it wasn't ripe yet. It wasn't the time for the Messiah yet, but at the right time, in the fullness of time, Jesus came in the fulfillment. So, God was waiting for precisely the right moment for Jesus to come.

Now, we are continually questioning God's wisdom on this, and we wonder why he's doing what he's doing in history, especially if you're going through afflictions, going through suffering. You don't really understand what is God waiting for? Why doesn't he do what he can do? Why doesn't he bring the healing? Why doesn't he bring the money that we need so desperately? Why doesn't he bring a spouse into my life? Says a single Christian man or woman. Why doesn't he bring the child? Says the childless couple who's praying and waiting and wondering. But for the Jews as a nation, they were waiting, especially for the Messiah to come, the anointed one, the Son of David. When will he come? How long, O Lord, how long must I wait, forever? Psalm 13:1. When is it gonna come? 

And you think about Jewish history and all the things they are going through under gentile domination, think about after the Greeks dominated and took over that part of the world, then Alexander the Great died, and then other Greek kings came along and there was this wicked king named Antiochus Epiphanes, and he was blaspheming, and he was wicked. And he was doing all kinds of evil things, and the Jews were wondering, when would the Messiah come? But it wouldn't come for another two centuries. 

John Calvin said this: We could ask why God delayed when we were all lost and condemned the moment Adam fell. Why did he wait? Why did he not give the remedy sooner? Paul, however, has no interest in satisfying men's curiosity, said John Calvin. Paul, therefore, puts us in our place when he says that the fullness of time had not yet come. What does he mean by the fullness of time? He is referring to a time that God had appointed according to his will, and not a time that man would choose simply because men are not competent to judge the best time. "We must submit to God and delight in what he has established." Calvin's right, we're not qualified to choose the time for anything. And how much less than when the Messiah would break into human history. It was the fullness of time.

So, this is a sober lesson for all of us. I just wanna stop and apply it right now, just be patient and submit to God's mighty hand in your life. He knows the best time for all the biggest events in history, like Jesus coming into the world, and He knows even the best time for the smallest events that seemingly are insignificant, like a sparrow falling to the ground, and even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So, he knows the best time for all of those things. Trust Him. Wait patiently. Submit under God's mighty hand and wait for him in the fullness of time. Now, why was that the right time? Well, we can only speculate. God didn't say why it was the fullness of time, he just said that it was. We could try to wonder why. Perhaps it had to do with the rise of the Roman Empire.

John McArthur answers the question this way, why is it the fulness of time? It was the right time religiously, the Jews had come back long since from their exile to Babylon, they had repudiated the idolatry that had led to the exile, they had set up a system of synagogues in which the laws of Moses were read all over that region of the world, so it's the right time religiously. He also said, MacArthur did, that there had been sufficient time for us to realize the law couldn't save us, that we couldn't keep the precepts of the law to the end of our own salvation. The Jews had had plenty of centuries to prove that the law couldn't save anybody. So it was the right time for the Old Covenant to end and for the New Covenant to come.

He also said it was the right time culturally because of Alexander the Great's conquest in that part of the region, almost everyone in that part of the world spoke Greek, so there was a cultural-linguistic unification of that region that made it easier to preach the gospel. And then the Romans came along with their genius for engineering and organization, and the Pax Romana came, and the Roman peace, and there were great Roman roads and an economic system that unified and so we can surmise that might have been why it was the right time. At any rate, it was the right time and the fullness of time. Everything about Christ and his timing has been planned, and even after he was born, there was a timetable to his life. You know how the number of times that the Jews would try to seize Jesus and arrest him and like in John's Gospel, it said his time had not yet come. But then in John 17, at last, he prays, Father, the time has come.

And so there's a timing for Jesus's death, and there will be a timing for the second coming of Christ as well. All of us are eager for the second coming, we're saying, Amen, come Lord Jesus. Maranatha come. We're looking forward to the second coming of Christ, but we wanna know when. And we're not the first generation of Christians that were wondering that. Actually, the apostles were wondering that. And then 40 days that Jesus spent with them, they're asking about timing. Acts chapter 1, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Jesus said It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth. So you may wonder why the delay? What is he waiting for?                                                    

In 2 Peter 3, Peter says, He's waiting for people to come to repentance and find salvation. Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, that's 2 Peter 3:14. So that's what the timing is. So in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son. Look what it says there, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son. Jesus was sent by the Father. He didn't take it on himself to go, he was on mission from the Father, and the Father sent him forth, is a very emphatic Greek word here. He was sent forth by the Father, sent out, a heavenly ambassador, a heavenly apostle sent forth from heaven. John 3:17 says, ‘For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through Him’. 

So God sent forth his Son. And so, the saving initiative comes from the Father, just as God looked with compassion on the Jews when they're in bondage, they're in slavery in Egypt. You remember that in Exodus 2, it says, it's very powerful, the Israelites groaned in their slavery and they cried it out and they're crying for help because of their slavery, it went up to God, and God heard their groaning. And he remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. Talking there about physical slavery, the torments of being under the slave master's lash. But now expand that worldwide, God was concerned about the bondage, the slavery of the entire human race.

In Galatians 4:3 it says, ‘We were in slavery under the elemental principles of the world’. A difficult expression, but there's a demonic sense to that. We were enslaved to demonic forces of wickedness. We're in bondage to sin, because Jesus said, ‘Everyone who sins is a slave to sin’, and we were enslaved to death, we were certainly going to die and there was no hope. So we're in slavery, and God looked on our bondage and was concerned about us and sent forth his Son. Sent forth his Son. So Romans 5:6 says, ‘You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless’. Think about that word, powerless. ‘Christ died for the ungodly’. Powerless. Or another passage in Matthew 9, it says, ‘When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd’. We're powerless, we're helpless, we were enslaved, and so God sent forth his Son, the greatest gift, the greatest love gift he could ever give, he sent to the world in his Son Jesus. 

At Jesus's baptism in Matthew chapter 3, as Jesus came up out of the water, there was this voice from heaven saying, ‘This is my Son, my only Son, whom I love’. It's a sense of the Father's tremendous affection, the infinite affection of the Father for the Son, that's what he gave to us, that's the love gift of Christmas. And who is he? Well, in Hebrews 1:3, ‘The Son is the radiance of God's glory, and He is the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word’. Colossians 1 says ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation’. Colossians 2 says, ‘In Christ, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form’. That's what he sent to us, the fullness of deity in bodily form. And he couldn't have sent us a greater gift.

Romans 8:32, ‘He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things?’ What does that mean? In the economy of God, in the pricing of everything, there's his only begotten Son and everything else in the universe, and the logic of Romans 8:32 is, if he didn't spare his Son, he wouldn't hold back anything else in the universe. So in other words, Jesus is worth more than all the universe to God. That's what he sent, his only begotten Son. And the text says he was born of a woman, born under the law.                                              

So here we have, as I said, the mystery of the incarnation. The Son of God, Son of Man in one person. The focus here in the phrase is, he's born of a woman, and this must bring us back in our minds back to the beginning of human history, back to the Garden of Eden, when Eve was being tempted by the serpent, you remember, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is there, the fruit on the tree, and she took some of that fruit and ate it and gave some to her husband who was also with her, and he ate it, and then God came and brought judgment at that moment. And God spoke this word to the serpent who had tempted them, saying, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed or offspring and hers, he will crush your head, you will strike his heel. So I think this is why Paul uses this expression, born of a woman. This is the fulfillment really of the first prophecy ever made about Jesus. The seed of the woman who had grown up and crushed the serpent by the head. And so, she was his mother, he was born in that way, in the natural way. 

And so Jesus got his humanity from his mother in a very mysterious way. And you may say, How could this be? That's the very thing that Mary wondered. You remember when Gabriel came to say that this Holy One who would be born of her would be called the Son of God, and she said, How can this be since I'm a virgin? And the angel Gabriel answered the question as far as we can possibly understand. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, so the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. So that's the most explanation we're going to get. You know, in any biological conception, you've got a human baby with 46 chromosomes, and 23 come from the father and 23 come from the mother, so we must imagine, I guess that the 23 that would have come from the father came in some mysterious way from God through the Holy Spirit, that's as far as we can go. 

He's born of a woman, and it says also that he was born under the law, and friends, this is absolutely vital to our salvation. Jesus was a Jew, he was circumcised on the eighth day, he obeyed the law of Moses his entire life. He was born under the law, he walked every day under the law, he lived under the law, he died under the law's condemnation, as a substitute. And so, the essence of the law here is its relentless commands for perfection, perfect obedience to God, that's what the law demands of us. This is the righteousness that comes from the law. The man who does these things will live by them. That's the only way that the law could save you if you perfectly obey every precept of the law every day of your life.

1 John 3:4 says, ‘Everyone who sins breaks the law. In fact, sin is lawlessness’. James 2:10, ‘Whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles at just one point, is guilty of breaking all of it.’ That's the relentless demand of the entirety of the law, every jot and tittle, every little pen stroke is over us, our whole lives. And Ezekiel 18:4 says, ‘The soul who sins will die.’ So it's the death penalty for violating the law of God. It's relentless. The Apostle Peter called the law a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear.

Now, there's the ceremonial law, like circumcision and the dietary regulations, and the animal sacrificial system, all of those, the ceremonial aspect of it. Charles Spurgeon wrote about that. The Jewish nation of old was under the yoke of the law. Its sacrifices were continual. Its ceremonies were endless. New moons, festivals had to be kept, jubilees had to be observed, pilgrimages made. In fact, the yoke was too heavy for feeble flesh to bear. The law followed the Israelites into every corner. The law dealt with him upon every point, the law had to do with his garments, his meat, his drink, his bed, his board, and everything about him. Relentless. And that's just ceremonial law. What about the moral law? 

‘I am the Lord your God, he said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And the second law is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself.’ That's the moral law. It's a perfect thing. It's beautiful. We just can't keep it. We haven't kept it. We haven't loved God every moment of our lives, and we have not loved our neighbors ourselves. We have not obeyed the law. And Jesus, in his teaching, took it, impressed it right into our hearts. You have heard that it was said in the law, ‘You shall not murder, but I say, if you're even angry with your brother, you're in danger of the fire of hell’. And you've heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery, but I say that if you even look at a woman lustfully you commit adultery in your heart.’ No one can keep this, and that's why it says when Jesus was born of a woman, born under the law, he stepped under that law for us and walked under it every day of his life perfectly.

Hebrews 4:15 says that Jesus has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. He kept the law. Jesus himself said about himself, John 8:29, ‘The one who sent me, God, is with me, he has never left me alone because I always do what pleases Him.’ Which of us could make that kind of a statement? I always do what pleases Him. I pictured Jesus like a mighty Samson. Remember how Samson, this powerful warrior who picked up the jawbone of a donkey and killed a thousand Philistines with a jawbone of a donkey, and I picture Jesus fighting off every temptation every day of his life, and they all lie dead at his feet, everyone. Or picture Samson in Hebrew, and I think he was. And he gets up and picks up the city gates, remember that? And carries the city gates up the hill and throws it over the hill. That would have been something to see. So here's this one greater than Samson, living under the law every day of his life. 

Some time ago, I read the book about Louis Zamperini called Unbroken. You probably saw the movie and one of the climax of the movie, Louis Zamperini was a pilot in World War II whose plane went down in the Pacific and then floated in the Pacific for many days, was captured by the Japanese and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp, and there was a particularly sadistic guard named Watanabe, who was just after Louis Zamperini, particularly. He was a masochistic, sadistic man to everyone, but especially to him. And at kind of this climactic scene, he makes Louis Zamperini hold this 6-foot-long wooden beam over his head, threatening him with a beating. A guard stood right near if he should lower it, and he was just trying to break him. And he stood there, Louis Zamperini stood there under this massive weight for 37 minutes unwavering. It's unbelievable. 

If you don't think it's hard, just get two books of normal size, hardcover please, or maybe Encyclopedia Britannica, then hold them straight out like this. After about three minutes, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about as the lactic asset starts to build up in the arms. And this guy is unbelievable, 37 minutes straight over his head. But at some point, at some point, the relentless pressure of the weight is going to cause those arms to buckle. There's not been a single human being in history that has stood under the yoke of the law perfectly, except one man, and that's Jesus and his doing so is essential to our salvation. He won for us perfect righteousness that he is just now offering you as a gift, and if you don't have that perfect righteousness that he's offering you as a gift, you will not survive judgment day, you'll be condemned to hell.

But if you, by simple faith, receive through faith in Christ, the gift of perfect righteousness, he'll give that to you, at the same moment taking all of your guilt and wickedness and the ways you have not kept the law, and he died under the wrath of God for you. That's justification, that's salvation. That's what Jesus came to give us. Tim Keller put it this way, ‘Jesus lived the life we should have lived, and died the death we should have died’. And John Owen said this, ‘The Lord Jesus fulfilled the whole law for us.’ He did not only undergo the penalty of it due for our sins, but he also yielded to God that perfect obedience which the law required. Christ's fulfilling of the law in obedience to its commands, is no less given to us as a gift for our justification, then he is undergoing the penalty of it as well. It's a double gift. Our guilt gone; his righteousness given. Simply by faith.                  

Now, the text ends with this beautiful phrase, ‘to redeem those under the law that we might receive full rights as sons.’ So look what it says, ‘When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law’, to redeem those under the law, to buy us out of slavery, redeemed from bondage to sin, redeemed from the condemning power of the law, that we might receive the gift of adoption. Look at verse 5, this is the ultimate purpose of Christmas. Just look at it right on the text, ‘to redeem those under the law that we might receive the full rights of sons, the rights of adoption. Because you are adopted sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out Abba Father, so you are no longer a slave but a son. And since you are a son, God has made you an heir.’                                                  

So here, going back to the original illustration. The spirit of Christmas, the ghost of Christmas present, and all of this rich physical, sensory blessing, all of those things are gifts from God, but they're mere scraps falling from God's table. He doesn't want you crawling around like a dog, eating scraps off the ground, he wants you to sit at his heavenly table forever as an adopted son or daughter of God, that's what Christmas is about. He wants to give you the rights of sons and daughters of the living God. In order to do that, he had to redeem you from the Law's curse, and he did that at the cross, and he wants to give you the power of a whole new life, which he has won for you by the power of the Spirit, through his resurrection. He wants to put his resurrection life in you by the power of the Spirit. That's the gift that he gives us at Christmas.

So, applications, just celebrate in a scriptural way. You're gonna celebrate in a traditional way, and that's fine. Enjoy your family today. Enjoy fun, have some friends over, enjoy the food, enjoy the good gifts, but realize these are just mild foretaste of a heavenly joy that God wants to give you so celebrate in a scriptural, spiritual way. Meditate on the phrases of this passage, this was actually a pretty easy outline to write, just read it. So it's like phrase, phrase, phrase, phrase. Just walk through Galatians 4, just do that. Just go back through the text and say, these are powerful things. In the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those in the law so we might receive full rights as sons. Just go phrase by phrase, and meditate on each one.

And then delight in Christ's perfect obedience to the law. He ran in the path of the law for you. And now he is by the Spirit calling you to follow him. Psalm 119:32 says ‘I run in the path of your commands, for you set my heart free.’ So we are now enabled to obey the moral law by the power of the Spirit, let's do it. Pretty soon, 2017 is coming, a whole new year, a chance for a fresh start. Why don't you make 2017 a year in which you grow in sanctification more than any other year of your Christian life, in which you put sin to death more by the power of the Spirit than you ever had before? Don't settle for anything. Grow in holiness and follow Christ in holiness, and delight in your true wealth. Enjoy the food, enjoy the gifts and all that, but understand these are just a foretaste of the real wealth. The real wealth is God himself. In effect, God is saying there's infinitely more where that comes from, and the streams all come back to me. God is your life.

And finally, I just wanna invite those of you who walked in here this morning, knowing yourself to be outsiders, knowing that you have not yet committed to Christ, I just wanna invite you today, you've heard it before, but I wanna invite you to come to faith in Christ. I wanna urge you, even right now as you're listening to my words, to repent of your sins, to acknowledge that you have violated the law like all of us have and that you have no hope on judgment day. But the real joy of Christmas is that God sent a Savior for you like he said to the shepherds. Today in the city of David, a Savior has been born for you. And by faith, receive him into yourself as your own Savior. Close with me, if you would, in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the beauty and the truth of Christmas. We thank you for its spirituality. We thank you for its theological depth. Lord, we do thank you for all of the temporal gifts that we enjoy. We thank you for the food, and we thank you for the joy and the celebration of the spirit of the season, and we're grateful for it and we should laugh and enjoy the lights and enjoy the beauty and enjoy the day, but we know it's very quick and temporary. Father, we want a joy that lasts day after day. We wanna walk in joy by the Spirit. So give us the ability by trusting in your word and by the power of the Spirit to do that, and I pray for those that know themselves to be lost, that they would trust in you and call out to you for salvation, even now. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 62:1-12. The main subject of the sermon is Christ's unification with His people in the heavenly Zion.

So I have a problem that happens every time I officiate a wedding, which I did yesterday. I struggle not to cry. This is a problem for me. And I don't remember it happening before a wedding about 15 years ago. I just asked Caroline, this was Eric and Lori’s wedding, and my daughter Caroline served as the flower girl, which was fine. But I didn't realize they were going to dress her up like a little bride.

And that was rough, because as she came down that aisle, right there and I was standing right down here, something came over me. And I started getting weak in the knees as I projected forward and I said, "Oh Lord, may it never be." I don't want to give her up to some dude. She looks so beautiful and so cute and I was melting and then I thought, "Wait, I've got a wedding I perform. This isn't good." And it happens... Doesn't happen every time but it happens a lot. I mean weddings are very special.

In a few moments, I think in the life of a man, are as powerful as the moment that he sees his bride for the first time on the day of their wedding. The way we do it here at this church is a dramatic pause and everyone rises and the doors at the back of the church open and there she is. And she's labored on her appearance like no other day in her life. And her hair is perfect. Cosmetics are perfect. The jewelry's perfect, sparkling. The dress is perfect. She'll never look better than she does at that moment. And the bridegroom in particular, I think, must drink in that beauty and the joy of that moment in a different way than anyone else there because he knows that at the end of that ceremony, the end of that day, she will be his wife and they're going to be joined together in a sacred covenant of marriage. A mysterious covenant that pre-figures, that acts out like a prophecy of future union between Christ and the bride.

Every Christian wedding that I've ever observed has followed this kind of pattern. Ephesians 5:32 says that marriage is a profound mystery, patterned after the eternal and perfect union between Christ and his bride, the church. Now, the consummation of that union awaits all of us. It's in the future. So just like I did for Caroline, I projected forward. But this beyond to the end of all history, to the point of it all, to the end of the story of redemption comes a wedding. And it's depicted for us powerfully in Revelation 21 verse one and two. The apostle John wrote these words, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new Earth, for the first heaven and the first Earth had passed away and the sea existed no longer. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband."

The radiance of the church, the new Jerusalem, in John's vision was stunning. It was blinding. Her beauty was perfect. Ready for her bridegroom. Christ Jesus comes and takes her to himself in a marvelous act of unity between God and redeemed humanity. Every Christian wedding ceremony is a foretaste, a type, a shadow of prophecy of that future reality. However, there is a significant difference in our culture, not in every case, but often on that day the bridegroom doesn't even look at the bride before that moment and has contributed, I can assure you, nothing to her appearance that day, nor is he qualified or capable to do so, for the most part. He contributed nothing to her beauty. He just enjoys it and drink it in. But the radiant beauty of the bride of Christ, the church, the heavenly Zion, the new Jerusalem is completely the work of the bridegroom.

Jesus Christ found his bride corrupt, defiled, ugly through rebellion, defiant in her heart, spiritually dead. And He redeemed her by His own blood and He raised her from the dead spiritually. He washed her with water through the Word in order that he might present her to Himself as a radiant bride without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless. Throughout every generation of church history, Jesus Christ has been preparing his elect in the same way. Little by little, preparing his bride for that glorious future wedding day. Every beam of her glory on that day will be his. Every sparkle of her radiance, every holy aspiration now consummated, every passionate desire for him, he will have worked all of that in her by the power of the Holy Spirit.

He has been preparing his bride to be glorious for his own enjoyment for 2000 years and he's not finished yet. And when she is completed, she will descend from heaven. She will come down from God perfect. She will be a work of heavenly power by Almighty God. All her glory will be His. And when the new heaven and a new Earth finally come, they're going to shine with the glory of God. But nothing in that new creation will be more glorious than the church, the bride. It will be the pinnacle of God's achievement. She will be as Proverbs 12:4 says, "the crown of her husband." Or as Ephesians says, "the fullness of him who fills everything in every way."

Now, what does that have to do with Isaiah 62? Well, I think Isaiah 62 is best interpreted as a first-person description from Jesus of his relentless, passionate zeal to perfect Zion for his own enjoyment. Utterly, relentlessly committed to getting Zion ready for that day. As we already noted, Zion is the new Jerusalem, the people of God, the church, the different ways of looking at it, but it has to do with God's people, Zion.

And we see right away in verse 1 Christ's passionate zeal for Zion's glory. Look at verse 1. "For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent. For Jerusalem's sake, I will not remain quiet till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch." Isaiah's not an easy book to interpret. It's hard. I think for me, my perspective, it's vital for us to read Isaiah 62 verse 1 with its first-person voice. "For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent. For Jerusalem's sake, I will not remain quiet," etcetera. First-person voice, we have to read it properly. Someone is speaking passionately about his commitment to Zion's glory. That's what's going on. No matter how you interpret it, you see that.

Now, in the last chapter, if you were to go back one chapter, last week we looked at Isaiah 61:1 and 2. There it said, "The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Well, in both Isaiah 61:1 and Isaiah 62:1, it's easy to see the first person as Isaiah the prophet himself, he's just talking about his commitment to preach and to teach, etcetera.

Jesus, at least, solves what Isaiah 61:1 was talking about when he rolled open that scroll, as we looked at last week, and began his ministry there in Nazareth by going exactly to Isaiah 61:1 and reading those words, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor," by saying to the assembled people there, "Today in your hearing this scripture is fulfilled." In other words, "This is me speaking to you across the centuries through Isaiah." It's not Isaiah. This is Jesus speaking, Isaiah 61. Well, I think it's good to just go ahead and take that on into 62:1 as well. We should take the same approach. I believe this is Jesus speaking again.

And he's saying he will never stop preaching the good news, he will never stop speaking, he will not be quiet, he will not be silent until Zion is glorious, radiantly glorious. I think if you do that, the whole chapter just comes alive in powerful ways. "For Zion's sake," this is Jesus speaking, "I will not keep silent. For Jerusalem's sake, I will not remain quiet till her righteousness shines out like the dawn and her salvation like the blazing torch." It is Jesus who will not keep silent, it is Jesus who will not remain quiet. He's going to keep on speaking to Zion. He's going to keep on talking to Jerusalem until she's radiant like a blazing torch and shining with glory.

Now, just as Jesus 's mission in Isaiah 61 was essentially one of proclamation, the ministry of the Word, so also here, Jesus will not keep silent. He's not going to remain quiet. He's going to talk to his bride. He's going to speak to her. And he's not going to stop until she's perfect, because she's not perfect yet, she's not finished, she's not complete, there's more work to be done, she has to be yet more glorious than she is now. So what that means for us as we understand it more fully, is that there are elect chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world who have not yet been converted. They have not yet been reached with the gospel. They have yet to be brought in. And beyond that, those elect that have already confessed Christ but who have not yet been glorified still have to become more and more radiant and more and more glorious through sanctification, through growth and holiness.

So there's still work to be done on Zion. There's massive work still to be done on Zion until her glory is perfected as described in Revelation 21. But in this chapter, it's not just Jesus who's called on to not be silent. We're actually invited in in this chapter to get involved, to share his zeal, his relentless zeal for this whole project. We're supposed to care about this too. So later in the chapter, he says he's going to post watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem. And he's going to command them to give themselves no rest and to give him no rest, those that call on the Lord. So they're to be talking relentlessly until at last Zion is the praise of all the Earth. So the Christian reader of Isaiah 62, I think, is drawn quickly into the zeal of Jesus for his bride, the church. And we, as we read this, are challenged to be every bit as passionate and relentless and zealous as he is about the perfection of the church. Now, Christ's goal for Zion is radiant salvation. According to verse 1, Jesus is going to keep on speaking to his holy Word, to his bride, until she is perfect in his salvation. So Ephesians 5 just comes in, for me as a husband, I read this. All of you husbands can read this, and those of you that just know about Christian marriage, you know these words. Ephesians 5:25-27, "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word. To present her to Himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

So the goal that Jesus has is plain: Radiant, glorious, blameless, final salvation, perfection. And His means to the end is the word, the ministry of the word. As the word does its work, she will be made ready. And that final radiance is magnificent. Revelation 21 and 22 are all about the radiance of the new Jerusalem and how beautiful it's going to be. How perfect. Revelation 21:9-11, one of the angel says to the Apostle John, "'Come, I will show you the bride. The wife of the lamb.' And he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, and it shone with the glory of God and it's brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel like a Jasper clear as crystal." And again later in that same chapter, Revelation 21:23, "The city, new Jerusalem does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and the lamb is it's lamp."

So the new Jerusalem is described as having streets of transparent gold, never been able to figure that out. Transparent gold, but everything in the city seems like the walls of the city have these jewels, these 12 different colored jewels. But everything's permeated, eradiated with the glory of God. It's just shining radiantly with the glory of God. And this must be the future glory of the people of God collectively. But each individual member of the body of Christ, we will have our own radiance and our own glow about us. If you can say it that way. Like Jesus said in Matthew 13:43, "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." How beautiful is that going to be? So in Isaiah 62:1, Jesus is saying His heart is burning with zeal. He will not remain quiet. He will not stay silent, He's going to keep on talking, He's just zealous about this, He's going to keep on preaching His holy word, until Zion is perfect, and fully righteous and holy, and pure in His sight, free from all darkness and free from all defilement. And friends that is going on right now. It's going on right here in this room.

By the grace of God. By the presence of the Word. By the presence of the Spirit. And it's going on all over the world, today, wherever the word of God is being preached and taught faithfully by gifted servants of God. The word of God flowing and the bride is getting ready. And wherever Evangelists and missionaries are sharing the gospel and speaking in the darkness the word of life and people are coming over from darkness into light, from death into life, this is happening. Jesus is doing it all in the Spirit. He's talking to His bride and making her beautiful.

And it's amazing for us as we contemplate the darkness out of which we came. And you really have to go on in Christian maturity and study to realize just how dark it was. You didn't realize how dark it was when you were in your lost condition and even maybe when you first converted, you didn't understand just how dark at all really was. But the scripture tell us. Colossians 1:13-14 says, "For He, [Christ] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the beloved Son. In whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins." And then Ephesians 2 says, "As for you, you are dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you follow the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who has now work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts, like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath."

Later, in Ephesians 5, he says, "For you were once darkness, but now, you are light in the Lord. Live as children of the light. So as we are progressively made more and more radiant in holiness, then the next part of Isaiah 62 comes true. The nations are drawn to the brightness, the increasing brightness of Zion. As Zion becomes more and more radiant, more and more beautiful, the lost people are attracted to the light. They're drawn in.

Look at verses 2-3, "The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings, your glory, and you'll be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow and you will be  [speaking to Zion] a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand. You will be a royal diadem in the hand of your God." So God is going to put the increasing radiant beauty of His church on display to the people still living in darkness. And they're going to be attracted to that beautiful light. They're going to want to be part of it.

So you think about the stories of radical transformation, the conversion that's happened. Obviously, a New Testament example par excellence, is Saul of Tarsus. How he was living a life of self-righteous darkness serving Satan and trying to destroy the church. He was proud and ambitious and covetous and he was zealous and energetic for his own glory. But suddenly, the heavenly light of Christ's resurrection glory shone around him on that road to Damascus, and he fell to the ground. "'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' 'Who are you, Lord?' Saul asked. 'I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting… Now, get up and go into the city and you'll be told what you must do.'" And immediately Saul went from destroying a church he hated. To building a church he loved. Everything changed. And his life became very mysterious and perplexing to some, very attractive to others.

He went right away and began preaching Christ in the synagogue in Damascus. He then was thrown out of the city, had to escape through a basket. He goes to the church in Jerusalem and they're stunned by this transformation in him. And it says in Galatians 1:23 and 24, "'The man who formally persecuted us, is now preaching the faith, he once tried to destroy.' And they praised God, because of me." And then this Paul began a life of relentlessly, zealously passionately building Zion. Building the new Jerusalem by the preaching of the gospel. And people were attracted to the changes they saw in him. And then they began to change too.

You think about Thessalonians, the people of Thessalonica. How it says in verse Thessalonians 1, "They turned to the living God from idols, to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from Heaven, Jesus." And so the report of their change went throughout that entire geographical region, everyone heard about it. Same thing with the church of Rome, probably the most famous local church in the world. And they turned to God from idols and started serving God. And so the nations were attracted to the light. They were drawn in, as Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, "You are the light of the world. The city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither people light a lamp and put it under a bowl, instead they put it up on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who's in heaven." So as we shine with this heavenly light, this transformed life. A life of holiness, a life of service, a life of conspicuous love for each other. A life of rejecting materialism, of living for the future, of living for the glory of God, a different kind of life, people are attracted to it. They want to know how do you have this kind of peace? How do you have this kind of joy in your life? I don't have it and they're drawn in.

"The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God."

So here we see Zion's population is every increasing. As the church becomes more and more glorious, it gets bigger and bigger. It's a cumulative effect. I remember my last winter in Massachusetts, the snow... We had six different blizzards before we went and finally escaped, escaped Massachusetts. And all of that snow. And we had no where to put it, it was cumulative, it never went anywhere. November's snow was still there. It just kept accumulating, accumulating but it wasn't glorious to me. But this for thousands of years, the elect, the redeemed have been accumulating. And Zion is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, it never takes a single step back. It only gets bigger and more glorious. We can't see it with our eyes but it's happening. It's just going to get larger, look at verse 4, "No longer will they call you deserted or name your land desolate, but you will be called Hephzibah and your land Beulah. For the Lord will take the light in you and your land will be married."

Now obviously, the language here harkens back to the situation that was about to come on the Jews of being evicted from the Promised Land and going into exile to Babylon, which hadn't happened yet, it was still a century away in Isaiah's time. But he can see with the prophetic eye, the day when the remnant would return from Babylon, the exiles from Babylon, they would rebuild Jerusalem and repopulate the Promised Land. And that's what happened. The overwhelming majority of the Jews that were alive during the time of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion were killed by the sword, famine and plague. A small remnant went into exile. For 70 years they were there and then they started coming back in the days of the Persian kings. In the days of Ezra and Nehemiah and they rebuilt. Now Jeremiah was the prophet who prophesized the Babylonian exile. And when they were finally deported, when the last of them were gone, Jeremiah I've always pictured in my mind just sat there maybe on the Mount of Olives or some other place and looked out over Jerusalem, the smoldering rubble. Lamentations 1:1, "How desolate lies the city once so full of people." But God had predicted that the city would be rebuilt.

God had predicted that the land would be repopulated. And some see Isaiah 62 as that kind of thing, "No longer will your land be called deserted or your streets empty." But honestly, just like you heard Ben Weigel read, it's too small a thing for you to do that. It's too small a thing for these words to only talk about that straggling remnant of a few thousand Jews that came back and rebuilt Jerusalem. It was a hard work. The streets were filled with rubble. It was so depressing that Nehemiah's brother wrote to him talking about the desolated state of the city. When Nehemiah went, he couldn't ride around the city on his donkey because of the rubble everywhere. Then once they started building it back up, as I've mentioned before, the temple built under Hagga was so small and pathetic, that the old timers who remembered Solomon's temple, and all of it's glory, just wept. No, no Isaiah 62 is talking about something far more glorious than that, bigger than that. That was a type in a shadow but it's bigger than that. This is the building of something infinite and glorious, radiant.

So when it says, no longer will they call you deserted or name your land desolate, but you'll be called Hephzibah and your land Beulah, he's talking about, I think, the streaming of the nations to the heavenly Zion through the gospel of Jesus. Which had been talked about again and again in Isaiah's prophecy, all the way back in Isaiah chapter two, verse two and three. It says, "In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains. He'll be raised above the hills and all the nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say come, let us go up to the mountain with the Lord. To the temple of the house of Zion." That's the population. This is something bigger than just the rebuilding of Jerusalem. And the Lord will delight in Zion's glory. The word Hephzibah here, means literally, my delight is in her. Hebrew for my delight is in her. That's what God's going to name her, my delight is in her. The land Beulah means married. The text actually uses a marriage analogy for the land. God will take perfect delight in his people and in the land and marry Zion.

So this speaks of his saving intent, not just toward his people, but also toward the Earth itself. God has a love for the Earth. And there will be a new heavens and there will be a new Earth and there will be a new Jerusalem. And all of the groaning and the defilement and the bondage and the curse of Adam's sin will be banished from the Earth. And it's going to be better than it was, the Promised Land promised under Moses and Deuteronomy where he said, "You know, that land that you're entering, you're about to enter, it's a land flowing with milk and honey. It's not like you had in Egypt, where you had to irrigate the land with a foot pump, it won't be like that." But rather it's a land that the Lord, your God, cares for throughout the year. The eyes of the Lord are on it throughout the year and it drinks in the rain from heaven. And that was talking about the land of the Canaanites, Perizzites, Hittites and Amorites and Jebusites. This is talking about a perfect land that's coming even better than that. Far better than the land flowing with milk and honey. This is going to be a perfect world.

Zion’s Sons Delight in Zion’s Glory

Now, here we have to turn the corner because not only is God delighting in all this, but Zion's sons delight in it too. And we've got to get drawn into this. And this has to matter to you or you're just off message of what God's doing in the world. You have to actually care about this too. So look at verse five, it says, "As a young man marries a maiden, so will your sons marry you." Now the sons are doing the marrying here. "As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you." Back to God, again. So the sons are marrying Zion, committed covenant of love for that work and God is in it too, and he delights in it as well. This is the consummation of every love that we've ever had in this world. Every love we have for father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife. Every love there is and beyond that really the love that many have for their homeland. The love you have for your native land, the land of your birth.

Many nations feel this very strongly. They write classical music about it. They talk about the fatherland, the Germans talk about the fatherland. Russians talk about Mother Russia. Sailors that are gone, back in the days of sailing, when they come back to Old England they would just immediately kneel down and kiss the ground. Kiss the ground just to be back in your homeland. The love that you had for the land itself and what it's like to be in your own home country and to see that those familiar sites, and the comfort that it brings to you. That's going to be consummated in the New Heaven, the New Earth, and the Heavenly Zion. You'll love the land. Just love it and you'll be married to it, in a sense. And note how it says again about God, that he will delight over Zion. He'll take delight like Zephaniah 3:17 says, "The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love and he will rejoice over you with singing."

Like God singing love songs to his bride. He's just going to sing over us. What would that sound like, God singing? It's amazing. And so our hearts will swell with joy and lavish piece as our eyes drink in the glory of all three, the New Heaven, the New Earth, the New Jerusalem, will drink in the beauty and the glory of it. And what will such a world look like? And what will it be like to explore such a world? How much will that bring us delight to find pockets of God's glory and we'll have all of eternity to explore it and see the radiance of God shining in that world. Now for us, we don't have to wait for the future to love it, we should love it right now. We should love the church now. You should be committed to the work of the Church of Jesus Christ, right now. And that's in these two journeys we keep talking about, internal journey of holiness. Love Zion by growing in holiness and helping brothers and sisters do the same. Disciple each other, pray for each other, hold each other accountable. Speak the word of God to each other so you grow in holiness. That is the radiance of Zion as it grows.

And then the external journey of evangelism and missions. Evangelism, right here in this triangle region. Share the gospel with lost people. Talk to them about their souls. Use the season, Christmas, as a springboard. But just talk to them. Love the work of Zion, love the church right now.

In verses 6-9, we have these relentless watchmen posted on Zion's walls. These are beautiful verses. The Lord appoints here and charges watchmen. Look at verse six and seven, "I have posted watchmen on your walls O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord give yourselves no rest and give Him no rest, until He establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the Earth." So here, I believe the Lord is calling on the people of Zion to devote themselves fully as he is to the glory of Zion. The watchmen posted on the walls are a metaphor concerning the relentless protection of a vulnerable city.

So the city sleeps at night and is vulnerable. So watchmen, hopefully reliable men, are put up on the walls and they're not allowed to sleep. In days of warfare, it's the death penalty if you're on picket duty or on sentry duty and you fall asleep. The watchmen are on the walls, and they're not going to sleep at night. But here it's even more extreme. These watchmen are posted on Zion's walls and they're told to give themselves neither rest day or night. No rest ever. And they're not allowed to give God any rest either. Give yourselves no rest and give Him no rest until He finishes Zion. I can't help but think in church history about that Moravian Intercession 24 hours a day. They set up in the early part of the 18th century, first court of the 1700s. They began a passionate, committed, 24 hour a day prayer vigil, based on this and other texts. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year for over 100 years.

Relentless. It was called Herrnhut, the Lord's watch. And they would just watch and pray, specifically for missions, the spread of the gospel to the ends of the Earth. So we can't help but think about the persistent widow that Jesus told that parable that they should always pray and never give up. Never be silent, day or night. You call on the Lord, give yourself no rest, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of all the Earth. Now, I was going to wait to the end of the sermon, but I just want to apply it right now. What's going on with you in your prayer life? How does this convict you? It convicts me. I don't think God saying that we personally can never get a good night's sleep. That's not it, but the thing is there should be a relentlessness to our intercession, praying without ceasing, and there should be times of fasting and prayer and focused prayer for the establishment of the church of Jesus Christ to the ends of the Earth, Zion.

That we should give ourselves no rest. We should be passionately interceding for the spread of the gospel. What is your prayer life like? Is there a pattern of sacrificial prayer for missions in your life? Now, the Lord swears to make Zion prosperous. He goes beyond this command to the watchmen on the walls. He actually promises to make Zion prosperous beyond their meager efforts. Look at verse 8-9, "The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm never again will I give your grain as food for your enemies. Never again will foreigners drink the new wine for which you have toiled. But those who harvest it will eat and praise the Lord, and those who gather the grapes will drink it in the courts of my sanctuary."

Now, the prosperity of Zion is something that only God can work by the power of his right hand and his mighty arm. As a matter of fact, verse 8, he swears an oath by His own right hand and his right arm. He's swearing by his own omnipotent power. "By my right hand, and by my mighty arm, I swear that you will be prosperous for all eternity." In effect, he's saying only my omnipotence can make this happen. By the way, this is another interpretive key that this is not talking about the physical city of Jerusalem. When did this happen? When has this ever been true of the Jews in the Promised Land? That they would never again lose their harvest to invading enemies.

That city has been a war zone for 2000 years. But in the future, God will establish Zion, and by His omnipotent power he will make it the praise of all the Earth. And the days of danger will be over. There will be absolute peace and prosperity. Isaiah 60, verse 11 says of Zion, "Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut day or night, so that men may bring you the wealth of the nations their kings led in triumphal procession." Or Revelation 21:23-26 says, "The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. And the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the Earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut for there'll be no night there." The glory and honor the nations we brought into it.

You know another reason that you don't need to be guarding the walls anymore and the gates can stand open day or night? No enemies left. Satan will have been thrown in the lake of fire. All of his children will be thrown in the lake of fire, all the rebels will be gone. They'll be no threats, it'll be a place of peace, permanent peace and prosperity. It says in Isaiah 30:30, "The Lord will cause men to hear the majestic voice of the Lord and will make them see His arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire with cloud burst thunder storm and hail." The arm of the Lord coming down on the enemies and removing them out of love for His people and protection of the City of Zion.

So finally, verses 10-12. Zion's people are redeemed to build up the city. Look at verse 10. We have a high way of Zion's construction here. Spiritual civil engineers build up the highway. Look at verse 10. "Pass-through, pass-through the gates, prepare the way for the people build up, build up the highway, remove the stones, raise a banner for the nations." So this is an image here of journeying, and of traveling, and of a highway built in the desert. Every mount will be made, will be leveled and every valley raised up and the word of the Lord traveling, this has got to be missions again.

Why is that? Look, we as Christians, we don't need to take physical pilgrimages. That's an old covenant thing. The Jews three times a year would travel from wherever they live up to Jerusalem, the place that the Lord had chosen. Three times a year they would come up with those festivals. But you remember in John chapter 4, Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman and Jesus convicted her about her sexual sin. Remember that? So she changed the subject, brought up a controversial topic. She was a smart lady. It's like, "You Jews say that you should worship in Mount Zion, but we say it should be here a Mount Gerizim. Who's right?" Smokescreen, but Jesus cut through it all to the real purpose anyway. "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews." We're not looking for a physical Zion here. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. "We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

This "build up, build up the highway… raise a banner for the nations." That's the way by which they make this pilgrimage, this spiritual journeying, and they don't need to move their bodies at all. They might be paralyzed in a hospital, be unable to move a muscle, and they can journey to Christ. Jesus said in John 14, the night before He left his disciples, the night before he was crucified, he said, "'I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back, and take you to be with me, so you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I'm going.' Thomas said to him, 'Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?' Jesus answered, 'I am the way…'" there's the highway. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3, "No one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus."

Alright, well, I'm going to say the same thing about the road. No one can pave a road except the road already paved, and that road is Jesus. He is the way. So wherever these missionaries go, these folks getting... I love that video, that's my favorite IMB video ever, because it shows so many different features of a missionary's life, but they're getting in a boat, they're going off to an island where some family members, some unsaved family members, of those that who are already Christians are there, p they want to reach them. So they're in their boat, traveling across. And they're going to lay a foundation whereby those people on that island can journey to Zion. They don't have to move, they don't have to come off the island, except to do missions and evangelism. And they're going to lay that road and that road, his name is Jesus, they're going to preach Jesus. And that banner for the nations will be lifted up.

The Promise of Zion’s Consummation

And Zion will be consummated. Look at verse 11-12: "The Lord has made proclamation to the ends of the Earth, say to the daughters, 'Zion, behold, your Savior comes. Behold. His reward is with him and his recompense accompanies him.' They will be called the holy people, the redeemed to the Lord. And you will be called sought-after, a city no longer deserted." So that's what's going to get proclaimed on these roads by the missionaries, "Behold, your King is coming." And when we finally see Him with our eyes, we're going to see him, that's the second coming of Christ. And at the second coming of Christ, all of these things will be consummated.

The daughter of Zion is told, "Behold, your Savior comes." This is nothing less than the glory and the perfection of the second coming of Christ. And he's going to come with his reward and his reward is the consummation of our salvation, and we will see him finally face-to-face and we will be transformed and will receive our resurrection bodies. And Zion will be perfect and complete. Behold, your Savior comes.

So applications. First, I pray this morning and I continue to appeal to you. If you know that you are unconverted, you're on the outside looking in, this is the time God set up, this is the purpose of history. Now, is the time to come in. Now is the time to come to the feast by faith, to do your journeying now. Repent of your sins. Don't think that you can survive Judgment Day on your own, you can't. Don't be comfortable with how things are in your present situation. Come to Christ. Repent and believe. To you who are Christians, I just would urge you to meditate on the zeal that Jesus has, the passion he has for the bride here, and let it kindle your heart as well. Jesus is highly passionate for his bride. And then extend it to you, he's passionate about you, he's zealous for you. He's got a zeal and a passion for your glory. He wants you to be holy. And so just think about that, Jesus is going to keep on speaking to you, he's going to keep on ministering the word to you until you're radiant and glorious.

Secondly, if I could just speak as I did earlier to husbands. Husbands have the same glory, a zeal for your wife's final glory, that Jesus does. Get involved under him in getting her ready for her real wedding day and yours too. As it says in Ephesians 5: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, to present her to Himself as a radiant church." So, that's the best a husband can do for a wife. Love her, pray for her, talk scripture to her, have her talk scripture to you. Grow together in holiness, grow together in spiritual maturity. Are you spending time together in prayer and in the word? If she has weak areas, strengthen them through the ministry of the word. Sanctify her by the ministry of the word. Let Jesus speak passionately to His bride through you. It's a great way to be a godly husband. And what's going to happen is you're going to grow too, because you have weak areas too.

Thirdly, set your heart on things above and things to come. Don't live for earthly things. My whole point, Isaiah 62, it's not going to be a practical sermon on how to deal with this, how to... It's a big picture vision sermon is what it is. It's why are we here? We're here about this, we're here about the bride, the wedding that's coming, that's why we're here. So set your heart on things above, not on earthly things, like Colossian 3 tells you: For your Christ is your life. And this bride, this work of the bride, this is your life's work, just like it is Jesus'. So, set your minds on things above. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also, and everyone else, we will all appear with Him in glory.

Fourthly, obviously, be involved in evangelism and missions. Take the cards that were in your bulletin today, take that one that was in yours and give it to someone you believe to be a non-Christian or somebody who you don't know, invite them to church. And use it as a spring board, if you have more time to talk about the gospel. Let's spread the seed widely through this area. I think that's our weakness as evangelists. We don't, we just try one or two here or there. Let's just talk to as many people as we can. Let's have a Judgment Day fearlessness.

We don't care what people think about us, we just want to be instrumental in sharing the gospel. Do it at the workplace, be involved. If I can just say this thing, maybe you don't know this, but an incredible work is going on here on Wednesday nights with our international ministry. It's incredible. Recently, we have seen people come from Muslim backgrounds as a direct answer to prayer, so the women wearing the hijab and other outfits. They're just coming right here. They're not Christians, they're coming to learn English, like, "Pastor, I don't know how to get involved in evangelism." Come on Wednesday night, help teach English. We get to choose the curriculum and what we talk about.  We get to talk about whatever we want to talk about as they learn English. I have a few topics that I think might be good to talk about. It's just an easy way to get involved in unreached people, group missions even. They're coming right here on Wednesdays.

And then there are others that are coming from other places, East Asia, and all that, and they're incredibly intelligent people, and they're just trying to learn English. We could use more laborers for the harvest field, so get involved in missions, invite people.

Then finally, intercessory prayer, give yourself no rest and give Him no rest, until He establishes Zion in glory. Stretch yourself in prayer. Try denying some evening this week, something you usually do, and instead give it to intercessory prayer for the spread of the gospel, and then go out from there. That's the beginning of giving yourself no rest and giving him no rest. Until he establishes Zion in glory, close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 61:1-11. The main subject of the sermon is the final fulfillment of the promise that Christ, the Messiah, makes for His people .

So this morning as I was thinking about this text, I was closing my eyes and just trying to picture in redemptive history, when Jesus came to his hometown of Nazareth after having, it seems, already done some miracles, already done some healings, and the report had gotten back to his hometown, and he went to the synagogue there. And the town was abuzz with the reports, I'm sure, and they were wondering what was going on about Jesus. And the Sabbath day had come and everyone assembled in the synagogue and the time for the reading of the Scripture came in that worship service. And Jesus rose and went forward and the scroll of Isaiah was given to him. And he unrolled into the very place we're studying this morning, this very text of Scripture, Isaiah 61. And he read the ancient words powerfully and with spirit-endowed passion. And I think you probably could have heard a pin drop. Perhaps the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It was a powerful moment as he read these words to the enthralled assembly there in the synagogue. "The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for prisoners, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

And after he finished reading most of verses 1 and 2, he rolled up the scroll and handed it back to the attendant and then he sat down, and the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he opened his mouth and spoke these words. "Today in your hearing this Scripture is fulfilled."

Fulfilled. I think if I had been an average neighbor of Jesus, I would have been stunned at that word. Fulfilled. That word "fulfilled" must have hit everyone there like a thunderbolt. After all, the passage that Jesus had read had been around for centuries, 700 years. And now this man, who they'd watched grow up from a little boy in their community, was saying that as they listened to him read that Scripture, the Scripture had been fulfilled, this prophecy. This was a Messianic prophecy. And he was claiming to be the fulfillment of that ancient prophecy. Now our faith, our Christian faith, is a supernatural faith. It's unlike any other religion in the world. It's different. And what sets it apart from every other religion in the world is just this, fulfilled prophecy, specifically fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. That's what makes Christianity different. No other religion has this. Through the prophets, God told the human race ahead of time what he would do. And then in Christ, he did it. He fulfilled those words. No other religion in the world has this element of fulfilled prophecy, just as no other religion in the world has Jesus. Isaiah has talked about this again and again, how God alone can do this, God alone has the power to do this.

Isaiah 46:9 and 10. "I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is yet to come. And I say, my purpose will stand and I will do all that I desire." That's the God of the Bible. Or again, this, Isaiah 42:9. "Behold, the former things have taken place and new things I declare. Before they spring into being, I announce them to you." No prophecies in Scripture are as significant as those centered around the person and work of Jesus Christ, the savior of the world, the Anointed One, the Messiah. These prophecies set Jesus apart from every other religious leader. Mark that well. Use that to share the Gospel with people who think Christianity is like every other religion. It's not. They set Jesus apart from every king that's ever lived, every prophet or priest that's ever lived. They set him apart as the unique savior of the world sent from God on high to a world that desperately needs him, a world drowning in sin. Now, this morning, we get to look carefully at this prophecy, go word by word through it, verse by verse. This prophecy, written by Isaiah seven centuries before Jesus, 27 centuries before us. And we get to thrill at every word in this ancient scroll.

We get to find light and life and health and peace and vigor and hope from considering the mission that Jesus has now accomplished, I want to say fulfilled, and that he is still fulfilling by the power of the Spirit of God. So let's look at it together. We're going to just unfold this line by line.

Look at the beginning at verse 1. "The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." So here, the Messiah, the Anointed One, is anointed with the Spirit. Now, for me as I was writing my commentary on Isaiah, I was thinking about, I had to deal with issues of interpretation all the time. It's possible that Isaiah himself is saying these words. He's talking about his own ministry. But I think, as a believer in all 66 books of the Bible, all of them equally inspired, Jesus has settled forever what this passage is about, amen. It's not about Isaiah. It's about Jesus. And so that settles it, and so Jesus is speaking to us, he's talking to us. And so the coming Savior, this text says, he said, was anointed by the Sovereign Lord. The title "Sovereign Lord" in some of the translations is literally "Adonai Yahweh," so it's a doubled-up expression. Adonai is "my Lord." Yahweh is the covenant name for God, the creator of the ends of the earth, the creator of the nation of Israel. So this, this God of the universe who is also my Lord, the personal King of all the redeemed the creator of the ends of the earth.

This one is addressed in this text or spoken of in this text, the Spirit of this God, says the text, "is upon me." As I said, the text is written in the first person. Jesus, I believe, is speaking directly through the prophet Isaiah about His mission. And the Holy Spirit of God made plain this mission centuries before Jesus was born. This is the essence of predictive prophecy that I'm saying is completely unique in Christianity, there's no other religion like. It says in 1 Peter 1:10-11, "Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ, in them, was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. So that's the essence of prophecy. A prophet has the Spirit of Christ in Him and He makes predictions about Christ, the predictions of the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that would follow.

And again in 2 Peter 1:21, Peter writes this, "No prophecy ever had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." That's the essence of predictive prophecy. The Holy Spirit comes upon a prophet, and he writes down words about the future. Revelation 19:10, says the, "Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy." In other words, the point of it all, is to give a testimony about Jesus. So it was the glorious work of the Holy Spirit of God to put into the mind of Isaiah the prophet, the words that Jesus wanted to speak to the human race. To speak on behalf of our Savior, Jesus Christ. These words therefore are really Jesus's words spoken by the Holy Spirit seven centuries earlier.

Now the prediction here is that the same Spirit of God that came upon the prophets, and wrote, that same Spirit has anointed Jesus. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for the Lord has anointed me. So there's a link between the word anointing and the work of the Spirit. They go together. So what then is this anointing? Well, the verb anoint has to do with the pouring out of oil on a key individual in Jewish society, to set them apart for their office and it's a representation of the Spirit of God descending from heaven, to earth onto that individual. Equipping them supernaturally for the task they would fulfill. Prophets were anointed with oil, priests were anointed with oil, kings especially anointed with oil. So we have the story for example, of Saul who was anointed with the oil and the Holy Spirit came on him and made him a different man.

Recently at the advice of a church member, I was watching a historical depiction of the monarchy of Britain, and the anointing ceremonies, the key of the coronation, the key holiest moment, when the Monarch is anointed with holy oil and the Archbishop of Canterbury, puts the oil on the head and on the chest representing the heart and on the hands of the monarch. It seems like a fervent prayer that the Holy Spirit would descend and enable the monarch, to think after the manner of the Holy Spirit and to love after the manner of the Holy Spirit and to act also after the manner and by the power of the Holy Spirit of God.

Sadly, the monarchy of Britain has hardly ever lived up to that. I asked a friend of mine, "Do you think any of the kings or queens have been born again?" And he didn't know, he's an expert in monarchy and also a believer. Well, for them individually for all eternity, it will matter but the symbolism is powerful. Jesus is anointed with the Holy Spirit of God. Now, this is absolutely mind-boggling. You came here this morning to have your mind boggled, whatever that means, nobody hardly ever use that word boggles, except mind-boggling. But this stretches our minds and our imaginations to the breaking point, how do we understand the infinite mysteries of Christianity? It's a mysterious religion, we believe in the doctrine of the trinity, that one God has eternally existed in three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of the persons of the Trinity are co-equal, co-eternal, but each person of the Trinity has different offices to carry out in the plan of redemption. For example, God the Father came up with the plan of redemption, it was His plan, the Father makes the plan. The Son mysteriously takes on a human body, does mighty miracle speaks perfect words, lives a sinless life, dies an atoning death and rises from the dead.

The redemption was planned by the Father, accomplished by the Son and then applied by the Spirit of God. So the Holy Spirit applies it but the Spirit we're finding here is intrinsic to Jesus's mission. The Holy Spirit enables Jesus to do all those things that he did. It is by the Spirit that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. It is by the Spirit that he was led into the desert to be tempted by the devil. It's by the Spirit that He conquered all of the temptations of the devil. It was by the Spirit that He did great signs and wonders and miracles, it was by the Spirit that He taught perfect teachings. It was by the Spirit that He was strengthened in the Garden of Gethsemane, against that final temptation to turn away from the cross, so therefore by the Spirit he went to the cross, and certainly by the Spirit he was raised from the dead.

Peter says this in preaching to Cornelius the Roman Centurion. In Acts 10:38, these are just amazing words, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power and he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him." So therefore Jesus did nothing apart from the Spirit's power. Just as he did nothing apart from the Father's plan. He says in John 5:19, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself, He can only do what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does." Now, what I'm saying is concerning this anointing with the spirit, the same is true of the spirit that Jesus could do nothing apart from the Spirit of God. Now that's where your mind gets boggled. I understand why we need the Spirit to come on us for us to do great things for God, but Jesus is God. And so go ahead, just let your mind be boggled I don't have an answer to this. But it seems that we are instructed here that only by the Spirit of Jesus do all of these great signs and wonders in this great preaching. It's by the Spirit that Jesus fulfilled his office to be the Savior of the world. And after Jesus rose from the dead, it is now by the Spirit of Christ that the gospel is spreading to the ends of the earth, only by the Spirit that this redemption is applied to people as Acts 1:8 says, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth."

Now, specifically in verse 1, the Spirit anointed Jesus with power to preach, power for preaching power to preach the gospel, to preach the good news. That's the focus here to preach good news to the poor. Jesus was the greatest preacher of all time. And only by the power of the Spirit could he do it now, how great a preacher was Jesus? Do you remember the time when the rulers of the Jews, the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest Jesus remember that? And some time later, the temple guards came back empty-handed, they said, "Why didn’t you bring him in?" And they said "No one ever spoke the way this man does." They were just totally captivated by Jesus the preacher or at the end of the Sermon of the Mount, arguably the greatest sermon that's ever been preached.

It says when Jesus had finished saying all these things, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, because He taught them as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law, Where did that sense of power that encounter with the living God, come from, but by the Spirit as Jesus spoke? And it says The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. Meaning those who are destitute, they're beggars: They have nothing to offer. And so, that great sermon, I just mentioned a moment ago, the Sermon on the Mount, begins with these words. Blessed, happy rich eternally rich blessed are the poor in spirit or a good translation, the spiritual beggars for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. You have nothing in your hands, you have nothing to offer nothing to give. And Jesus says You're blessed if you realize it and you bring that emptiness to God and He will give you a Kingdom. So that's who he's going to preach to the good news.

The Messiah’s Mission to Poor Prisoners

Now, look at the mission. By the way, before I go on to the mission do you not see therefore the eternal importance of preaching? I'm not in any way saying anything about myself, just the office and the function of preaching it is eternally significant. This is exactly what the spirit anointed Jesus to do is preach. And frankly, without the preaching none of the other things would have been effective later the Apostle Paul said, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved"

And faith, the faith to call on the name of the Lord comes from hearing the message even the message of Christ. And so it's by the preaching of the message that souls are saved all over the world, is the most significant thing that happens at, on any given day is the preaching of the Gospel, it's more significant than all of the movements of the nations. And so, the significant of the preach now look at his mission, "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and to provide for those who grieve in Zion. To be stolen them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and the garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." This is the fullness of Jesus's mission. Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit first and foremost, to preach to proclaim the word of God, the word of the good news, the gospel to all people, Gospel of salvation a message in words.

So it's a message of joy for the broken-hearted, it's a message to freedom for the captives. It's a message of release from those sitting in dungeons of darkness, a message of the recovery of sight to those who are blind, a message of the gracious forgiveness of Almighty God, to those who deserve vengeance. This is the essence of the gospel, freedom from slavery to sin, from the chains, the dungeons of sin. Jesus said in John 8 "you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." But then Jesus's Jewish enemies said, "We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been slaves of anyone How can you say that we shall be set free?" Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin". Now a slave has no permanent place in the family. But a son belongs to it, forever. So if the son sets you free, you'll be free, indeed truly free." This is the freedom that Jesus preached. Satan has enslaved the entire human race in invisible chains that we are powerless to break. We're held in chains of sin, bad habits that flow from corrupted hearts, evil actions that consummate, previous lusts, wicked lusts. This is the nature of Satan's dark realm, his evil kingdom. We all sat in the gloomy dungeons of sin, and we could not break out, couldn't break free.

So, Jesus was sent to proclaim liberty, freedom for the captives, to lead us up and out of Satan's dark dungeons. Now that's incredible good news. That's what we Christians celebrate. Not just Christmas, but year-round, that we've been set free. We don't ever need to sin again, ever. We're set free. And we're free from the penalty and the vengeance that we deserve, God's vengeance against our breaking of his most holy laws; we are set free from all that by Jesus. Set free. Jesus said in John 5:24, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death to life." Isn't that a great verse? I think it deserves to be memorized along with John 3:16. Go ahead and memorize John 3:16. But John 5:24, "Crossed over from death to life."

Beyond that, Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit to perform mighty works of healing. "He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted. This binding up is literally related to shattering. So picture a piece of pottery that's been thrown to the ground and shattered on the rocks, just shards everywhere. That's what sin does to people. So, it does it to their bodies, their bodies are racked with disease and pain and suffering and ultimately, death. Does it to our souls, we are shattered by sin. Jesus comes to bind up, to put the pottery back together so you can't even see that it was ever cracked. It's a miracle of binding up of the broken-hearted. And he did literal, physical miracles. The recovery of sight to the blind, to show that he could do the far greater work of the healing of our souls and the reconciliation of our status with God, our heavenly judge and our Heavenly Father. That's the greatest work.

And so, he did miracles in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralyzed man, "Rise and walk." Or the same thing with the man born blind. No one ever heard in the history of the healing of a man born blind. Jesus did that. The recovery of sight to the blind, as a physical, real, actual display of power. He actually did it in space and time. Yes, I believe in the miracles. They really happen. But there are also symbols of a far greater spiritual healing that Jesus alone can do. Now, this message of healing and grace and power for sinful captives changes everything. We were mourning and we were powerless and now we are forgiven and rejoicing and we have been embraced and adopted.

Verse 2-3, "To comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion." As Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted." We get eternal comfort now. This message is as relevant today as it was in Jesus' day. Sin leaves people's lives shattered, our heart's breaking. Think about the incredible comfort that Jesus has brought to people trapped by chemical addictions, enslaved by pornography, struggling with emptiness and desperation, darkly allured towards suicide, and Jesus steps in with light and changes everything and brings joy where there was such grieving and sorrow and brokenness. Jesus alone can do that. And he can step in, even to a funeral and bring a ray of eternal glorious sunshine. Even at a Christian funeral. So, we don't grieve like those who have no hope. We actually ultimately walk out mocking death saying, "Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law but thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." So we don't grieve like those who have no hope, even at the face of the grave. So we can say goodbye to Christian spouses and Christian friends and all that, even at the grave and know we'll see them again in Christ. He provides for those who grieve and mourn in Zion. So Isaiah 61 predicts the comfort that Jesus will bring to a mourning world, a world ripped apart and ruined by sin and death.

The Year of the Lord’s Favor

Now, pretty dramatically and some have noted this, some have talked to me about it even this week. In Nazareth Jesus stopped the reading right in the middle. Just stopped. Didn't read the whole thing. What do I mean? Well, this is what he said, this is Luke 4:18-20, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor," and he stopped there. Rolled up the scroll and gave it to the attendant, sat down and began to speak. Today, this Scripture is fulfilled. Okay, so he ended at the proclamation of something called the year of the Lord's favor. I can't hear that except that I think about the year of jubilee, like in the Book of Leviticus, where you get pretty much once in your lifetime a year unlike any other year. I mean, somebody's like, no working. Alright? Slaves set free. All of them go back. It's like this huge massive Sabbath rest for the fields and vineyards. And people are released from slavery and bondage then they go back to their ancestral properties and it's the year of jubilee. Once in your lifetime. What an incredible picture. A whole year of that.

So it's the year of the Lord's favor. The word favor would be like grace. The year of grace, an extended period of grace for all us sinners. A once in a lifetime opportunity because of its infinite value. But it goes on for a full year, so it's a very vast window of opportunity, but it is finite. It doesn't go on forever, this year of the Lord's grace. That time is now to quote an earlier passage from Isaiah, Isaiah 55:6-7, "Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God and he will freely pardon." That's the year of the Lord's favor. And He is near now or as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 6:2, "In the time of my favor, I heard you in the day of salvation, I helped you. I tell you now is the time of God's favor. Now is the day of salvation. This is the time.

I can't help but stop and just wonder, and I prayed this morning that God would bring people here who needed to hear this message who are presently sitting in dark dungeons of sin and chains, and I'm just telling you that the door is thrown open if you just run through it through faith in Christ. And this is the time, now, you don't know that you'll ever hear this gospel message again. This might be the last time you hear the gospel, you don't know. But this is the year of the Lord's favor, this is the opportunity for amnesty for all sinners who hear this message to run into forgiveness and reconciliation with God and eternal life. I would grab it if I were you, I already did grab it back in 1982. I'm saying this is the gospel, Jesus died on the cross for sinners like you and me, but why did he die? Well, because of the next part that Jesus didn't read; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God. Vengeance. God has a day of vengeance for those who will not receive the grace of this gospel.

He has a day of vengeance for people all over the world who do not fulfill his holy law as written in their hearts and evidence in creation. He has a day of vengeance coming for sinners all over the world. That day is real and it is coming. Romans 2:5-8 says this, "But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you're storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath. When his righteous judgment will be revealed, God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good, seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But, for those who are self-seeking, who reject the truth and follow evil, there'll be wrath and anger." That's The day of God's vengeance. It's spoken of in many places in Scripture. Honestly, without understanding The day of God's vengeance, you won't understand what you're being saved from. Salvation won't mean anything. You have every right to ask, "Saved from what?" Well, saved from the day of God's vengeance, saved from being punished for your law violation, punished for your sins. All of us, we're under that death sentence.

Jesus regularly warned about the coming day of God's vengeance. He said, "I tell you that men will have to give an account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word they have spoken." Matthew 13, "The Son of Man will send out his angels and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all those who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matthew 25, the sheep and the goats. "Then he will say to those on his left [the goats], 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.'" So, why did Jesus stop the reading at that point? Clearly, at other times he did preach and warn about the day of God's vengeance. Well, I think it has to do with the word "fulfilled," it has to do with what he was there in his first coming to do. He was there to fulfill salvation. He didn't need to come to earth to pour out vengeance. Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed from heaven down, there didn't need to be an incarnation to do that. But for salvation, he came from heaven to earth. The first coming was to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and salvation. But there will be a second coming.

Now in John 3:17, Jesus said, "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world will be saved through him." So he didn't come for vengeance in the first coming. But there will be a second coming. 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 says, "When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels, he will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, they will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power." That's what the second coming will be like. That's why I think he stopped the reading.

Now, in verses 3-9, we see the transformation of Messiah's people, not only does Jesus proclaim and heal but he also transforms the people he saves. We become different, essentially changed, transformed.

Look at verse 3, "To bestow on them... " And I love the NIV's translation here, so I'm going to stick with it. "To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, for the display of his splendor." Now, this is really cool. It wasn't till I practiced this sermon this morning that I noticed this. So here, these three words are highlighted in my outline: Crown, oil, garment. What does that speak to you of, but a coronation? It's amazing. These are emblems of royalty. These are emblems of royalty, as though Jesus came to take wretched dungeon dwellers like us and make us into royalty, and put a crown on our heads, and anoint us with the oil of his spirit, and cover us with righteous robes to make us royalty, kings and queens under his ultimate kingship. He will be King of kings, and he will be Lord of lords, and we will reign with him forever. And so Peter calls us a royal priesthood. It's just amazing.

And so the transformation is of our heads, so that we think differently through repentance and through the teaching of the Word of God, and our hearts, so that we love differently by the transforming work of the Spirit, and then our lives, so we live different kinds of lives, and look how he describes it, "A crown of beauty instead of ashes." We were ugly in God's sight, but through the imputed righteousness of Christ, we're now radiantly attractive to him, he actually likes looking at us in Christ. And then the oil of gladness, instead of mourning, Christ is everything. These exact words were spoken of Jesus's affections. In Hebrews 1:9, it says of Jesus, "You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God your God has exalted you or set you above your companions," listen, "by anointing you with the oil of joy." It's the exact same thing it says here. We are then in him transformed, loving righteousness, hating wickedness, anointed with the oil of joy instead of mourning.

So Jesus changes our hearts and then a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair, apart from Christ, life was hopeless, it was bleak and empty and purposeless. We had nothing to look forward to except the just wrath of God in death. But now, in Christ, we have a joyful life in which we can do service to God that's worth doing. We can actually do good works, not to pay for sins, but to build up his kingdom and it says, "They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor." Isn’t that marvelous? Oh, I want to be an oak of righteousness, wouldn't that be marvelous? We were bruised reeds, weren't we? Swaying back and forth with public opinion, every temptation swayed by it, powerless to resist. Now, in Christ, we can become mighty oaks of righteousness, no longer double-minded but able to withstand all of Satan's attacks.

After I graduated from college, I took a trip, a cross-country, with a friend of mine, probably one of most fun trips I ever made. We were two free guys. He was driving to a job in LA, I had one waiting for me back in Massachusetts, he paid for all of my expenses, which I thought was pretty cool, cause his company paid for his. And it was just, it was pretty amazing. We went to Yellowstone, we went to Grand Teton National Park, but one of the most memorable places was Pacific Coast 1, this highway that went along Northern California. Absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. But in Northern California, it's the Redwood Forest and these massive redwood trees, I'll never forget them. These trees can live as long as 18 centuries, we're told. 1800 years old. Their trunks can be as wide as 30 feet. You could drive a car through one of those tree trunks. They can reach 379 feet high, almost a 40-storey building. Massive. Wonder what the root system is like.

And this road that you drive through is called the Avenue of the Giants, and you can just drive through it. To me, that's what church history is like. We can just drive for 20 centuries, through the Avenue of the Giants and think about brothers and sisters in Christ that led gigantic lives. They were oaks of righteousness, rooted in Christ, rooted in the truth of the Bible, not easily swayed by lust and temptations, and by the opinions of their age, they were rooted in Christ and in the Word of God, the unchanging Word of God, and they just grew up and bore fruit for God. It's a massive display of life and power and stature. Like in Ephesians 3, Paul prays that they would be rooted and established in love, and would have power together with all the saints to grasp that infinite dimensions of Christ's love. Rooted in Christ, or again in Colossians, "So then just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him."

The Root System for the "Oaks of Righteousness"

So what's your root system like? Are you rooted in Christ? Are you rooted in the Bible? Rooted in the Word of God? Rooted in the work of grace in your life? Are you stable in Jesus? Stable? I love studying about this royal priesthood that is church history, these are brothers and sisters in Christ. Think about the Roman martyrs, the ones that had their blood shed in the sands of the Colosseum. They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Nero made some of them torches for his garden parties, and they would not shrink back. Think about the missionaries that went courageously in the centuries that followed to win the pagans of Germania or the Scottish forebears known as the pits or think about those that evangelized the Vikings. How would you like to evangelize Vikings and lead some of them to Christ before they killed you? I mean, think of the courage of these brothers and sisters that did these great things or think about the reformers like Luther that he took his life in his hand for doctrine justification by faith alone, he was willing to literally die at the stake, burn at the stake for that. They didn't get him, but they wanted to. Took his life in his hand, these oaks of righteousness.

And think about the missionary movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, those that have taken the gospel to the inland regions of China and Africa, and to the jungles of the Amazon rainforest and Irian Jaya, they've gone as far as you can go to take the gospel. Work's not done yet, but they have done... Don't you want to be an oak of righteousness, a planting of the Lord, for the display of His splendor? Don't you want to live that kind of a life? I do. And the point of all of this is the display of His glory. Not for us, not to us, but to Your name be the glory. For the display of God's splendor, that they can see how great God is by looking at our lives. Verse 4, "They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore places long devastated. They'll renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations." Obviously, the immediate context here is the rebuilding of the City of Jerusalem, but the words go far greater than that. Small city in Palestine rebuilt after the exile, it's bigger than that.

The people of God in every generation have been involved in rebuilding ancient ruins. I think about Luther and Calvin, how they rebuilt the ruins of godly New Testament theology on the wreckage of centuries of false teaching by the Medieval Roman Catholic church. They rebuilt doctrinal buildings on wreckage. Or I think about even missionaries who elevated Paul's passion for the unreached, for those who have never heard in regions beyond. It's always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ wasn't named. So I wouldn't be building on someone else's foundation, rather as it is written, those who have not heard will hear and those who have not seen will be told of Christ to the ends of the earth and missionaries in 19th and 20th century, they rebuilt the ancient ruins. The commitment to missions.

Now Satan's a destroyer, and he ruins works that one sowed for the glory of God. Churches that were once really radiant and on fire for Christ become cold and lifeless and ruined. Colleges and seminaries established openly and clearly for the glory of God get taken over somewhere in there and become ruined by Satan's deceptions. Wreckage, those institutions lay in ruins. God calls on every generation to look at this wreckage, these ruins and say, "What can we rebuild by the power of God, to the glory of God? What can we rebuild?" Now obviously we Christians, we should go where there's literal physical destruction. We can go in the path of hurricanes with the Baptist men and go help rebuild houses, but you just must know that this is bigger than all that. The biggest, most glorious building projects say every week is the building of the church of Jesus Christ. This spiritual structure rising to become a temple in which God lives by his Spirit. That's the building project, and it's out of the ruins that Satan has left in the world.

Enriched, Not Enslaved, by the Nations

Verse 4, now very quickly, we're not going to go as carefully through all these verses, we'll just read them and look at them with me. "Aliens will shepherd your flocks and foreigners will work your fields and your vineyards and you will be called priests of the Lord." That's awesome. You'll be named ministers of our God. You'll feed on the wealth of nations and in their riches you will boast. Here's that royal priesthood, that holy nation, that people belonging to God called out of darkness into light so that we can declare his marvelous praises. We're priests for the Lord and we're going to feed on the wealth of the nations, not like that prosperity gospel stuff. We don't believe in that. The wealth of the nations here is definitely spiritual, people converted. People who are treasures and they are converted. You'll feed on that and they will become shepherds in the Lord's house. And look at the transformation, verses 7-9, "Instead of their shame, my people receive a double portion and instead of disgrace, they will rejoice in their inheritance and so they will inherit a double portion in their land. Everlasting joy will be theirs."

You as a Christian can read those words and say, these are true of me. I'm not ashamed anymore. My shame has been covered by the blood of Christ. I've received a double portion for that. I'm not disgraced anymore. I'm now honored in Christ and I'm going to rejoice in my inheritance, God himself, and then the new heaven, the new earth. We're going to inherit the earth and that's my inheritance and I'm going to rejoice in that. Verse 8, "For I the Lord love justice. I hate robbery and inequity and in my faithfulness I will reward them and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, the new covenant. And their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed."

Oh, that's powerful. Oh, I want to put that on display. I want everybody to see how God has blessed us, how richly we are forgiven and loved and secured and filled with hope and looking forward to eternity. We're a people the Lord has blessed.

Finishes in verses 10 and 11, "I delight greatly in the Lord. My soul rejoices in my God for he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." Who is speaking here? Is it Jesus? Is it Isaiah on behalf of all the redeemed? How about yes and yes, why not? We step up into the radiant beauty of garments of righteousness and we get covered with Christ's righteousness that he won first for us and then gives to us. Verse 11, "For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations."

Applications, first, just stand in awe of the amazing moment when Jesus stood up and said this has been fulfilled. Stand in awe of that. Just stand in awe of God's ability to predict the future. Just worship him, worship him. Just say, "Thank you God for being such a God to figure all this out before the foundation of the world, predicted centuries before it happened." And then Jesus steps into time and says, "Today in your hearing, this Scripture is fulfilled." Praise him.

Secondly, meditate on the amazing grace that leads him to elevate degraded sinners like you and me from the dungeons, the satanic dungeons of darkness to be under him, kings and queens of glory, princes and princesses in his kingdom. That's incredible. Never get tired of thanking him for saving you from the day of vengeance. You deserved it. So did I. We were covered with stinking clothes, and instead we have this rich garment of praise now on us.

Thirdly, we should yearn to become what the text says we will be, mighty oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his glory. Grow up in Christ. Don't be blown back and forth anymore by false teaching or by lusts and temptations. Don't be weak. Be an oak of righteousness to display God's splendor. Resolve in 2017 to be holier than you've ever been before by the power of the Spirit. Say, "I want to be an oak. I want to be a planting. I don't want to be weak anymore in this weak area. Give me strength to fight."

Fourth, be energetic in the mission that this, like just about all of these last chapters Isaiah talks about, worldwide missions, nations coming to the light of the glory of Zion. Let's be energetic in it. Let's care about it.nI loved hearing Amanda's story. I was so excited, she was willing to share that story. You should ask her for details. The lives that were changed by her and her team. It's a great story. We're going to hear it in heaven, but it's great to hear it now. Let's love these stories. Let's send out more and more missionaries. Let's raise more money. Let's more than meet our goal. $150,000 to send out missionaries like that. Let's care about it. Let's pray for missions and be passionate and then let's make missions happen right here at home. We can do that with unreached people groups here in our area with the Gujarati, but we can also evangelize people who are just like us, same as us, same culture, same language but they need Christ, let's talk to them.

And then finally, if you are struggling with depression and discouragement, Isaiah 61 is for you. God is able to comfort those who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion. He's able to bestow on you a crown of beauty instead of ashes and the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. Don't weep anymore. Rejoice in Christ, talk to other people. Get together. Don't be alone in your sorrow. Get together with other people and talk about Jesus. It's a great topic. Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 60:1-22. The main subject of the sermon is the holy eternal city that God is preparing for His people.

Well, we come to Isaiah 60, this morning to one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. So I'm smiling because I say that just about every week, I know. I mean, I love the book of Isaiah, but this chapter, Isaiah 60, gives us such an incredible vision of The Radiant City of God that we're moving toward through faith in Christ, that I can't wait to preach it to you.

Now I love church history, I love looking back at moments of church history and there's so many illustrative moments that come along the way. And I want to choose a moment from the life of Martin Luther before, years before he was converted. He was an Augustinian monk, and he was sent from Nuremberg to Rome to an important conference to do some business for his monastic order. He went with a brother Monk and they traveled for 700, almost 700 miles by foot, through Southern Germany, into Switzerland then through the Alps, the snow-covered Alps in the winter, finally making it through into the plains of Northern Italy. They moved on down the Italian boot and they came to a little rise. A hill Where for the first time in his life, Martin Luther was able to see Rome, what some people wrongly call the eternal city.

What Luther called the holy city. And as he... When he first saw it, he first caught a glimpse of it, he fell down prostrate on the ground. Overwhelmed with religious zeal. And he cried out, "Oh Holy City! Oh Rome! The city sanctified by the blood of martyrs. I come at last to you."

Then he got up off the ground and he walked into Rome, and he discovered what that city was really like. And he was disillusioned by the wickedness and the immorality, and the false religion that he saw there. He was disheartened by it and disillusioned by it. And he went back to his order and was silent for a long time because of his disappointment at that city that had been the focus of his pilgrimage.

Now, that whole story, it really happened in history, but it's a kind of a parable, of what's going on in the hearts of people around us all the time. To some degree, we're all making our way through this world, as if on pilgrimage and we're going to some destination, some city of our dreams and our hopes. And how often does it happen that whenever we arrive we find ourselves bitterly disillusioned by what's there? The whole thing is disappointing. Does not satisfy. It's filled with wickedness and immorality, and disappointments, and we're turned off and we don't know what we have now to live for. That's where Luther was at.

Now, praise God, a few years later, he found the gospel and when he read in the Book of Romans, that the righteous will live by faith, he said "The gates of paradise were open," and he went through so he still has this sense of entering into a city, but it was a different kind of city. It was a heavenly city, a city of glory and radiance, and beauty.

In the timeless allegory of the Christian life, Pilgrim's Progress Christian and Hopeful, are making their way also toward a city. A destination, called in that parable by John Bunyan, the celestial city, the heavenly city. And at one point in their pilgrimage, they meet a group of men, godly men called shepherds. And the shepherds had them to a high mountain and gave them a telescope, which was a relatively new invention in Bunyan's lifetime interesting, but they had these two pilgrims looking through, with shaking hands, through a telescope, whereby they could see for the first time the celestial city, see what it actually looked like.

So friends, this right here is the telescope. This is what we get to look through this morning to see the city where we're going to. And can I tell you it's a joyful glorious radiant place we're going toward. We will not be in any way disappointed when we get there. And I think the more that our hearts are filled with visions of the new Jerusalem, to which we are going, if we are Christians, we are going there, the better it is. For us, for our families and for even lost people who are around us who desperately need the message of hope, that's locked up in our hearts. They desperately need to hear the nature of our hope in that heavenly city, to which we are going. The book of Hebrew speaks of this city, in Hebrews 11:10, it speaks of Abraham was. It says "…he was looking forward to a city with foundations whose architect and builder is God."

I think that's the faith-filled life that we should be... We're looking forward to a city. That's what faith is about, it's... Another word for it is hope. We are filled with hope as we look ahead to that city that is to come. It says later, a few verses later, in Hebrews 11:16, it says that these faith-filled men and women "were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them."

Well, this morning, in Isaiah 60, we get to look at that city. We get to understand some of the nature and the beauty of that radiant spiritual city to which we're going. And we get to look at it through the telescope of the text. So really I would urge that you take your Bibles and look with me as I'm just going to walk through the 22 verses of Isaiah 60. I'm going to try to understand the phrases here. It's not easy to interpret this book.

Isaiah was a prophet, a Jewish man who lived about seven centuries before Christ was born. He lived one century before the Jews were exiled to Babylon, and he has a vision here, of the building, or we could say The glory of Zion. And so the stunning glory of Zion, whatever that means, we're going to talk about the glory of Zion, the city of God is revealed in this chapter in words that I believe, and this is the key to my interpretation of the chapter, words that soar vastly beyond the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem physically after the exile to Babylon.

Isaiah the prophet saw the exile to Babylon a century before it happened, but he looked beyond that in some way to the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem after the exile. But these words just go far beyond that. And I would urge you also to keep your finger here in Isaiah 6. We're going to move through it is our home base, but also to look with me at Revelation chapter 21. And we're going to see in Revelation 21:23 and following, verbiage language, that's almost identical to that of Isaiah 60. So the Apostle John in the Island of Patmos, as he sees the new Jerusalem that's yet to come is using language from the chapter we're looking at today.

And so, friends, we are not talking about the mere rebuilding of Jerusalem after the exile to Babylon. We're talking about something vastly more glorious than that. A vision of a city that's in construction. Now, it's beautiful right now but it's getting more and more beautiful every day. And that God calls on you if you're a Christian to serve that city and to get involved in building it for the rest of your lives. It's a vision that should consume the rest of your life. It's worth your life to give it to the building, and the glorification of this city. And so in this chapter we're going to see displayed Zion, the city of God, the people of God in glorious prophetic perspective. We're going to see the diversities, the beautiful diversity of worship that's going to flow into this God, into this city from people all over the Earth. And for me, I'm going to see that in light of the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the Earth, where elect from every tribe and language, and people, and nation are coming over into faith in Christ, and are going to beautify that city with their unique patterns of worship." That's what we're going to see in this chapter. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Now we got to begin by understanding the word Zion. So we're talking about Zion here. The first time the word Zion appears in 2 Samuel 7 when it speaks of a literal physical city that David conquered from the Jebusites and the word Zion then appears in the text there as the physical city of Jerusalem in Palestine, Zion, the City of David. And then, it's used in the historical books like when Solomon built the temple there in Jerusalem, the word Zion was used there. It's used again and again in the Psalms and the prophets. The word Zion means immediately Jerusalem, but more specifically the city where God chose to put his name, for His dwelling, where he would dwell with his people together, Zion, the city where God dwells together with his people. So His glory cloud descended into Solomon's temple, and it remained there, and that was a sense of God's presence in the city of Zion. However, as the prophets continue to prophesy the word expanded to take on a bigger, fuller meaning, and so it refers more in prophetic perspective to the city of God where God will dwell with His people forever, and takes on a more of a heavenly sense at that point, because the physical city of Jerusalem became defiled like Rome in my opening illustration, became defiled with idolatry and wickedness.

And so in the book of Ezekiel, the glory cloud departs from the physical city, the temple, and the Physical City of Jerusalem and goes away from that place. The Jews were exiled to Babylon and the Babylonians destroyed the temple. They destroyed the city and the Jews are living there in exile and they're pining for the day when they can return, and they can read the scroll of Isaiah, the prophecy of Isaiah that speaks very clearly about the rebuilding of the city. And they would have seen it in that light, but the language here just goes so far beyond, it just soars vastly higher than the mere rebuilding of the city in Palestine. It's bigger than that.

So then the city of Jerusalem, becomes a type and a shadow of something bigger that's coming, a spiritual reality, a type and a shadow. This heavenly Zion, this heavenly Jerusalem, the eternal City of the Living God, where God and His people will dwell together in face-to-face fellowship. That's what's prefigured by the word Zion.

Now, the Apostle Paul in the New Testament speaks in Galatians Chapter 4 of the "Jerusalem that is above…" He uses that language "The Jerusalem that is above" He says in Galatians 4:25:26, "the present city of Jerusalem… is in slavery with her children." That's the physical lower earthly city. That present physical city of Jerusalem is in slavery like the woman Hagar and her son Ishmael. They are slaves, okay? In slavery. But Galatians 4:26, "the Jerusalem that is above is free and she is our mother."

So, the restoration of the Jews back to the rubble-filled streets of Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah is merely the re-establishment of a physical type and shadow of a heavenly reality. The rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem show that the perfect glory of Jerusalem had not yet come. For the Gentile nations that surrounded that rebuilding project were hostile to the Jews. They were a threat to them and a danger to them. And this chapter speaks of perfect peace in which the gate stand to open all the time and there's no threat, but only peace and prosperity. So the prophetic vision of Isaiah 60 is of a radiant, glorious, majestic, perfect city in which the wealth of nations is going to stream in to that city and beautify it, and make it wealthy and prosperous. It is the city of God.

Look at Isaiah 60:14. There it speaks of "The City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel." So that's that word Zion, the City of the Lord. And in this verse and throughout, we're going to see the themes of military victory over enemies and peace with former enemies and the ownership of the Lord, it's called the City of the Lord.

So, we have a beautiful picture here, not just of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, but something far greater than that... And not just the enriching of a physical city of Jerusalem, where a Jewish king would sit and physical wealth is being sent as tribute from distant lands, but something far better than that. Actual spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And so, the animals and lambs and all that that are offered in this language of the Old Testament are really just types and shadows of a true worship that's coming from people all over the world. And it speaks ultimately of mission. So, that's the preamble, you're thinking, "How long is this sermon going to be?" Friends, as long as it needs to be, it's a glorious chapter. So, let's take it like a gift and let's just unwrap it line by line.

Let's look at verses 1 and 2, Zion here is commanded by God to arise and be glorious. Look at verse one, "Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you." So God speaks, I would say with resurrecting power to Zion. Rise up out of the dust, rise up out of the ashes, rise up and be glorious.

Now, as I said, the physical city of Jerusalem immediate context, the Babylonians would destroy that city. They would level it, they would rush through the breach in the wall, and they would kill all the Jewish soldiers there and they would destroy it, they would go to the temple and they'd strip off all the gold from the wood and they would steal the gold and then they would burn the wood. And they destroyed the temple, they destroyed the walls, they destroyed the city, they razed it to the ground. It was burned with fire, and the people would mostly die by the sword, famine, and plague. A small remnant would be preserved, but they would go off in chains as slaves to Babylon. They were exiled to Babylon and there they lived for 70 years. At the end of that time, a small remnant of them would be allowed to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild it. Here, I believe Isaiah predicts at least that but far greater than that. He commands this city to rise up, as if out of the dust of the ground and be glorious.

I believe that the 42,000 Jews that would return under Ezra at the command of Cyrus the Great to rebuild Jerusalem are somewhat in view here, but the language is greater than anything like that. The real glory of Zion is the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and His resurrection. And the fact that, He can speak into our degradation, into our sin, even into our death and entombment and call on us to rise up out of the grave and be glorious. And that's awesome. The final glory of Zion will be in her people, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, redeemed from death, risen from the grave.

Listen what Jesus said in John Chapter 5, he said, "Do not be amazed at this for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out. Those who have done good will rise to live." And, what will they be like when they come up out of their graves? Well, friends, they will be glorious. It says in Matthew 13, "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." We're going to shine like the angels that announced the birth of Jesus, remember how the glory of the Lord shown around. You're going to be radiant, you're going to be shiny, radiant in Christ. It says in 1 Corinthians 15, speaking of the resurrection of the dead, the body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. [Ponder that.] It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power, it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." So, Isaiah 60:1 in which God commands Zion. Rise and shine and be glorious is ultimately fulfilled in our resurrection.

Zion’s Glory a Contrast to the Darkness of the Nations

Now, Zion's glory is a contrast to the darkness of the nations. Look at Verse 2. "For behold, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples but the Lord rises upon you and His glory appears over you." So here we have a clear contrast darkness, even thick darkness, that covers the whole planet, and there's this one city, that's radiant and glorious, a light shining in a dark place. How beautiful is this? You know how it says in Isaiah 9, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light, and those who live in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned… For to us, a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders." That's the light in the dark place, but the whole world here in 60:2, is shrouded in thick darkness, and there's this one shining light. This Zion.

Recently, I was reading about a terrible mining accident that happened in Russia, in October of 2003 and an underground lake was unleashed, broken through and started to flood in where the miners were and many of them were killed, some escaped but then there were some that were trapped in an air pocket and they were there for almost six days. And after a little while their batteries on their helmets went out, flickered out, and they were in total darkness without very much hope of survival. They had no food, they only had the water that was flooding in and threatening their lives. After almost six days they heard sounds of explosions as other miners were blasting through 60 yards of rock to eventually get where they were. And they did get where they were. And the wall got broken through and the first light, they had seen in almost six days was the light on the helmets of their rescuers.

I'm thinking, if you're in that inky black darkness, you're going to move toward the light. You're going to move toward the lights, your only hope. And I get the picture here in this text that Jesus as the glory of Zion is humanity's only hope. We walk apart from Jesus, we walk in darkness. We are enslaved in a kingdom of darkness. Ephesians 2 says that, Ephesians 6 says that "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this present darkness." So we're in this darkness, a Satanic darkness apart from Christ. And that darkness that covers the earth now of those apart from Christ will be eternally completed in hell, a place of utter darkness, where people who do not know the forgiveness of the Lord, who do not come into the light of the city of Zion by faith in Jesus, will be relegated or cast out into utter darkness.

The darkness represents the absence of the blessing of God, the absence of God in every respect except as the just condemner of them in their sin. So that's light and darkness. And we are called on to call people out of the darkness into the light. We are presently, by faith in Christ, already citizens of Zion. We're already living in the light. We're walking in the light as He is in the light. And we're told in the Sermon on the Mount to let our light shine before men that they may see our good deeds and glorify God who is in heaven. The reason is that they are without hope and without God in the world, and we are called on to do the works of the kingdom, works of mercy ministry to the poor and needy in the city and in other places, works of evangelism, reaching out in the office place, works of righteousness that attract people to know God.

Now in verses 3-9, that's the very theme, that the light is magnetic and attracts people out of the darkness to it. Look what it says in verse 3, "And nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn." Zion is shining with a supernatural glory, the nations are attracted to that light. Now, obviously under Ezra and Nehemiah, there was a small amount of light. When Nehemiah rebuilt the wall in 52 days, it was said that all the surrounding nations trembled with fear because they knew it was only possible through the power of God. So that's a small light, but it's not as glorious as the light of Christ. And so verse 3, "Nations come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn." This must be Jesus Christ. The gospel of Christ is appealing, it's attractive, it calls on people to come, to leave their darkness and to follow Christ.

Zion’s Sons and Daughters Carried Home

Now, in verse 4 and 9, Zion's sons and daughters are carried home, they're carried to the city. Look at verse 4, "Lift up your eyes and look about you. All assemble and come to you. Your sons come from afar and your daughters are carried on the arm." Look again down at verse 9, "Surely the islands look to me. In the lead are ships of Tarshish bringing your sons from afar with their silver and gold to the honor of the Lord your God, the holy one of Israel, for He has endowed you with splendor." So here's the idea. The splendor, the glory of the place, is attractive and brings the sons and daughters from afar, even from distant places. And they're coming from as far away as Tarshish, that's Gibraltar. I mean, you think about living in Palestine, and the Mediterranean Sea was the ocean. They didn't know all of the earth and the Atlantic Ocean and all that. So you're thinking Gibraltar, that's like the ends of the earth. And from that distant place, Zion's sons and daughters will be carried and brought home to the city.

Now, for me, this must be a picture of missions. It's a picture of evangelism, a picture of the gathering of the scattered people of God. It says in John 11:51-52, it says here that "Jesus would die for the Jewish nation and not only for that nation [listen to this] but also for the scattered children of God to gather them together and bring them and make them one." So that's the work of Christ and the work of missions. He is there to gather the scattered people of God worldwide and bring them together. They are the sons and daughters of Zion.

The Diverse Glories of the Nations Beautify God’s House

Now look at the diverse glories of the nations as they beautify God's house. Verses 5-9, "Then you will look and be radiant," speaking again to Zion. O Zion, you're going to look and be radiant. And "…your heart will throb and swell with joy. The wealth on the seas will be brought to you. To you the riches of the nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. All from Sheba will come bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. All Kedar's flocks will be gathered to you. The rams of Nebaioth will serve you. They will be accepted as offerings on my altar, and I will adorn my glorious temple. Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nest? Surely the islands look to me. In the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your sons from afar with their silver and gold to the honor of the Lord your God, the holy one of Israel, who he has endowed you with splendor."

So here God is speaking to Zion of her radiance in glory, but the glory comes from the wealth of the nations. Do you see it? These caravans of camels. Now, this is what makes Isaiah so wonderful, caravans of camels. Not a major feature in the 21st century, I know. We're not really looking for the camel caravans. And so you have to take this language and kind of expand it to say, look, there is a movement, a bringing of wealth and riches toward Zion, but we're going to lift it above the physicality of caravans of camels. Sorry, that's a hard thing to say. Yeah, lift it up and say, the real treasure are the people and their worship as they come to Christ. That's what's going on here.

So yeah, look, the Gentile nations are going to be involved in beautifying the city. So Cyrus and Darius, these pagan kings, Artaxerxes, paid for, at a low level, the rebuilding of Jerusalem. They paid for the rebuilding of the temple, they paid for the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. Artaxerxes helped Nehemiah with money. Friends, that's not what Isaiah 60's talking about. At a low level it is. But these kings and distant lands are going to beautify Zion spiritually. That's the work that's going on here. Honestly, the Jews that lived in those days were so disappointed with the small temple that was built under Haggai, do you remember, that they wept. The old timers, you know? It's like, "Ugh, if only you could have seen Solomon's temple. This is nothing." It was depressing. And so you remember how in Haggai the cries of anguish were mixed with cries of joy.

That's not what Isaiah 60 is talking about here, the language here is of a vast beauty and wealth that goes beyond anything that they'd ever seen. Now it's spiritual, the building is spiritual, the sacrifices are spiritual. This is the building of the church of Jesus Christ out of living stones from every nation on earth. 1 Peter 2:5 says, "You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." That is a spiritual approach to this. We are offering spiritual sacrifices every time we serve God. So these verses in Isaiah predict the amazing success of the gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ in winning a multitude from every nation on earth, even the most distant. So the streaming of wealth carried by the camels from Midian, Ephah and Sheba, that refers to tribute paid to the Lord Jesus by hearts of faith from Gentile converts.

Who Are Nebaioth and Kedar?

Now in verse 7, take a look at verse 7, it's really interesting. Isaiah singles out Nebaioth and Kedar. Now Nebaioth and Kedar were, we're told in Genesis 25:13, the first two sons of Ishmael. These are Ishmaelites. Friends, these are Arabs. Descendants of Ishmael are the Arabs who live in the Arabian boot and in the Horn of Africa and in North Africa, in the Middle East and spread out. Almost universally, Muslims today, some of the most hostile militant opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes from descendants of Ishmael. And yet, Isaiah 60:7 gives me hope that there are elect from among those Arab people that are going to be won to Christ, and that's awesome. So we need to pray for the spread of the gospel among Arab people, descendants of Ishmael, so that not literal animals, the rams of Nebaioth are brought, but their heart of worship is brought to Jesus through faith in Christ. They are offering sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus.

I was reading recently off an account from YWAM, Youth With A Mission, they're doing work in the Middle East and this YWAM director told of an ISIS jihadist who came to faith in Christ in the beginning of the year 2015, it's an incredible story. I couldn't believe it when I read it. Now, this jihadist was in the process of executing Christians, but he had repeated visions of a man in white who told him, "You are killing my people, and you must stop." Finally it came to one particular Christian man who was just about to be beheaded, and he said to this man, this jihadist, he said, "I know you're going to kill me, but I want to give you my Bible so that after I'm dead you may read it." And then the man was killed, but this ISIS man took the Bible and secretly began reading it. He had more intense dreams ultimately of Jesus calling him to follow him as a disciple, he sought out and found the YWAM field worker and is in the process of being discipled right now.

Now, I've thought a lot about that story, I thought about the rams of Nebaioth and of Kedar coming to faith in Christ and I thought with tears of the price tag of that man's conversion. You know how Paul said, "I fill up in my body what is still lacking in regard to the afflictions of Christ." It took the blood of Jesus infinitely above anything else, but then it took the blood of a martyr to save that man. And that man who died, beautified the temple of God, made it more beautiful. Look again at verse 7, doesn't it say to some degree, "I will beautify my beautiful place"? In other words, it's already beautiful, it's beautiful before you were born, it's beautiful before you did any good works, but you can beautify it a little more by your cheerful sacrificial service to the Great Commission.

Now, in verses 10-18, Zion becomes more and more beautiful as the riches of the nations stream in, it's going to get more and more radiant more and more beautiful. Verse 10, "foreigners will rebuild your walls and their kings will serve you." Obviously, the rebuilding of Jerusalem under various pagan kings is at least somewhat in view here, but it goes far beyond that. Evangelists and missionaries are building the heavenly Zion right now all over the world, and some tribal leaders and chieftains and rulers will come to faith in Christ and then themselves will use their positions of influence to lead others to Christ, and God's wrath is atoned for in all of this, verse 10, "Though in anger I struck you in favor I will show you compassion."

Jerusalem didn't happen to be accidentally destroyed by the Babylonians. It was an act of God's wrath, it was an act of his justice brought down on that city for their idolatry, and God could say to Jerusalem, "Though in anger I struck you, now in my favor I will build you up, in my favor I will show you compassion." But let's be honest, the Gentile convert from all over the world were storing up wrath themselves before they were converted; every one of them were children of wrath, every one of them deserved to be struck dead. All of us are like that. We all, like the rest, we're by nature objects of wrath. And in anger, God didn't strike us, his wrath was poured out on the substitute, on Jesus who died in our place that we might live forever. It is by those who have been rescued out of the wrath of God into his compassion and favor that this city is built.

Zion’s Gates Eternally Open: Security and Prosperity

And so in verse 11, "Your gates will always stand open, they'll never be shut day or night so that men may bring you the wealth of the nations, their kings led in triumphal procession." And look again at verse 17 and 18, "Instead of bronze, I will bring you gold and silver in the place of iron, instead of wood, I will bring you bronze and iron in the place of stones. I will make peace your governor and righteousness your ruler. No longer will violence be heard in your land nor ruin or destruction within your borders but you will call your wall salvation and your gates praise." So, we have here a clear prediction of peace and prosperity. Gates never shut, day or night.

Now, honestly, this is the clearest indication to me in terms of exegesis, that this text is not talking about the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Why did Nehemiah build the wall? Let me just take a step before that and say, "What did Nehemiah build?" He built the wall. Why? because Jerusalem's in danger. And you remember as things went on, the danger got greater not less. And they had to build that wall with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. And Nehemiah commanded that the gates be shut at night. So this is not talking about that, dear friends, the rebuilding of Jerusalem. This is talking about something else. So look at Revelation 21:23 and following. There, it speaks of the new Jerusalem that's going to descend from heaven in the future at the end of the world, the new Jerusalem that's getting built right now by missions. "The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and the Lamb is its lamp, and the nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut." So this is definitely the language of Isaiah 60.

But then he goes beyond that, John goes beyond that to say, "For there will be no night there." So you don't need to wonder about day or night because there is no night. So I go back to verse 2 in Isaiah 60 and see, "Darkness covers the earth." Well, now what's going to happen, light will cover the earth, there won't be any darkness left. Only believers in Christ, only those brought in as sons and daughters of Zion will be left. Those are the only ones that will be left to enter the city, no darkness left, no rebellion, no wickedness at all. So look what it says, "On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it, nothing impure will ever enter it nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life."

Now the text in Isaiah speaks of glorious building materials, because... I mean, we don't know what glory looks like so he uses language of materials that are wealthy, like precious stones, like gates of pearl in Revelation. But here it says that instead of poor building materials, bronze, and iron, and wood, and stones, everything's going to get upgraded, there'll be gold instead of bronze, and silver instead of iron, and bronze instead of wood, and iron instead of stones. In other words, I can't tell you how much better it's going to be, it is just going to be vastly better than anything you ever experienced. Now, you remember Solomon made all of the... They had so much gold flowing into Jerusalem during Solomon's reign, they don't know what to do with it. Remember? So they made golden shields. I'm thinking like an engineer, what did they do that for? It's heavy and soft, it's not incredibly helpful, but I'm sure they look spectacular.

They also were the desire of other nations, like Shishak from Egypt, who came after Solomon's foolish son, Rehoboam, lost the kingdom. Shishak invades and takes the gold. Shields, takes them all, brings them back to Egypt. And so, Rehoboam made bronze shields instead of the gold, a definite downgrade. Because of sin. Well, what's this text is saying is everything is going to go the opposite direction, everything will be better. Everything improved, everything more glorious, in every way.

A Warning to All Nations Who Refuse to Serve Zion

There is a warning here in verse 12 to the nations that will not serve Zion, will not serve the king of Zion. Look at it, verse 12, "For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish, it will be utterly ruined." That's a direct warning to the nations of the earth. It's not much different than Psalm 2, when God the Father speaks to his son, Jesus, in Psalm 2 and this is what he said, "I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to me," that's like basically Jesus saying, "God the Father said to me…" "You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I'll make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You'll rule them with an iron sword. You'll dash them to pieces like pottery. Therefore, you kings, be wise. Be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling."

Psalm 2:12, "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry with you, and you'll be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him." It's the same thing. Look again at Isaiah 60:12, "For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish, it will be utterly destroyed." It's a warning. "Flee to Christ."

Now, in verses 13-16, Zion is beloved and served, no longer hated. "The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the pine, and the fir, and the cypress together, to adorn the place of my sanctuary, and I will glorify the place at my feet. The sons of your oppressors will come bowing before you, all who despise you will bow down at your feet and will call you the City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel." Verse 15, "Although you have been forsaken and hated, with no one traveling through, I will make you the everlasting pride and the joy of all nations. You will drink the milk of nations and be nursed at royal breasts. Then you will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob."

Now it's remarkable for Isaiah to speak of Lebanon here. It was Hiram, King of Tyre, King of Lebanon, who sent massive trees, cedars of Lebanon, floated them down to a port city in Israel where they would be used to build the temple. It seems now that God is not so interested in the actual trees of Lebanon as in the Lebanese people themselves. And so, "Lebanon will beautify this spiritual sanctuary by repentance and faith in Christ." That's what God wants, he wants the Lebanese people, and they, by coming to faith in Christ, will beautify or adorn the place of God's sanctuary.

We end up in verses 19-22 of the eternal glory of the city of Zion. It says, "The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moonshine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory." Verse 20, "You sun will never set again. Your moon will wane no more. The Lord will be your everlasting light and your days of sorrow will end." This is the clear language of the new Jerusalem. There's no doubt about it, not anything earthly like this has ever been seen. The light of the sun and the moon become obsolete. God, when he began creating said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And then on the fourth day, God created the sun and the moon and the stars.

I had some clever postdoc student at Duke, unbeliever, from an oriental nation say that this is proof that the Bible is just metaphorical and all that because there's all this light, but the sun, moon, and stars weren't even created until the fourth day. I said, "Do you have lights down in the basement of your lab there in Duke?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Are there any windows down?" He said, "No." "So it's in total darkness?" He said, "No, we have lights down there." I said, "Oh, so you're able to do light where there's no windows at all, but you think God can't? God is able to do light. He's actually really good at it. He can shine radiantly long before there's a sun or moon or star. He just delegated the job on the fourth day to the sun, moon, and stars." Well, guess what? At the end, he's going to take it back. We don't need the sun anymore, don't need the moon anymore, don't need the stars anymore, I'll take it from here.

And the glory of this city is going to be God's glory and Jesus will be the lamp of God's glory and the entire place will be radiant with that glorious light. Look at Revelation 21:23-24, "The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it for the glory of God gives it light and the Lamb is its lamp and the nations will walk by its light. Now he also says, "The Lord will be everlasting light and your days of sorrow will end." This is well known to be fulfilled only in heaven. No more sorrow, no more pain. Revelation 21, "I saw the new Jerusalem coming down like a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband and now at last, God is dwelling with man and God will be with them and be their God and there'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Final two verses it says, "Then will all your people be righteous and they will possess the land forever. They are the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands for the display of my splendor. The least of you will become a thousand, the smallest a mighty nation. I am the Lord and in its time, I will do this swiftly." So that's our future, dear friends, our future in Christ.

Applications, first, just brothers and sisters, renew your hope by looking at this heavenly city. Look at it. Look through the telescope that we talked about. You're not going to be disappointed. It's not like, "Yeah, but don't look too closely." No, look closely. Look really closely. Look at the details. I've walked very quickly through this chapter. Go back and look at the details of what this beautiful Zion is going to be like. Celebrate this.

It says in Colossians 3, "Set your minds on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, you will appear with him in glory." This is your future glory. Set your heart on that. Why should you do that? I want you to be filled with hope. I want you to be like radiantly, energetically hopeful at work or at school or wherever you go tomorrow. I want you to be kind of like a light bulb tomorrow. Why? So that people who are presently lost, who are without hope and without God in the world may ask you to give a reason for the hope that you have, and you can tell them about Jesus. So smile. See? There you go. Smile. It's glorious. It's radiant. You're going to a happy place and nothing can stop it.

Be filled with joy and let your hope, your light of hope shine to hopeless people. They don't have this hope that you have, and especially let your light shine when you are afflicted, when you have physical pain, when you have a bad diagnosis, when things are going poorly for you economically in life, shine with hope because at that point it shines even the more brightly. Let's see also and embrace the missionary thrust of this whole chapter. It's all about this light shining to the ends of the earth. Sons and daughters brought from afar.

Ron was talking about the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. We are Southern Baptist. We are in voluntary cooperation with other Baptist churches just like ours. We pool our money together and out of that pool of money, we send out people to distant lands to share the gospel. That's a good work. Our church's goal is $150,000 for Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. We will not make it without sacrifice. We'll not make it without cheerful giving. So pray about what God would have you to do financially in terms of that offering, but just embrace missions. Find out more and more about unreached people groups. I would suggest that each one of you goes to Joshua Project or to some other website. Find an unreached people group and pray for them everyday. Pray that God would raise up missionaries to go reach them with the gospel.

I also want you to notice that God delights in a vast array of diverse worship. As I said years ago, and I continue to say, God loves more forms of worship than you do. And so there's this vast diversity of worship from every tribe and language and people and nation, and God loves it. I'm not talking about the kind of diversity that people talk about these days. I'm talking about amoral, beautiful diversity that God created in different cultures and languages. It's a beautiful thing.

And I want to finish by just urging any of you that are here that have not yet trusted in Christ, trust in him. I want to see you there. I want you to be there. I would love for it to be the case that you walk up to me in the streets of the new Jerusalem and say, "I don't know what it was, but it was that sermon in Isaiah 60 that showed me how much I needed Christ. And I repented of my sins and I looked at Christ crucified alone. I stopped trusting in my works and I believed in him and now I'm here. Praise God." Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 59:1-21. The main subject of the sermon is our need for a salvation and spiritual healing that only God can provide.

We live in a great region. A lot of benefits come to us from living in the Triangle region. One of them is the benefit of living so near research hospitals like Duke and Chapel Hill and in Raleigh as well. This is a great area for hospitals. People really come from all over the world to receive treatment at the hospitals in this region. Recently, I had the benefit of flying back from Boston where I was doing a pastor's conference, and I sat next to a Hungarian Jew, and he was across the aisle from his brother and the two of them were coming to Duke to get a second opinion on a special brain tumor that his brother had, and they had gone to different places in the world and were coming here for a second opinion, and possibly medical treatment.

And I'll tell you what: I love sitting on the plane with unbelievers. And I'm telling you, I love having two hours, and we talked for two hours, and I just enjoyed just unfolding especially the Old Testament, the Book of Isaiah, unfolding the prophecies. This guy didn't know who he was sitting next to. I'm not saying that pridefully, but I was like, "Wow, we're in for it. You know we're going to have a great time," but you have to draw people into the conversation or they're not going to want to talk, and we did, and we had a... As a matter of fact, it was such a great conversation that he invited me to stay with them next time I'm in Hungary. I've never been to Hungary, but I'm looking forward to, if that ever works out. But I can tell you this: No one comes from anywhere all over the earth or even in this region to seek medical treatment who doesn't think they need it. And if you don't think you're sick, you're never going to seek a physician. And if you don't think you're facing some kind of deadly brain tumor, you're never going to submit to the radiation or the chemo or the surgery, the radical therapies that it would take to get you to be healed from that.

Jesus put it this way: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Jesus is a physician for the soul, but no one seeks that treatment who doesn't think they need it. And if I can just be honest, none of us thinks we need it, naturally. We have a very high opinion of our morality. We have a very high opinion of our righteousness. We don't think we need the treatment Jesus came to give. The depravity of the human race is unfolded for us in Isaiah 59. The wickedness, the sinfulness of the human race is unfathomable, it is pervasive, it is universal, it is radical.

This is the consistent message of all Scripture. But some passages make that radical depravity clearer than others. Perhaps I would say, the clearest in all the Bible that does it is Romans Chapter 3:9-18. And there the Apostle Paul really just levels the pride of every human being on earth will listen, with the tattoo of a mournful drum, the drum beat of phrase after phrase after phrase of how much we need a savior. He says this, "There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one."

To support this terrible but true thesis, Paul reaches for many passages from the Old Testament, but predominantly Isaiah 59. And if you know Romans 3 as it continues from that point, you'll hear some familiarity with the verses we're going to look at this morning. Centuries before Paul wrote his epistle, Isaiah stood as the mouthpiece of Almighty God to a radically depraved humanity. Paul paraphrases Isaiah 59 and other Psalms mostly when he writes these words. In Romans 3:13-17, "Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Now, the timeless relevance of the Bible for me stands on two primary pillars. The Bible is an ancient book. It's written a long, long time ago. Isaiah, written 26 centuries ago. Why is it relevant for us in 21st century America today? Well, it stands on two pillars: First, the immutability of God himself. God never changes. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so the God of the Bible is the God of today and tomorrow and a thousand ages hence. Secondly, the second pillar of the unchanging appeal of the Bible is the essentially unchanging nature of the human race.

The depravity of the human race is the same now as it was in Isaiah's day. It's the same in every generation. We struggle with the same sins. We struggle with the same wickedness. We are the same people. And so the Bible addresses universality of sin in language that is as relevant and fresh now as it was 26 centuries ago. So we need to walk with Isaiah through the dark and painful diagnosis of the cancerous heart tumor of sin in this chapter. We need to listen. We need to listen to the brutally honest evaluation of a skillful surgeon who is telling us simply that our sin is pervasive and deadly. It's terminal.

And he alone can cure us. So this chapter ultimately points us to Christ as the only savior for the human race and gives us the good news of a salvation that God alone can work. Now, if like so many people, we shirk and shrink back and shrug and deny and evade this diagnosis, we shall perish. But, if like Isaiah does, I think right in this chapter, we humble ourselves and seek that salvation that God alone can give, then we shall be healed.

So, let's look first at the verses that unfold, verses 1 through 8. It begins with an accusation from the Lord to the human race. You are radically depraved. Starts in verses one and two. Look at the verses. "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor is ear too dull to hear, but your iniquities have separated you from your God, your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear."

So the chapter begins with God accusing Israel of radical depravity. And he does it, it seems in the face of them accusing him of being too deaf to hear, too weak to do anything, evidently, it seems because they haven't... He has not answered their prayers. Perhaps they were crying out to God in light of their crops failing or maybe a pestilence that had come in to rob their crops, locust invasion or perhaps it had to do with a threatened Gentile invasion. Maybe the Jews before the exile were terrified of the news that the Babylonians were coming and that they would not be diverted. Or maybe it's after they have already been exiled in Babylon, and they're seeking, "Why did it happen? Why was the temple burned with fire and destroyed? Why are they there in exile?"

In any case, they feel that God has failed them. He's not answered their prayers, he seems weak, he's deaf. Honestly, we ourselves make similar accusations to God in our day. We do the same kind of thing. We get into some desperate situation of our own making usually, through our own sinfulness, but not always, sometimes not always. We cry out to the Lord. We fear some outcome. We cry to God in prayer, but the thing we dread happens anyway. We lose our jobs. Perhaps a loved one dies of cancer. The very thing we were praying against happens. Perhaps there's some economic or natural disaster wipes out our earthly lifestyles as we knew them. Some hurricane, some tsunami comes, and we angrily bring it back to God with strong accusations. "You must be deaf, you must be weak, your ear is too deaf to hear, your arm is too short to save."

Dear friends, can I tell you something? God is in his prime right now, to use a human expression. God is in his prime right now. Actually, he's always been in his prime. He always will be in his prime. Nothing that God ever does, no exertion of God ever in any way depletes him. He'd never fatigued ever. And his hearing is perfect. Well he hears everything. If I can be honest, he hears more than you want him to hear. He hears everything. There's nothing wrong with God's ear and there's nothing wrong with God's arm. That's not the problem. The reason your prayers have not been answered is you, not God. Your iniquities have made a gap, the text says. They've made a separation between you and God and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he chooses not to hear. He will not hear.

So the issue is not a matter of God's ability. It's... The problem is God's will. He is not willing to hear. God is deeply offended by our sins, and they create an infinite gap between us and God. Now evangelists for centuries have used this image of a gap between us and God to share the good news of Christ, and I would commend it to you. I mean, you could be at a restaurant and you're talking to a lost co-worker or a neighbor or a friend or even a total stranger, and you could pull out a piece of paper or a napkin and you could draw a gap like a canyon, and you put the precipice on one side and then on the other, you could imagine a gap like the Grand Canyon even. And you could draw a stick figure on one side and you could write the word "God" on the other because there's nothing you could write that would symbolize God. You just write God. And there's this gap, this infinite gap, this separation between you and God that the sins have worked.

And if you've ever been to the Grand Canyon, you can imagine the vastness of the space. It just seems to go on forever. But this is an even greater gap than that. It's an infinite gap between us and a holy God. And then in evangelism, then you can draw a cross that goes across that gap and bridges the gap. You could say how individuals try to run and jump and... Doesn't matter how athletic they are, doesn't matter how they could... They can never cross the gap. But the God in Christ has bridged the gap. He has become a bridge builder between us. He's a mediator between us and God and he makes a way so that we can go to heaven, and he actually is the only mediator, the only bridge builder between us and God. And if we trust in him, we can be brought nearer to God.

All of that really flows from the image of a gap right here in this verse. This verse also could remind us not so much of a horizontal gap, but of an infinite gap upward, the elevation, the lofty elevation of God. God is infinitely above us. He's given us this image again and again. He's not on the same plane as us. The gap is really more vertical. He is above us, infinitely above us. Isaiah 6:1, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted." Or again in Isaiah 57:15, as we saw a few weeks ago, “This is what the high and holy one says, he who lives forever and whose name is holy, 'I live in a high and holy place.'"

So these verses should cause us to tremble and to repent and see what our sins have done to our prayer lives, into our intimacy with God. But now God goes on to dig deep and to expose the radical depravity of the hearts of the Jews that this was first written to and really then by extension to all of us. This is no superficial issue, this sin. It is deep and full and pervasive. Now, at the beginning of this section, he does it directly speaking to us in the second person: "Your hands, your fingers, your lips." But then he broadens it to speak more universally: "No one calls, no one pleads, they speak lies, they can see evil." So, for us, we need to see sin as our own personal problem. But then it's everybody else's problem too. And so, sin is deep and personal and individual, but it's also widespread and pervasive and universal.

Your Radical Depravity Exposed

So now he goes into it in verses 3-8. Look at the verses. "For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things. No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider's web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched. Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are evil thoughts; ruin and destruction mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks in them will know peace."

Let's just step through it. First, he says, "Your hands are stained with blood." This speaks of violence, of murder, of aggression, attacking weak, weaker neighbors. And you say, "I've never done that. I'm not guilty of bloodshed." No, but Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "You have heard that it was said you shall not murder, but I tell you, if you're even angry with your brother, you're in danger of the fire of hell." So there's murder in your heart even though your hands are not stained with blood. He says, "Your fingers are stained with guilt." I think the fingers for me represent precision skill. You think about the skillful fingers of a concert pianist or a brain surgeon. Talk about precision. So putting it together, we are skillfully evil. There's a precision to our evil. Our fingers are stained with guilt. And he says next, "Your lips have spoken lies and your tongue mutters wicked things." Here we get to our mouths. James says, "The tongue is a restless evil full of deadly poison." We speak evil things to each other. And lying, lying is a terrible sin.

The Scripture says in another place that all men are liars. And when we lie, we are acting like the devil, for he is a liar and the father of lies. The muttering of wicked things shows the fullness of our hearts. Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. So we say wicked things because we have wicked things in our hearts. And then he says, "No one calls for justice or pleads his case with integrity." In the courts of law, they're not looking for justice, they're looking for an outcome, a verdict that will benefit their side. And so some lawyers are skillful at twisting the truth and making the truth plastic and stretching it so that they can get the outcome they want. It was going on back then. It's going on today. They're not pleading their case with integrity. And so we also do, not in a court of law, but just in telling a story about how someone hurt us, and we stretch and expand the truth and when contracted, we don't tell the things we did, but how wrong they treated us. And so, we gossip and slander and do these kinds of things.

Stretching, we're not pleading our case with integrity, but there's lying that just flows from us. Look at verses four and five, "They conceive trouble and give birth to evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider's web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched." Well this speaks of our evil plans. We use our imaginations and our minds to hatch evil plans, busy minds conceiving trouble, spinning spider's webs of deceit to make a profit or get revenge or seize a neighbor's property, or hurt an enemy, get back. They're using their amazing God-given intellects and imaginations for crafting evil plots. And their plots are likened here to spider's webs and the eggs of a viper. And the hatching of the eggs results in a bitter surprise. Out comes a young snake, a serpent, snapping with poisonous vipers, fangs, ready to kill whoever broke open the egg.

That's the plans when they're hatched. But then in verse 6, they cover all of this wickedness with wispy clothing of self-righteousness. Verse 6, "Their cobwebs are useless for clothing. They cannot cover themselves with what they make." Thinking to atone for their sins themselves, they make coverings. They cover their wicked nakedness with cobwebs of self-righteousness." This is exactly what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. You remember how their eyes were open and they realized they were naked? And so they put on fig leaves to hide from each other, and then when they heard God calling, they hid behind a tree. They're hiding. They're trying to block God's holy eyes from their wickedness and they're doing it with these cobwebs, these transparent cobwebs of self-righteousness. We tend to do it with morality and religion trying to be a good person, turn over a new leaf, making resolutions and trying to keep most of them most of the time, this morality, and then there's religion. People craft, concoct religions or they receive a false religion that was crafted or concocted by human imagination centuries ago and they follow its basic works patterns. All those religions are works religions. Just do this, don't do that, and you can be righteous, and you can cover up your wickedness with your own cobwebs.

The Jews of Isaiah's day were notoriously religious. They brought thousands of bulls and goats, and sheep, as atoning sacrifice to the temple. There was a river of animal blood, but not a single genuine tear of brokenness and sorrow over their sin. No sinner can be made right by our own good works. The wispy cobwebs of self-righteousness are going to get blown away on Judgment Day. It says in Romans 3:20, "For by works of the law shall no human being be justified in God's sight." It's impossible. So we need to stop right now and just take application right here in the middle of the sermon, and look. The Word of God is like a mirror. James says it's like a mirror. The law of God is like a mirror. We are to look and see ourselves, and see what these words are saying to us. Paul chose to borrow Isaiah's words in this chapter, and apply them universally to the entire human race, all of us. "What shall we conclude then?" He says in Romans 3. "Are we any better? Not at all. We've already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written, there is no one righteous. Not even one. No one. Who understands, no one who seeks God, all have turned aside. They've together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one." That means you and me. That's us. We're talking about us here.

Well, at this point, the text turns to a confession by the humble. We acknowledge our weakness. The text moves from you to we. Do you see it? Verses 9-15, a confession just flows. It turns inward and humble, the prophet speaking for the redeemed among Israel, among the Gentiles who find salvation in Christ, makes no effort to deflect the accusation of verses one through eight. No effort to deny, no effort to minimize it, everything the text said about us is true. It's painfully and shockingly true. The text then moves from you and they to we and us. True salvation, then must always begin with honest confession and humble pleading for mercy. God the God who dwells in that high and holy and lofty place is willing also to deal with the humble and contrite in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and revive the heart of the contrite. So we all have to be like the tax collector, not the Pharisee in Jesus's parable in Luke 18 where the two went to pray. "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men-- robbers, evildoers, adulterers-- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

That's what this text is meant to do in your life. Just as Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, Blessed are the spiritual beggars for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. God will give to people who have nothing to offer. He'll give them a kingdom. And then the beatitude just flow from that. "Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted." It's just grieving over this, that this is who we really are. "And blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth." They're humble and meek. They're not arrogant and prideful. They just know they're sinners. I'll give you the earth. "And blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." I mean really hungry for it, and we don't see it in ourselves, and we don't see it horizontally in society. We'll get to that in a moment. We don't just don't see it. We're yearning for it, and he'll just give it to you as a gift. This is so vital for us.

Justice is Far from Us; We Grope Like the Blind; We Are Dead

And so, Isaiah begins this section by saying "Justice is far from us..." Look at verse nine. "Justice is far from us and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness. For brightness, but we walk in deep shadows." Now, we've seen over the last few weeks, justice is horizontally giving to your neighbor what you owe him. Loving your neighbor as yourself. And then institutionally, that courts and kings and powerful entities in society, would look out for the weak, and the broken, and the defenseless. That's what justice means in the Book of Isaiah. But we look for justice, we don't see it. We're not seeing justice at all. We can... As we look around, we just see darkness. 1 John talks about this. 1 John 2:9-11. "Anyone claims to be in the light, but hates his brother is still in the darkness." Groping in the darkness. It's the image. "But whoever loves his brother lives in the light and there's nothing in Him to make Him stumble, but whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. He doesn't know where he's going because the darkness has blinded him."

And so there's this injustice. Interpersonal like in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the priest and the Levite walking by a dying man on the other side of the road and doing nothing to help him. They had money in their purse that they could have given to the inn-keeper for the care of that bleeding man, which the Good Samaritan did do, but they unjustly kept back from their neighbor what they should have given to him, injustice. And wealthy land owners, that hired people who are weak and defenseless in society, and then defrauded them of their wages, anything like that, going on today? I don't know. But I wonder with all the undocumented aliens that there might be in our region, how some of them might be being defrauded of wages, because they have no voice. They're afraid of getting evicted from the country, and so they're getting defrauded. I would imagine those kinds of injustice go on within half a mile of this building during the week. Injustice.

And so look at verse 10 and 11. "Like the blind, we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men Without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight. Among the strong, we're like the dead. We all growl like bears. We moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice but find none, for deliverance but it's far away." This growling and moaning is from the lamentation of sin. Other people sinning to us, we see other wickedness going on to other people, our own sinfulness, it's just grievous." And so Isaiah confesses the wickedness. We need a savior.

Look at verses 12 and 13. "Our offenses are many in your sight. Our sins testify against us, our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities." That's confession of sin. Isaiah's doing it for us. But you have to do it for yourself. We acknowledge that what you're saying about us is true. I am that kind of a man, I am that kind of a woman. Look at Verse 13, "rebellion and treachery against the Lord, turning our backs on our God, fomenting oppression and revolt, uttering lies that our hearts have conceived." So, Isaiah comes directly to point. Our sins are many and they are mighty in the sight of God. And all we can do is confess the truth to God. And these verses speak of a deep-seated rebellion against God, the King. It's not a light thing that we occasionally do. We, in our hearts, don't want God to rule us. We don't want a king. Want to rule ourselves. And it's deeply relational, too. We have turned our back on God. God wanted a personal relationship with us. Like the father of the prodigal son, He wanted an intimate friendship with us, but we turned our backs on Him and we did not seek that relationship but ran after the lust of our hearts and after idols. And we didn't want that relationship with God.

And so, our sins are pervasive. Rebellion against the Lord and injustice toward others. Verses 14 and 15, "Justice is driven back and righteousness stands at a distance, truth has stumbled in the streets, and honesty cannot enter." Verse 15, "Truth is nowhere to be found and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey." Well, Isaiah has spoken a thorough, complete word of humble confession to God. There's nothing left to do. There's nothing we can do. God must act or we will not be saved. God must step into all this mess.

He must intervene or there will be no salvation and thanks be to God He does. This is the celebration part. God looked and saw this situation. Look at it, Verse 15: "The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice." Verse 16, "He saw that there was no one, He was appalled that there was no one to intervene, so His own arm worked salvation for Him and his own righteousness sustained Him." Amen, hallelujah.

He looks down and says, "You all can't save yourselves. And so, my own arm is going to work this salvation on your behalf." There is no one righteous, no one who understands, no one who seeks God, He finds no one to intervene. And so, no one vindicates God's name, no one vindicates His holiness and righteousness, so He has to do it for Himself. Now, what's difficult to see here in this text is that there are actually two different outcomes. Both of them work by the zeal of God. God's passion for His own holiness. There are two outcomes. Salvation for some and vengeance for others. Do you see it? It's right in the text. God's own arm worked salvation and His own arm worked vengeance. So, that's the gift of salvation, a gift of righteousness, that we didn't deserve, on the one hand, and then the justice of righteous condemnation for rebels, on the other, and both of them work by God. So, look at verse 16 and 17. Do you see the words salvation there, salvation.

And then in Verse 17, do you see the word vengeance, salvation and vengeance. Those are the two outcomes. Both of these are in view here. Now, God cannot, He will not allow sin to just rule in His universe, he's got to do something about it, and He steps in to act. But amazingly, it's not only vengeance, which we all would deserve, but salvation that God achieves. Now, we are troubled by God's slaughtering His enemies, it seems without mercy, but the real question here is the word salvation in Verse 16. If every single human being is sinful and is forsaken the glory of God, then how does God vindicate His righteousness and work salvation at the same time, how could that even be? But that's the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross of Jesus Christ is God's answer to how God can be both at the same time, just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus. He vindicated His righteousness at the cross. Romans 3:21-26 says, "But now, a righteousness from God apart from the law, has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe, there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, a propitiation, through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, so he could be both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Christ."

So God establishes His justice at the cross. Jesus suffered, He drank the cup of God's wrath that we deserved. And so, we have that beautiful transfer, our guilts given to Jesus and He died under the wrath of God. His righteousness given to us as a gift and we are seen to be righteous. So, Isaiah 59 shows the work of salvation to the display of the zeal of Almighty God for righteousness, worked by His only begotten son, Jesus Christ.

God Clothed Himself With Righteousness and Zeal

Now, He does it, Verse 17, by clothing himself with righteousness and zeal. Look what he says, verse 17, "He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on His head, He put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak." So, you get the picture of God dressed up for war. This image should be very familiar. We just went through Ephesians Six. And the full armor of God. We got the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness. Yeah, but who's getting dressed up here? It's Jesus. Jesus is dressed for battle here.

And in his first coming you know what he battled? He battled lust and sin and Satan. He was born under the law, and took on all these temptations and killed them all, like Samson with the jawbone of a donkey. I love it. A thousand dead Philistines at his feet. Jesus took on every single temptation that ever came his way in 30 plus years of walking under the law of God, killed all of those sins, and he worked for us a beautiful perfect robe of righteousness that he offers to us as a gift. And He just hands it to us. Basically, you know what he's saying, "I have a white robe of righteousness, and I'm offering it to you today, just put it on."

You're going to need it on judgment day. So put on that beautiful white robe. One preacher called it an asbestos robe where you can walk through the fire of testing on judgment day and you'll survive. And so again and again in the Book of Revelation, we have this white robe image: The 24 elders are dressed in white robes, the church at Sardis are dressed in white and walking in white. In Revelation Seven there's a multitude from every tribe and language and people and nation standing around the throne. They're dressed in these white robes. And at the second coming of Christ, when He comes before the armies of God, they're all dressed in white and they're ready to fight. And where did those white robes come to sinners like us? It's a gift.

Perfect righteousness given to you as a gift. But that's not all God works in this text. Verse 17 and 18 says he also works vengeance, "He put on garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak." Look at verse 18, "According to what they have done, so will He repay. Wrath to His enemies and retribution to his foes. He will repay the islands or the coastlands their due." So here we see God highly motivated and immeasurably zealous to vindicate His law against all sinners who have not repented and trusted in Christ. He's motivated to vindicate His righteousness. So he's zealous, and he's going to hunt down and destroy all who have rebelled against Him and have not found salvation in Christ.

Now, this is pictured in the book of Revelation, not at the first coming of Christ, but at the second coming. Listen to Revelation 19, it says, "I saw Heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called faithful and true, and with justice He judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on His head are many crowns, and He has a name written on Him that no one knows but He Himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the word of God. And the armies of heaven were following him riding on white horses, dressed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. And He treads the wine-press with the fury of the wrath of God almighty, and on his robe and his thigh, he has this name written, 'King of Kings' and 'Lord of Lords'."

It's the second coming of Christ, and that's when this vengeance is going to come. Look at verse 19, it says "He will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the Lord drives along." I get the image of a tidal wave, like happened in that Indian Ocean tsunami, that earthquake that had this huge tidal wave that wiped out parts of Indonesia and the coastline of India. Or the same thing happened off the coast of Japan a few years ago: A massive tidal wave of justice that nothing can stop.

Verse 18 says "He will repay the islands their due." It's not a localized thing, it's going to go to the ends of the earth. Everyone will be repaid. And it says, "According to what they have done, so will He repay wrath to His enemies in retribution to His foes. He will repay the islands their due." So basically then this is a picture of judgment day. The court will be seated, the books will be opened, and everyone will be judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. He will repay his enemies what they did. And no, and so His ear is not too deaf to hear, His eyes blind to see, He sees everything. His memory is really excellent. As I said, God is in his prime, He doesn't forget anything. There's a perfectly accurate record book of everything you've ever said or done, and on that day, everyone will be judged according to what they've done as recorded in the book. That's what's coming.

Now, the result of all this is worldwide and eternal salvation for the repentant. Look at verse 19, it says, "From the west therefore, men will fear the name of the Lord, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory." So again and again, God... Isaiah has reminded us of God's saving intention for all the nations of the earth, not... It's not just localized to one nation. All over the earth, the islands, the distant coastlands, they're going to hear this message, this Gospel.

And they're going to hear it and believe, and they'll be delivered from the tidal wave of justice that's going to come. They'll be delivered from what they deserve, what we deserve for what we had said and done. And even now, we have brothers and sisters in the land of the rising sun, Japan. I've met them. I remember a sunrise service, Easter Sunday, and I thought, "Hey, we get it first. Of planet Earth, we in Japan get to worship first." There's probably some island out there in the Pacific that gets it first. But we're second. Anyway, we're right there on the coastlands for the rising of the sun. Men will fear his name and find salvation in Jesus. And even to the place where it sets, as the sun rises and sets to the distant west, to the ends of the earth, people will hear and believe.

The Redeemer Comes to the Repentant

And so verse 20, the redeemer will come to Zion to those in Jacob who repent of their sins. That's an amazing verse at the end of this chapter. I can't plumb the depths of it, I'll just say something really quickly. In the book of Isaiah, Zion represents the city where God dwells with his people. It usually refers to the literal physical city of Jerusalem. But in prophetic vision, it starts to talk about the heavenly city, heavenly Zion where God dwells. Here it actually somewhat means both. The redeemer is Christ, by His blood He has redeemed sinful Jews from their wickedness, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins, Jesus will come as redeemer, and He will deliver them of their sins. Paul quotes this verse amazingly in Romans 11, to talk about the future of the Jewish nation. And he says that there is a future salvation coming for the Jews, the physical descendants of Abraham.

Not of every individual Jew in history, many of them die without Christ and they are condemned just like Gentiles who die without Christ are condemned, no difference but in the future I believe there will be a mass conversion of the Jewish nation all at once they're going to turn as a nation to look to Christ the one they have slain and they will find in Him their salvation. Listen to Romans 11:25-27, he says, "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery brothers so that you may not be conceded. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in and so all Israel will be saved as it is written…” Now, here comes Isaiah 59: "As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, He will turn godlessness away from Jacob and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins." Now, Paul had the right because he's apostle, you know how ambulance drivers and fire drivers they can just go through red lights and all that, he had the right under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to change the verse a little bit but the meaning is still the same, it's powerful. He actually changed it not from the deliverer will come to Zion but the deliverer will come from Zion so basically Zion has changed locations, it's now heavenly. The glory under Ezekiel left and went heavenly and the redeemer is coming from the heavenly Zion down to those of Jacob who repent of their sins.

So what do I think is going to happen? Well, I think what's going to happen is Jews just like that Hungarian brother that was sitting next to me and I talked to him, in large numbers right before the second coming of Christ will hear the Gospel and the deliverer will come, Jesus the Spirit of Jesus will come through the power of the Holy Spirit and transform their hearts so they turn away from their sins and to their redeemer, to Jesus and find salvation in Him just before the final curtain falls in human history. That's pretty cool. That's why I love witnessing to Jews, I love being able to share the gospel. We had a great conversation, I wish he lived in the area we would have had him over for Thanksgiving and we would had a great conversation.

But there at the end of the world, this mass conversion and so the final promise here. As for me, verse 21, this is my covenant with them says the Lord, my spirit who is on you and my words that I put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth or from the mouths of your children or from the mouths of their descendants from that time on and forever. This is the New Covenant, God is going to be with us, He's going to forgive our sins, God is going to live with His humbled, repentant, saved people and the word and the spirit will be with us in our mouths and in our hearts until the end.

So application: First if I can just say all of you who hear me today acknowledge your sins in detail, go through it, look at it, look at the part on violence and hand stained with blood and realize you don't have to have committed murder to have the heart of a murderer. You don't have to have committed adultery to have the heart of an adulterer. Jesus talked about looking at the heart, realize these verses are talking about you not just everyone else out there and how bad the world is. Second of all, if you're already a Christian, do you not realize you've been forgiven much? This should be like your number one thanksgiving thing. I'm just happy that a sinner like that has been forgiven through Jesus. I'm just so thankful my sins have been covered and forgiven so this is actually, ironically, mucking around in verses like this, has power to make you happy, it also has the power to deliver you from complaining about things that are going on in your life because you have been forgiven much, what right do you have to complain about anything?

So if you're Christian you have already found all of this forgiveness and riches and then thirdly it causes you to esteem Jesus more higher than you ever did before. He took these kinds of sins on Himself and died under the wrath of God, thank God for that and have a sense of the zeal of God in all of this, God is passionate about sin. He's not ignoring it, His ear is not too deaf and His eyes and God sees and knows exactly what's happening, He's just waiting for you to repent and trust in Christ. So, I've got to say to you who are unbelievers, who know yourself to be there outside looking, you have time today to repent and find in Jesus your redeemer, trust in Him. Flee to Christ while there's still time.

And then finally, the distant islands and the coastlands, we should care about missions. Amen. This is a great time for us to be raising money through the Lottie Moon Christmas offering. We at Southern Baptists, we give our money, we pull it together with other Southern Baptist churches so that we can send missionaries to the distant coastlands and the Islands and to the ends of the earth. I can tell you as a trustee of the International Mission Board, I can tell you there are qualified missionary candidates who we cannot appoint until we have sufficient funds that come in through the Lottie Moon Christmas offering. If they reach a certain level we will appoint more people next year, just has to do with financial responsibility. Let's be generous as a Church, let's sacrifice financially and give. Pray about what God would have you to do, to send this message to the ends of the earth and it could be some of you younger people God may be calling on you to be a career missionary. You may be in college, maybe even high school or before that, God may be calling on you to prepare to take this Gospel to the ends of the earth because people there are just as sinful as we are and they need Christ. Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 58:13-14. The main subject of the sermon is how we, as Christians, are to enjoy the Sabbath.

In 1577, English privateer and explorer, Sir Martin Frobisher, led the first English mining expedition in Canada, on the rocky and freezing Kodlunarn Island in Baffin Bay. Now, on an earlier voyage to that same part of Northern Canada, he was looking for the Northwest Passage through to the Orient. Didn't find it, but found this island, went on it and found there a mysterious, large, black rock that had gold specks all the way through it. And he was intrigued. And he took it with him back to England, and brought it to an assayer that he knew about, who studied it and told him that it was gold. Whereupon the Crown, the English Crown, funded a massive mining expedition back to Kodlunarn Island. And they extracted over 1,000 tons of similar black rocks, and sent them back to England, the largest shipment ever, as far as I know, of iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold. Completely worthless.

Needless to say, Frobisher's reputation took a beating. I would think the assayer that told him it was gold, his reputation would take a beating. But the fact of the matter is, it became a display of a well-known slogan, "Not all that glitters is gold." And just because it glitters, does it look... Does it actually turn out to be the genuine article?

The assaying of the ore, the testing of it to determine its worth is a picture of what awaits all of us on Judgment Day. We are told in 1 Corinthians Chapter 3 that all of our works are going to be tested with fire. And they will be proven to be what they truly are. Are they wood, hay, and straw, on the one hand, or are they gold, silver, and costly stones on the other? Our own individual faith and our life practices are going to be tested. Is our faith genuine? Is it worth more than gold, or will it be proved to have been fraudulent, a deception in the end?

Now, in Isaiah 58, the prophet exposes, I think, many religious people, Jews, in his day, who appeared to be godly, who appeared to be religious, but who actually weren't. They had heart problems. They were going through the motions of a religious system. And he calls them away from that pattern of fasting and praying and other religiosity to a genuine fast that he defines in the chapter. And we talked about a lot last week. Now beyond that, this illustration of fool's gold and the assaying of it and the testing of it could also serve a different purpose for my sermon today. And that is, our evaluation of the world as it comes to us. Not all that glitters is gold. And we can be enticed into worldly things, worldly patterns and habits that we think are going to be satisfying to us, and are really actually impoverishing our souls in the end. We can be drawn into patterns of behavior that we think are going to satisfy us and they're going to leave us weak spiritually, defective spiritually.

Now, Isaiah 58 calls on the people of God, of his time, to a Sabbath rest, a fast to some degree, from the world once a week, for the purpose of recalibrating their souls to the still small voice of Almighty God, to the delight of intimate and healthy fellowship with God. That's what I want to talk to you about today. Now, the fool's gold of their false religiosity, we went over last week. I'm not going to have time to go over in detail.

But look again at verses 1 through 5. These were religious people going through the motions. "Day after day, they seek me out, they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God." They seem eager for God to come near them. Verse 3, "'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?'" These were a religious people who did the fasting thing, but on the day of their fasting, it ended in quarreling and strife and striking each other with wicked fists. That's not the kind of fasting God wanted to see. This was another example of something we've seen again and again in the Book of Isaiah, of a religious machinery that was set up. And they were just going through these religious motions day after day, but the actual heart of the matter was far from the truth.

Isaiah 29:13, And Jesus quoted this, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain. Their teaching is just rules taught by men." So we saw that last week, that was fool's gold, it wasn't genuine piety.

Instead, he calls them to the pure gold of a genuine mercy ministry. We went over this in detail last week, just want to remind you. Verse 6 and 7, "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen? To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter? When you see the naked, to clothe them, and not turn away from your own flesh and blood." God calls this the fast he wants from them. This is the religion that he accepts as pure and faultless in his sight. And we saw verse 10, in particular, it was a challenging call for us to spend ourselves on behalf of the poor and needy. Not just give of our money alone, but invest our souls, our hearts in the condition of people who are suffering. That is genuine, not fool's gold, but genuine piety.

Now we come to pure gold number two, verses 13 and 14, the true fast of delighting in the Sabbath. This is a second condition in the text, not just caring for the poor and needy, but honoring the Sabbath. Look at Verse 13, "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, and if you call the Sabbath a delight, and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words." This is the "if," it's the condition, and he's defining, it seems in the old covenant, a true, genuine-heart Sabbath observance, what it means for God to observe the Sabbath, that's what... How God is defining it. God calls the Sabbath, in this text, "My holy day," and also, "the Lord's holy day." So he calls it holy twice, and he commands the people to call the Sabbath a delight. And it would be a weighty or honorable or massive thing, this Sabbath observance. "It's a weighty thing," he says. "I want you to think of it that way," he said to his people.

Now, the word "holy" here, I think means, "set apart unto God as His own prized possession." The word "holy" is a very important word in the Bible, in the Old Testament. So in effect, it's like... It feels like this to me, like God is saying, to the Jews, "Although all nations on Earth are mine, you are my holy people, set apart unto me for my own pleasure." And again, in the Old Covenant "Although all the Earth is mine, this holy ground, this temple is my space, set apart unto me to be my Holy Place, where I will meet with you. And although all time is mine, this day, this seventh day is set apart unto me as holy, belongs to me." I think that's what he's saying, it's holy ground.

Negatively: Do Not Break the Sabbath!

So negatively, he commands on them to not break the Sabbath, that they would not violate the Sabbath with their footsteps. "Keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath" I think would be a better translation there. Daily lifestyle choices, almost like the Sabbath is holy ground and you're supposed to, "Take off your sandals, for the place on which you're walking... " So "Don't just tramp on my holy day. "And not doing as you please," he says, very challengingly to us.

We're going to take this concept over to some of the confessional statements in the New Testament. But it comes, I think, right from this verse, not just doing whatever you want or not doing your pleasure. I think, specifically, what it means here is not... It's not talking about sin, we know that's out, it's not like God's saying, "Six days you may sin but the seventh day is a holy day, on that day you must not sin." We know we're not talking about wicked things that we should not be doing, but good things, things that bring us pleasure usually, things that are usually delightful, that we would not do those things. That seems to be what it means, not doing your own pleasure. And not speaking idle words, doing whatever you want and speaking idle words.

And then, in the end, the "then statement," he says, "These are what your rewards are going to be, this is what will happen if you do that, if you meet this condition." Then Verse 14, "You will find your joy in the Lord. And I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob. The mouth of the Lord has spoken." Wow, it's an amazing promise, if you do what verse 13 says, if you meet those conditions, then you will learn, you will find your joy in the Lord. It's almost like the psalmist in Psalm 73. You remember the one who was so jealous of those prosperous wicked people, and he wanted to become like them, remember? Until he went into the temple and understood their final end, and he said, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire beside you." It seemed like the Sabbath, for them, was a time to say that to God. "There's nothing else I want here, but you. You're what I'm going to... " You're going to find your joy in the Lord and not in earthly things.

And he says, "I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land." So I get the picture almost of being up on Mount Pisgah and looking out over the Promised Land, and you can see the beauty of it, a land flowing with milk and honey, that Old Covenant blessing language. And you're going to be enriched, you're going to be made rich by the inheritance of your father, Jacob. I would actually go even back to the inheritance of your father, Abraham. Remember how he turned away from the loots, after the defeat of the kings, and the King of Sodom and Gomorrah and all that, just turned away from that, didn't want any of it.

And then the Lord appeared to him and said, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward." It's about a powerful thing, and then, in that, in Genesis 15, he shows him the covenants and all that. So you're going to feast on the blessings of the covenant, which ultimately is the blessings of God, you're going to feast on your inheritance, God himself. "The mouth of the Lord has spoken." What a great way to end the chapter. In other words, "Take this seriously." Or like in the Book of Revelation, "Write these words down for they are trustworthy and true." This is just the true statement here. So that's the chapter, walking through it. The phrase "call the Sabbath a delight" is very provocative isn't it? Very intriguing for us.

Walter Chantry wrote a book in 1991 about it, about Sabbath observance for Christians, and he chose that as the title. It's very intriguing, it should draw us in, and it's going to be worthy of our full attention for the rest of the afternoon, so...Yeah, you missed that one, didn't you? Just want to see if you're paying attention. This is an elaborate, difficult, complex, theologically weighty issue that we're about to walk into here. I'm not going to stand up here and make simple pronouncements and make a bunch of assumptions that I don't support and just say, "This is what you all should do." That's not how I'm going to preach this. And that's what took me so long to work on this this week. And so let me lay out plainly what I think we're going to do now with this time.

I believe that learning in some spiritual way that connects with the truth of the New Covenant, that we've learned in Jesus, to call the Sabbath a delight and to cheerfully and willingly refrain from work and secular pleasures, not because you have to in a legal sense, but because you want to, will give you power, spiritual power, a level of intimacy with Christ that you haven't known before. And will greatly enrich and empower you the rest of the week, in a way that you will in no way regret. But I cannot come so far as to say that the Sabbath observance should be handled the rest... The same way the rest of the nine commandments of the 10 Commandments are handled. I can't go that far, so I'm laying my cards on the table. I do not think this is a legally binding command like the rest of the 10 Commandments are, but I really do respect others that do think that.

So in the end, I'm going to say to you several times in here, "You will have to make up, O church, your own mind on this. But I'm going to give you some principles that I hope will enable you to make a wise decision by what you do on Sundays.

So let's try to understand the Sabbath, what are we talking about? What do we mean by the Sabbath? Well, this Hebrew word literally means to cease or desist or stop or rest. The focus then is on stopping something. That's what the word... The Hebrew word means. And of course, the first time this comes in in the scriptures, right at the beginning of the creation account, in Genesis 1 verse 31, it says, "God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And it was evening, there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day."

Then Genesis 2:1, "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. And by the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing, so on the seventh day, he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, he rested from all the work of creating that he had done." So that's where it first comes in. That becomes a very significant weighty pattern for us to consider as we look at the Sabbath. That's where it all starts. Now, obviously, we should not imagine that God rested on the seventh day because he is, in any way, depleted or drained by all the work he had done, He wasn't tired, God is omnipotent. He does not grow weary, ever, Isaiah 40, he never gets tired. So we shouldn't imagine that.

The resting of God here, I think, is some kind of a display of his total, complete satisfaction in the world that he had made. He loved it. He thought it was very good, he delighted in it. Other theologians have, I think, helpfully given us the picture of God moving through his creation, both spiritual and physical, and going up where the throne is, turning around, looking at his creation and then sitting on the throne. So it's an enthronement-image for some of the theologians. I like that. It's the idea of God sitting in rulership, over all the things that he has made, in a final resting of God on his throne.

Now, after the Exodus, after the Jews were delivered from bondage, from slavery in Egypt, where their lives had been an unending blur of slave labor. There was no difference from one day to the next to the next to the next. Seven straight days without a rest they were made to feel the lash of the taskmaster. Then God brought them out with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, brought them through the Red Sea, and brought them to Mount Sinai where he gave them the law, the essence of the Old Covenant, law, at Mount Sinai. And the fourth commandment, reads this, "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, your God. On it, you shall not do any work. Neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates, for in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." So that's the fourth of the 10 Commandments that are so well known.

Then 40 years later, when they're about to enter the promised land, in the book of Deuteronomy he gives the law a second time. And the fourth commandment is stated similarly but a little bit different. I won't read the whole thing, but I'll pick up in the middle of it, Deuteronomy 5:14-15, "On it, you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox or your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien that is within your gates so that [now this is new] your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day."

Now there, he links it to redemption. So here we have these two glorious, massive theological themes, creation and redemption, both of them linked to the Sabbath observance. It's very powerful. Now the Sabbath regulation that we're describing here is an old covenant law, a rule for Israel. It was also for them, something that was a mark of the Covenant, it was a way you marked the Jews out in the city, they had the Sabbath rhythm. And on the Sabbath day, they would meet together in the synagogue and study the Scriptures etcetera. They were, the Jews, to labor for six days, but on the 7th they were to cease, they were to stop laboring. That's the essence of the Hebrew word.

Now, the implication would... There would be worship in that time, there were... It was consecrated to the Lord, so they would turn their hearts, their minds to God, and they would consecrate that day and make it holy by worshipping and focusing on God. Because the commandment begins with the word "remember" they were to look back at God's creation, "remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy." They were also to look back, "remember that you were slaves in Egypt." So you're supposed to think back in the old covenant observance and remember it. I think the Sabbath also had a vertical looking up aspect because it's consecrated to the Lord, you're looking up to God and thinking about God enthroned, God the King.

I think also we should notice in the commandment that there's a special focus on leaders on heads of households, fathers kings masters employers to be sensitive and aware to what's going on with their sons and daughters and their manservants and maidservants, and to set up the system so that they can rest. Not just you. So that brings us into that social justice theme of Isaiah 58. Don't just fast yourself while your workers are having to slave away. You need to extend that rest to them as well, so that they can rest as you do.

How Does the Sabbath Translate to the New Covenant?

Alright, now this is an old covenant regulation and Christians have had long and rancorous debates on whether this is still binding for us, so we come to the issue of the law in the new covenant, how are we to understand the law of Moses in the New Covenant? Well first, in Christ, thank God we have been delivered in some mysterious sense, from the law we've been set free from the law and then we're told that in multiple places like Galatians 2:19, "for through the law I died to the law, so that I might live for God."

That actually is stated also in Romans 7 and Romans 8. We have died to the law. In some sense, it says that. Roman 6:14 says it a little differently, it says, "Sin shall not be your master, because you're not under law, but under grace." So where you're now in some sense, delivered from the law. We're not under the law, etcetera.

We also know that forgiveness of sins can never, does never come by observing the law. We know Galatians 2:16 a person is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Christ because by observing the law, no one will be justified. Our sins are forgiven by faith in Jesus. We're actually really ultimately trusting in his law-keeping not in ours. We're saying he actually perfectly kept the law, and then substituted himself under the law's penalties for us who didn't perfectly keep the law so that there's that beautiful transfer of our wickedness to him and he dies, his perfect righteous law-keeping to us, and we live in that righteousness, forever. So that's how we get saved. So, if I can just say simply none of us is going to be saved our eternal destiny, is not going to depend on what we do on a Sabbath day, or a Lord's Day.

So that's, in some sense, it means that we're free from the law. I think we all agree with that. We're free from the fact that the law has the power to send us to hell, we're free from that. Christ nailed that to the cross. The law is not going to send us to hell. Praise God. It could have, apart from Christ, it would have. But we're free from that. However, there are some other things we need to say about the law. There are aspects of the law as we look at, that we know are obsolete, there are details in the law that we know we don't have to do anymore. There's a whole thing in Galatians and in Acts on how we don't need the circumcise our boy babies on the eighth day, we're done with that there is no spiritual reason to circumcise a baby anymore. That's done it's been fulfilled.

Also there's the dietary regulations, Jesus declared all foods clean, so we can eat. We can eat bacon, praise God, we can eat ham, we can eat pork. We can do that even though there's clear prescriptions against it in the old covenant. We know that, we're free from that... And then there's obviously, quintessentially the sacrificial system, the animal sacrificial system with the Levitical priesthood that whole thing has been fulfilled, that's one good word. And another powerful word in Hebrews 8, it's obsolete. So not only is it true you don't have to offer a lamb or a bull or a goat for your sin, you better not, thinking that God's going to accept it. What an insult to Jesus. So we're done with that.

Furthermore, we know that there are national laws that had to do with the life of the Jews in the promised land, that we don't need to do anymore, like the three-time annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem, which would be very costly. We don't need to do that. There are parts of the taxation system and the kingship and all that that are fulfilled, it's done, we don't need to do that anymore. Yet we know that there are, what some theologians call the "moral aspects of the law", that are going to be binding till Jesus returns. Like, "I'm the Lord, your God, You shall have no other gods before me." Tt's not like, "Well thank the Lord now that we're Christians we can have as many gods as we want". And we can take the name of the Lord in vain, and we get to do that now that we're free from the law. And now that we're free from the law we can dishonor and disobey our parents. Kids, that's not what I'm saying. We don't have the freedom to do that, we must honor and obey our parents when we're minors and then honor them, the rest of our lives, we know that those other 10 Commandments, we understand that they're binding, we're not free now to murder, free now to commit adultery.

Or just take the summary of the law that Jesus gave us so beautifully, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." That's the law, we're not free from that, we are now able to do it finally by the power of the Spirit, we can actually love God with all of our hearts and we can love our neighbors ourselves. So, we're not free from that. The question then comes is the fourth commandment binding on the Christian so that we now must say "I am not permitted by God to work on the Sabbath/Lord's Day?". That's the question that's in front of us.

Christian Views of the Sabbath

Now, there's been lots of debates on this. I greatly shortened this part of the sermon right here, you're welcome. Don Carson and some others that wrote with him, DA Carson wrote a book that basically said they see... What they call transference theology. Moving from the seventh to the first day, clearly articulated in the New Testament. Neither do they say a world-wide trans-cultural command of the Sabbath? He doesn't see that. He says basically Christians are free to do what you choose to do on that... Whatever it is that's DA Carson and others that wrote with him.

John Calvin a little I would say a little stricter. He said that there were three lasting principles about the Sabbath for Christians to listen to. First, the Lord meant for his people in every generation to have a day of spiritual rest in which they lay aside their earthly work and let God work in their souls. So spiritual rest, stop working and God can work in your soul. So that's personal, you and God. Secondly, he wanted his people corporately to assemble together for worship, corporate worship, and for the hearing of God's word, there's a practicality to that. We need a time we can gather together for corporate worship. And then thirdly, he wanted to make provision for laborers and those under authority to cease from their toil as well. Just simply to... So for them not specifically a worship aspect, but it was there.

Now, of course, those labors, free from needing to come work for your company are also now free to come to your church. You can see why Chick-fil-A and other companies have done this, "I can't really require you to work on Sunday morning and schedule some workers there and then also ask if you would come and visit my church" because the person's lost, you're trying to reach them. So they just saw it better to shut the business down on Sundays.

Now my professor at Gordon-Conwell, Meredith Kline, taught this about the Sabbath, basically essence of the command was ceasing. It was stopping work and that's the fundamental... He's not saying, he's against worship or any of the worship themes, he's saying it's not intrinsic to the word or to the command. So for him it was just rest, physical rest, taking a long nap going for a refreshing walk in the woods, a nice bike ride... Whatever would renew you. That would be meeting the Sabbath regulation, Meredith Kline.

The Puritans on the other hand, were what we call strongly Sabbatarian, and no one articulated Sabbatarian thinking better than they did, especially in the Westminster Confession of Faith. This is what they wrote: "as it is the law of nature, that in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God. So in his word, by... " listen to this, "a positive moral and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, he has particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him. Which from the beginning of the world, till the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week. And from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which in scripture is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as a Christian Sabbath, this Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts and an ordering of their common affairs beforehand."

So you get your heart ready and you get your house and everything, ready beforehand, like on Saturday. When you do that, do not only observe a holy rest all the day from their own works, words and thoughts about their world employments and recreations but are also taken up the whole time, in the public and private exercise of his worship and in duties of necessity and mercy. That is your full-on Sabbatarian statement. Well thought out, like everything the Puritans ever did.

The Baptist faith and message, which is the Baptist statement of faith or confession of faith, that we had as a church, First Baptist Church had as a church when I came here in 1998 was Sabbatarian. Bet you didn't know that. So you all were Sabbatarians, I guess. Now this what it said, 1963 Baptist faith and message. This is what it said "The first day of the week is the Lord's day. It is a Christian institution for regular observance. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should be employed an exercise of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, and by refraining from worldly amusements and resting from secular employments works of necessity and mercy only being accepted". Baptist faith, and message 1963 First Baptist Church's statement of faith until the year 2000.

In the year 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention convened and changed a number of aspects of the Baptist faith and message including this statement on the Lord's day. This is what it now reads, "The first day of the week is the Lord's day. It is a Christian institution for regular observance. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should include exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, that's all the same. Now listen, "activities on the Lord's day, should be commensurate with the Christians conscience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ". So that's a very different statement. Basically, whatever your conscience tells you to do on the Lord's Day, you are free to do.

Alright, so what applications can we take from all this? Well, first, let me just begin as I always do by proclaiming the Gospel to you who are lost. But in the context of what I'm saying now, it doesn't really make a difference what you do on Sunday it doesn't make a difference actually, what you do, any day of the week if you have not yet come to Christ. This is the work of God for those that are as yet unconverted, believe in the one that God sent. And by believing in Jesus alone are all your sins forgiven and if you will trust in him and turn away from your wickedness, turn away from sin, you will receive the gift of the forgiveness of sins and not only that but you'll receive the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and then you'll be given an exciting life to live.

Now, let's talk about the Sabbath or Lord's Day aspect of that life. First of all, can we just look again at the text at Verse 13? Do you see the delight aspect, call the Sabbath a delight. Look again at Verse 14, "then you will find your joy in the Lord." If I can just say right at the beginning, the whole issue here is one of delight and joy. So friends let us not drag our feet into this theological discussion with groaning, and rolling of eyes and a sense ultimately coming down to some drudgery that God did not intend. This is meant to be about delight.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. Then you sell everything you have and buy that field out of joy in the treasure. Now I got to tell you something, I thought about this this morning. I was like, for many years, I thought, "Hey I got a good deal where I can kind of gain the whole system here." Sell everything you have to like a pawn shop, go buy the field, now you got treasure, take a portion of the treasure and go buy back everything you had. Good deal, huh? I think that misses the point of the parable, don't you?

It sure doesn't work with the pearl. Remember, you're selling everything and buying a pearl. What, are you going to cut off a portion of the pearl and get your possessions back? It would destroy the pearl. So the treasure and the pearl are supposed to be what delights you. So the real question I want to ask is, "Oh, friend, what delights you? What really delights you? What really makes you happy?" That's the question.

So now, second, is the Sabbath... "Dear pastor, is the Sabbath a binding commandment on Christians today in the new covenant?" I'd like to ask that you would turn to Romans 14, and we're going to finish up there but, let me weigh it on one side. First, this sabbath commandment is a weighty thing. It is a weighty thing that God rested on the seventh day of his creation, and basically took his throne over that and set apart the seventh day and called it holy. That's weighty. It's not to be taken lightly. It is a weighty thing that clearly the other nine of the 10 Commandments are still binding on the hearts and souls of Christians, that's weighty. It is weighty to me that in no clear way does Jesus ever abolish the Sabbath. He just defines it and makes it clear how it's best to be spent. He didn't set it aside, he doesn't declare all foods clean when it comes to the Sabbath and say, "Hey you don't need to do the Sabbath anymore."

Yet on the other hand, it's also significant that after the book of Acts, basically the Gospels and Acts are still in the old covenant era. Jesus is still operating under the old covenant, and then as the Gospel spreads out and goes from city to city, they're going on the Sabbath to Jewish synagogues to preach. But after that, the word Sabbath doesn't appear again in the New Testament except in two places, in Colossians 2, 16 and 17, we're told, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to religious festival and New Moon celebration listen or a Sabbath day. Don't let anyone judge you by what you do on a Sabbath day.

So what that means is, I think elders, the leaders of a church can never set up a church discipline system connected to the Sabbath. It's therefore definitely going to be a matter of private conscience. It's never going to be a matter of sin that we're going to say, because we can't judge anyone by what they do on a Sabbath day. Then he goes beyond that and says, "These are a shadow of the things that were to come, the reality is found in Christ."

That's exactly the kind of language that the author to Hebrews used about the whole Old Testament. Then in Hebrews 4:9-11, it says, "There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters God's rest, also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience." Lots of ways to interpret that statement, but the home base of that is, by faith in Jesus and coming into our salvation in Christ, we have entered our Sabbath rest. In some beautiful full complete sense we have rested from our works in Jesus. We have a perfect righteousness, can't be improved on, and we rest in that. That however doesn't mean we shouldn't have a Sabbath observance.

So Romans 14 seems a powerful and helpful guide. Now understand Paul is writing, Romans 14 to a mixed assembly of Jews and Gentiles. So that means that the Jewish Christians would have had a regular pattern of one day in seven, worship in the Synagogue, right? The Roman Christians, the Gentiles would have had no such pattern at all. So what are they going to do now as a local church? How are they going to do that? And so he writes Romans 14 to talk about various issues of meat sacrifice to idols and other debatable issues.

Look at verse five and six. "One man considers one day more sacred than another. Another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind." That is where the Baptist faith and message 2000 statement got its doctrine from. You need to be fully convinced in your own conscience, what the Lord wants you to do on a Sabbath day. That's all. Now let me tell you something, if verse 5, Romans 14:5, I think, this is my opinion, If Romans 14-5 is in fact talking about the Sabbath, that settles for me whether that commandment is treated differently than any other commandment of the 10 Commandments. The answer is, it is. Because you're not going to say similar things about any of the other nine commandments. You're just not. So clearly, it's just treated differently if this is talking about the Sabbath. I think it is, others don't. Other think it's just one of those Jewish ceremonial type days.

So you need to be fully convinced in your own mind. At the end of the chapter, Verse 23, it says, "Everything that does not come from faith is sin." So you have to be fully convinced in your own mind and be sure it's done in faith, and that means tied to the word of God. So the one application I can give you is, don't blow this thing off, that's all. Just, if you can just take that from Romans 14, don't just blow it off. But take it seriously. Be fully convinced that the Lord does or does not want you to get in some extra work at the company on Sunday afternoon. Be fully convinced that Lord does or does not want you to watch NFL football, on Sunday afternoon. Be fully convinced that the Lord does or does not want you to take part in a soccer league that has Sunday games. Just be fully convinced, work it through. Be sure that you're operating in faith.

Then in verse 7-8, it says that whatever you do, you're going to give an account to Jesus. It says, "None of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord" and verse 10 and following says, "We're all going to stand before God's judgment seat. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God." So whatever you do, not just in general, but specifically, you're going to give an account to Jesus. Be sure it's real gold and not fool's gold, that's all I'm saying. At the time of us saying, when your works are tested with fire, be sure that it will survive. It was gold, silver, costly stones. So stop, pray, consider, ponder. Is the Sabbath regulation a binding one, like all the rest of the 10 Commandments? I will not give you an answer. I say, you have to be fully convinced in your own mind, work it through.

Thirdly, we are never allowed to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Corporate worship needs to be part of our lives, the rest of our time as long as we are able-bodied. As long as we are able to get around, you're able to go do shopping, you're able to go to work during the week, you're able to play golf on Saturday, as long as you're able to do these things, you should be in corporate worship. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, "Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as some are in the habit of doing." Now, does that mean every single Sunday? No, there are some times in which necessity, you can't be in corporate worship. The issue there is forsaking and habit, that's the issue. So as long as you are alive and able-bodied you need to be there.

Fourthly, you need rest. "Nah, I can crank it out with the best of them." You're over-estimating yourself, you need rest. And you don't just need physical rest, you need soul rest. I love the songs that we sang, there's so many resting, like, "Jesus, I am resting, resting and my soul finds rest in God alone." That was beautiful, wasn't it? You need rest, you can't keep going forever under the lash of perhaps even your ambitions or desire for money, or even a company or boss that's driving you hard. And if you want to get ahead in this company, you're going to be at that Sunday afternoon meeting. You can't relentlessly drive yourself or your employees, you have to consider your manservants and maid servants, which translates now to people who are responsible to you, your sons and daughters, and your employees forcing them to work. And your souls need to be refreshed, you need time alone with Jesus.

Psalm 62:1, "My soul finds rest in God alone." Listen to this, this one came alive a little for me this morning. "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want." What's the next part, remember? "He makes me lie down." Ponder that one, just spend the rest of the afternoon pondering that. "Makes me"... You mean against my will? No, hopefully not, but he's like, "You need to rest." Stop, rest and lie down and be refreshed. There's a practical side to it, "Come away," Jesus said in Mark 6, "And get alone and let's have some time of refreshment."

Fifthly, let's consider not merely, what am I permitted to do? What is it lawful for me to do? But what is it best for me to do. Alright. Look, Martha was lawfully permitted to make 17 different dishes to serve to Jesus when Jesus came to visit that day. Mary was lawfully allowed to sit at his feet and listen to him. But I think Jesus says effectively that Martha chose a good portion but Mary chose a better portion. So it's just good, better, best in the Christian life.

So over the next 10 years if God lets you live, you may have over 500 Sundays and you get to decide what to do with them. Let's assume you're going to go to church, let's just start there, that you agree with what I just said, you're going to get home around 1 o'clock or maybe today around 2 o'clock. Alright, so you're going to get home, and so in general, you're going to have eight hours of discretionary, what do I do with it, time. And you say, "We have home fellowship." That's a choice you make, I think it's a wise choice but it's a choice you make, you don't have to go. It's not like you lose your church membership if you don't go to home fellowship, you're just making choice about your time. So, you'll have about 4000 hours. You could spend all 4000, I'm convinced... Well, no, no, there's a season end, but you could spend all 4000 watching spectator sports. I was about to say football, but the season does end in February or March or whenever it ends. And there's three football games, one after the other, after the other now, it wasn't always that way, but there's the 1 o'clock game, the 4 o'clock game and the 8:30 game. Now, you could do that. The question is what's best for your soul? Not what am I lawfully allowed to do? But what would it be best? At the end of those 4000 hours, what will I be glad that I invested in?

Six. We have to avoid legalism and judgmentalism on this topic. The quickest thing that groups tend to do is define work, once you start defining work, welcome to Pharisee land. Calvinistic reform traditions have struggled with this for years. I remember here Joel Beaky talking about this, he saw some other reform guy and they're both in an airport on a Sunday and they're like this...Both feeling ashamed, they're violating their churches' prescriptions. I don't think churches should make those kind of prescriptions on what is work, what isn't work. I think that's where you head to legalism. Furthermore, some of you are probably going to come to stricter convictions on this topic than others. Easiest thing to do when you come to a stricter conviction on a certain matter of Christian freedom is to export that through judgmentalism, and you start saying, "Oh, you do that," and start judging people.

Seventh. This is a chance for you to evaluate what you really love, what really brings you pleasure. And if the answer is honestly, the world, you're in danger spiritually, that's all. If you would consistently rather watch an NFL football game or binge watch on Netflix or some other secular amusement, if you would consistently rather do that than spend time in prayer, singing praise songs, rich Christian fellowship, reading good Christian books, or just walking through the woods and looking at the foliage and thanking God for it. If you would really rather do the one than the other, shouldn't you be afraid of worldliness in your soul? "All things are lawful for me," 1 Corinthians 6:2, "But not everything is profitable." All things are lawful for me but I will not be enslaved, let's put it that way. I will not be enslaved by anything. How can you tell whether you're being enslaved by something? Fast from it. Just try one Sunday say, "I'm not going to do X." If it's inordinately difficult, you're sweating, like you're having DTs, and like its the afternoon's crawling by, and it's like, "I can't wait till next Sunday, I can go back to my usual pattern." Just be afraid of the state of your soul, that's all I'm saying.

Eighth. Practical steps for those who want to do this, you say, "I actually would like to do something different." Okay, just some different things. I would suggest work harder, days one through six, the first six days. Set your clothes... Get them ready and hang them up like a fireman. I think that's a symbol, I think about the firefighters, and they have their coat, and their boots, and the door of the fire engine is open and everything's lined up for a quick getaway. So just get your church clothes ready like that and let that be a symbol. I'm going to try to clear out the day as much as I can. So women that cook for a home fellowship make simpler meals, make them on Saturday. It's not a requirement, it's not lawful, it's just so that you can rest. It's not like, "I'll be breaking the 10 Commandments, so I don't... " it's just... I want to try to have a spirit of a simplicity on Sundays.

Consider the possibility of electronic fast or maybe even electronic reduction. I'm not going to feed on this stuff, I want some time to have my soul refreshed in Jesus. I want to go to a beautiful place, I want to see nature, I want to go look at lakes, I want to walk through woods, I want to reconnect with my family, I want to spend time with my kids, husbands and wives, praying together, walking together, talking about Jesus together. Taking Ephesians 1, Ephesians 3 and praying over those rich prayers that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened so that you would know the hope of your calling, and that you would know how wide and long, and high, and deep is the love of Christ for you, and you end the day saying, "I know more now than I did before this day started, how much Jesus loves me."

Final word to fathers and mothers, parents, heads of households. You may be saying, "Do I have the right to say, As for me and my house we're going to do X." You do. Now, the earlier you do that in your kid's developmental process, the better. If they're infants they're not going to have any idea, but if they are well-attuned or accustomed to like teenagers or whatever, accustomed to certain secular patterns on Sundays, it may be very hard to change. What I would do is I would just start by saying, "Let's just talk about our souls, let's talk about soul inventory." Maybe give older kids freedom to choose but say, "Look, We are going to do this. I would urge you to do it." rather than setting the law, but others may say, "I think for me and my house we're going to do this." And you have the right to do that, but if you do that, be sure that you as a father enrich that day, think about it, how to make it fascinating, how to make it delightful, how to make it a joy in the Lord. Close with me in prayer.