Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Isaiah

  • Jesus: The New Joshua

    Jesus: The New Joshua

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Name of Jesus Christ” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 28, 1986.

    About this sermon

    Joseph’s dream and the debated meaning of Isaiah 7:14 both converge on a single claim: the name Jesus is the same name as Joshua, and it means the same thing here. Isaiah’s own sign, the remnant child Shear-jashub, already anticipates a salvation that comes through apparent weakness rather than visible strength. The name itself, read this way, is already a sermon.

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    Sermon transcript

    Isaiah chapter 7, also in Matthew chapter 1, starts with Isaiah chapter 7. Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, the king of Judah, that Rezzan, king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not conquer it.

    When it was reported to the house of David, saying, Syria has camped in Ephraim, His heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son, Shir Jeshu, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the fuller’s field. And say to him, Take care, be calm, have no fear, and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezan and Syria and the son of Remeliah. Because Syria, with Ephraim and the son of Remeliah, has planned evil against you, saying, Let us go up against Judah and terrorize it and make for ourselves a breach in its walls and set up the son of Tabeo, as king in the midst of it.

    Thus says the Lord God, it shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezan. Now within sixty-five years, Ephraim will be shattered, so that it is no longer a people. and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remelion.

    If you will not believe, you surely shall not last. Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your Make it as deep as Sheol, and as high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. Then he said, Listen now, O house of David, is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?

    Therefore the Lord himself will give you a son. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel. And he will eat curds and honey at the time he knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.”

    The Lord will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house such days as have never come since the day that Ephraim separated from Judah, the king of Assyria. And it will come about in that day that the Lord will whistle for the fly that is in the remotest part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. And they will all come. and settle on the steep ravines, on the ledges of the cliffs, on all the thorn bushes, and on all the watering places.”

    And then to Matthew 1, verse 18, “…Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to put her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit, and she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. For it is he who will save his people from their sins.” Now, all this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, The Virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which translated means God with us. And Joseph arose from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took her as his wife, and kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.

    Our Father, you have demonstrated your love for us and you have bared your might, your mighty arm before the nations. It is therefore your power by which your glory is manifest, that power constraining men before that glory that they may honor you, that they might turn from their ways of sin and embrace the truth and the fullness of righteousness that is found with you alone. O Lord, may that power unto the glory be manifest in us. And Father, we ask that we servants of yours may ascribe all strength to our God. This we pray through Christ, amen.

    I’ve backed up from Isaiah 51 for this evening, basically for one reason, and that is that I preached a half a sermon this past Wednesday night? Or was it that I preached half a text? You may recall, those of you who were present, that I did preach on the opening chapter of Matthew’s gospel the latter verses of that chapter, verses 18 and following. And in that message, we took up the matter of the revelation that had come to Joseph, and we spoke about the significance of that revelation.

    We talked about it along the lines that this Joseph as unpretentious as he may appear, is of the royal line. He is the son of David, and the promises that have been made to David are coming to reside in him and upon him. So he becomes the focal point for those promises made of old. But not only do we see in Joseph, then, the culmination of all of that royal power, all of that glorious splendor, again, however unpretentiously.

    Nevertheless, we see in him as well the fullness of all that has preceded prophetically. the significance of the dream, that vehicle for the revelation to Joseph. You know, in those Old Testament times, the Lord, at specific periods, revealed his word, to his own through the vehicle of the dream. Thus, in the patriarchal period, at the initiation of God’s dealings with the nation of Israel, and also at its conclusion, for in the latter prophets you hear repeatedly about a prophet being carried away in the night visions so as to see the unveiling of the purpose of God. So from beginning to end, in the dream revelation to Joseph, the fullness of the prophetic word has come to rest. To what end?

    Of course, to give light in the present circumstance that Joseph might know what to do concerning his predicament, that he might understand however obliquely, that he might understand the nature of this event that is taking place, and that he might bestow upon the child the proper name, the name Jesus. And you recall that as we talked about the name Jesus, we pointed out that this name, as it appears in the New Testament, is merely a transferal of an Old Testament name, namely, Joshua. A name which means salvation is of the Lord. And from that point we went on to compare the Old Testament, Joshua, and his administration with the one who now appears. You know how it goes. The administration of Moses is an incomplete and defective administration. It gives way to another. Moses cannot lead the children of Israel into the land of promise. He can only view it from afar.

    And as the administration of Moses gives way to that Old Testament Joshua, so Moses and Joshua reach out beyond themselves to something greater. For the ultimate deliverance and the final inheritance are not bequeathed through either Moses or Joshua. They wait another day. The imperfection of course of that older administration, be it Moses, be it Joshua, is brought before you in the continuing administration of the temple rites and those things that take place on the altar of Israel. A continual reminder of sin. Moses and the law does not deliver you from sin. neither does Joshua and his army. Rather, salvation from sin waits a latter-day Joshua. He shall save his people from their sins.

    And that is the focus of that Well, that’s half a sermon, or half a text. Because, you see, after we are told these things by Matthew, he goes on to add his own commentary, invoking a passage out of Isaiah chapter seven. to speak even more pointedly about the significance of the child who has come. You know the passage well, but as you take stock of that passage and you run back to chapter 7 in Isaiah and read verse 14 in its context, you may end up a bit confused and bewildered, not quite understanding what Matthew is doing here as he makes use of Isaiah 7 verse 14. Well, you want to look at Isaiah 7 one more time? I know that you’ve looked at it many times before.

    But let’s take stock of it once again, and from that point, think on what Matthew has in mind as he makes reference to this chapter and that fourteenth verse in light of what has happened to Mary and what is going on with regard to Joseph. It can be said that Isaiah 714 is one of the most hotly debated passages in all of Scripture. And what is the nature of the debate? Well, it seems that the nature of the debate is twofold.

    First of all, Does Isaiah really mean to say a virgin? Or does he merely mean to say a young man? If you have the New American Standard, you can check in the marginal notes and you will see that the New American Standard at least has suggested that there is an alternate reading for the word virgin it could well as it could well be young men for me. Problem number one. Problem number two.

    Does Isaiah really have in view the birth of the Messiah? Does he have in view a coming deliverer? of the proportions that we now have before us in the figure of Jesus from Nazareth. Is the figure, therefore, one who is coming yet later on? Or is this figure one who is to appear within Israel, within Jerusalem, immediately?

    Those are the problems for the passage. But in order to answer these problems, to review them, to put them in perspective, it may be well for us to take stock of the chapter as a whole. For this prophecy, it is that we can grant that much This prophecy appears in the midst of an extremely dramatic setting.

    We are now beyond the days of the great King Uzziah. We are past the days of Jotham. We are now in the period of the reign of Ahaz. Judah and Jerusalem, its capital, are under siege, and they are being besieged by the ten northern tribes, believe it or not, by their countrymen, who have been joined in alliance by the Syrians, the Syrians led by Reza. Ahaz, as we have said, and does he ever?

    His name. His name means possessor. And we might well think of that name positively, as that one who is the possessor of the throne of David, the one in whom there can be seen yet that pattern of promise. That one in whom there can be seen the pattern of one yet to come, who shall be the possessor of all. But Ahaz has perverted everything, including the significance of his name, for he has become a possessor in a very profane sense. Everything, he says, everything is mine, is mine. And it is mine by right. He is therefore a particularly irreligious and vain man. He believes not in God, but himself.

    Nevertheless, he does sit on David’s throne, and in him you can yet see the form of the bearer of promise, and God proved to his promises and recognizing even in this profane one that pattern sends to him the prophet. The prophet comes to preach. He preaches in a number of ways. He preaches through the message of the son who walks beside him. The child’s name is Shir Yishuv, and the name means a remnant shall return, and the child then becomes the embodiment of hope. He is a walking, living, breathing prophet before the face of Israel, before the face of a king. But there comes as well the message from the prophet. of grand and glorious encouragement. Gospel, if you will. Good news is preached to Ahab. Take care. Be calm. Have no fear. Don’t be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering fire.

    On account of these who have come up against Their counsel shall not stand. Their plots and their devices shall not come to pass. Those who lead are but men, and their kingdoms shall be laid waste. If you will not believe, says Isaiah to Ahaz, Surely you cannot stand.” Ahaz, of course, doesn’t believe, and that is precisely what is explained in the verses that follow. For now, God sends his prophet again. And this time, the king is invited to ask a sign of God. Who has ever been invited to ask for a sign of God? The Ahaz is. He is invited to ask a sign of God that what God has promised will in fact come to pass.

    But Ahaz objects, and in his objection there is the adamant rejection of this invitation extended by God extraordinarily to him. Don’t be deceived by Ahaz’s remarks. His remarks are no mark of piety. They are the testimony to unbelief. that he is an unbeliever through and through.

    I am, after all, the possessor. If I ask the sign of this God and God grants it, then I am placed in his depth and the true nature of my being is made plain. I dare not have a sign from God. Besides, I am my own sign. But the Lord gives the sign anyway. Now hang with me through the sign.

    The sign given here, in which a child is named, will match the significance of the child that accompanied Isaiah to begin with, that child that is mentioned back in verse 3, Shir Yishun. How are we to understand the significance of Isaiah’s son in the context here at the beginning of the chapter? Stay with me now.

    You see, that child has multiple applications. There is the circumstance in which Judah now presently finds herself. It is a situation in which she is not facing exile, but rather the ten northern tribes are imminently facing that exile. And into the midst of that, there comes this child, the son of the prophet, named Shir Yishuv, as a promise of the return of a remnant, the faithfulness of God. God indeed shall accomplish His word. You can count on that. But in the current circumstance of Judah and Jerusalem, there is yet the future realization that this child signals God’s faithfulness to the end.

    Beyond the experience of the deportation of the ten northern tribes, there shall be the deportation of the two southern tribes. And in that circumstance, no less than the former, there shall be a remnant that is preserved. A remnant shall return. Now, that multiple application is going to be the key that unlocks the door to the significance of the child named in verse fourteen.

    For that child as well will have multiple applications. Is there then a maid in Jerusalem during the days of Ahaz who conceives, gives birth, Is there a little boy named Emmanuel running through the streets of the city? Yes. Yes. There is such a name. And there is such a boy. And that maid and that boy become the testimony to Ahaz and to Jerusalem. of God’s mighty faithfulness, and that they can trust in Him. You see what is said, and why this interpretation is correct?

    If you follow on from verses 14 into verses 15 and following, We note there what is said about Emmanuel. He will eat curds and honey, that is, he will eat the food of prosperity, even though this is a time of distress, remember. He will eat the food of prosperity at the time he knows enough to refuse evil and choose good, before he even comes to what has been called the age of discretion, he shall be eating fine food, and the present distress and trauma will have passed. Current events in the day of Ahab?

    You can bet on it. But go on. For before the boy, verse will know enough to refuse evil and choose good the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken current event in the time of Ahaz you can bet on it the promise here therefore made pertains to the current situation in Jerusalem It pertains to the circumstances of the Kingdom at that time. But is that all? Is that all?

    By no means, for just as was the case with Shir Yashur, so it is with Immanuel. The significance of this child as well shall reach out beyond the events of the days of to events and times yet future, when they shall receive for themselves a fulfillment that wasn’t even contemplated at the time they were given. So full will be the fulfillment that it will overflow the expectations of the people, no No little child named Emmanuel running through the streets, but literally God with us Himself comes to save us from our sins. And that’s what grips Matthew. That’s what he sees. He goes rushing back to Isaiah. His contemporaries never saw it. And those who lived in the days of Ahaz never saw it either. But now he sees it clearly.

    And how appropriate. How appropriate. For you see, Ahaz was the epitome of arrogance and pride, power, flame for himself. But the shame of this vain man the Lord chooses a maiden and a child utterly powerless no strength at all and they become the sign of the kingdom of glory where will you look for God with us. Will you look for him in the corridors of power, where men grapple with one another in order to gain the advantage, where each is a possessor of his own right and for his own sake, a grasper a grabber. Lord, you perceive God with us after the pattern of that which God has made plain. A mere maid, no more. A virgin, one without power at all. How will she conceive? It is impossible! A child, what can he do?

    Yet they rule. They rule. In them, though weak, the power of God is perfected. Now what about you? Surely you understand the distinctiveness of the child who has come, the uniqueness of this Emmanuel announced by Matthew. No simple latter-day Joshua, this one truly God with us. deliberately appearing to remove sin. For us, his people. But you take stock of his people, and I’m here talking about his people truly. I’m not talking about those who pretend to be his people. I’m not talking about the church that is after the order of Ahaz, the possessor. the graspers and the grabbers those who like to strut before the world and enjoy being noticed even in their good deeds forever telling their rights what their left hand is doing and making sure that CBS knows about it too I am talking about the little flock.

    When it takes stock of itself, it says, what power have we? When it looks upon the condition of its life and circumstance, how can any good come from us, is its confession. We are without strength. Our weakest in our midst is our strongest. We are no stronger than the littlest child. We have no more power than… I am almost embarrassed to say this. We have no more power than the women among us.

    But you see that precisely in the pattern of the child and the pattern of the woman that the power is perceived, and the glory of God is revealed. Your weak mission efforts, how can this be the testimony to Emmanuel, God with us? Our feeble efforts at church discipline, how can this be the manifestation of God within, yet we are told.”

    And that pointedly, in Matthew’s Gospel, precisely in those circumstances, Emmanuel makes his presence known himself. “…where two or three are gathered together in my name.” There I am in the midst. Matthew 18, 20. Did you know that that’s a passage about church discipline, not about little two- and three-membered prayer groups? Don’t be afraid, little flock. But go. Disciple the nation. baptize them, teach them, everything that I’ve commanded, love. Emmanuel, I am with you, even to the end of the age. Well, that’s the other half of the sermon.

    Or, the other half of the text. with his Emmanuel prophecy speaking of circumstances in his own day but that word reaching out beyond its own time to signify those things yet to be accomplished and accomplished in full amazingly in full in the birth of Christ and in what he now has made his people to be praise his name let’s pray Our Father, let us never find ourselves in the household of unbelief. Let us not find ourselves in the edifice of arrogance over which Ahaz and his like preside. Rather, may we be of the company that is found under the instruction of the Prophet in the company of his child, Shir Y’shuv, and also in the presence of that sign given to Jerusalem, Little Emmanuel. But more than Isaiah, more than his son, more than a little child in Jerusalem in the 8th century BC, we, our God, are those who’ve been made new, refreshed, restored, recreated, by the power of our God who in this latter day has come to us in the child Jesus by whom our sins have been removed for a greater inheritance above with you forever our father though we may be shaken may we still remember the lessons of Emmanuel. And Lord, though we be small and weak, may we remember the Virgin and the Child. We pray these things in His name, Jesus, our Emmanuel. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • God Makes Himself Last

    God Makes Himself Last

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Suffering Servant” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 14, 1986.

    About this sermon

    Isaiah prays that God himself would awake and act, and the rest of the passage answers that prayer. The address shifts from a singular ‘thou’ in verse 12 to a plural ‘thou’ in verse 16. In the servant, God makes himself last and takes the lowest place for the sake of his people.

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    Sermon transcript

    This is Isaiah fifty-one, verse twelve. I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of a man who dies, and of the son of man who is made like grass, that you have forgotten the Lord your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, that you fear continually all day long because of the fury of the oppressor as he makes ready to destroy. But where is the fury of the oppressor? The exile will soon be set free, and will not die in the dungeon, nor will his bread be lacking.

    For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar. The Lord of hosts is his name, And I have put my words in your mouth, and have covered you with the shadow of my hand, to establish the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, you are my people. Rouse yourself, rise, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the Lord’s hand the cup of his anger, the chalice of his reeling you have drained to the dregs.

    There is none to guide her among all the sons she has born, nor is there one to take her by the hand among all the sons she has reared. These two things have befallen you. Who will mourn for you? The devastation and destruction, famine and sword. Who shall comfort you? How shall I comfort you?” Your sons have fainted.

    They lie helpless at the head of every street like an antelope in a net. full of the wrath of the Lord, the rebuke of your God. Therefore, please hear this, you afflicted, who are drunk but not with wine. Thus says your God, the Lord, even your God, who contends for his people. Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of reeling, the chalice of my anger. You will never drink it again, and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors. who have said to you, lie down, that we may walk over you. You have even made your back like the ground and like the street for those who walk over it.

    Awake, awake, clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion, clothe yourself in beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city, for the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you. Shake yourself from the dust. Rise up, O captive Jerusalem! Loose yourself from the chains around your neck, O captive daughter of Zion!

    For thus says the Lord, You were sold for nothing, and you will be redeemed without money. For thus says the Lord your God, My people went down at first into Egypt to reside there, then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause, Now, therefore, what do I have here, declares the Lord, seeing that my people have been taken away without cause? Again, the Lord declares, those who rule over them, how?

    And my name is continually blasphemed all day long. Therefore, my people shall know my name. Therefore, in that day, I am the one who is speaking. Here I am.” Now, our Father, we as humble children would listen to you. Our Father, we ask that with obedient hearts we might draw near and respond in faith to all that you say. We ask it from the youngest to the oldest. Amen. the images.

    The images of sleep and slumber found in this section of Isaiah’s prophecy. Maybe something that overtakes you on a winter’s evening while sitting in church. The image of sleep and slumber about. In this section of Isaiah’s prophecy, remember first that image of the sleeping servant of the Lord, the sleeping servant of the Lord in Chapter fifty verses four and five. And we spoke about that image before and how beautiful it is for there we are told morning by morning. Without interruption. Morning by morning.

    So the servant himself claims the Lord. Awaits him. Awaits him to service as that proved the site. He awakens me, says the servant, morning by morning. He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. The Lord has opened my ear, and I was not disobedient, nor did I turn back. It is a beautiful image. The servant of the Lord awakes to obedience as soon as he hears. Think of yourself. Awakening in the morning. You hear as you awake.

    Such is the response of the servant. Not only is the Lord awakening him, but as he awakes and he is ready to obey. but more than the immediacy and willingness of the servant’s response is in view. Actually, it is as if the Lord Himself is present. So, says the servant, the Lord Himself is present to awaken him, to literally open his ears And as he does this, he finds the servant willing.

    This combination of the image of sleep and the image of the ear to hear, and the willing listening of the servant, then is contrasted. It is contrasted by the portrait the picture we are given of the people. It is as if the people, then spoken of as they are in chapter fifty one verses one through eight, it is as if these people are sleepwalking. And we are given, as the consequence of that, the seeming desperate and impassioned portrait of God, who out of his great love for them, as it were, grabs hold of them in an effect to awaken them to the immeasurable glories that await them as the people of God. Listen to me,” he says, first one chapter fifty one. Pay attention. He said. Listen to me grabbing hold of the lapel once more. He said.

    But the description of these glory here given by the war are so provocative so compelling so wonderful. That This description moves the Prophet himself. The one who then speaks in verses 9 through 11 of that 51st chapter. The description of these glories is so provocative, so compelling, so wonderful, that it moves the Prophet to cry out in prayer. in prayer.

    This prophet moved by the spirit of the servant, moved by the spirit of the servant who hears and willingly and immediately obeys. So it is The prophet, after the pattern of the servant, in the spirit of the servant, cries out at the description of the glory given here by the Lord.

    His cry, as we said, is a prayer that God then would approach afresh His people, as He did when he delivered his people originally from Egypt and from the superstitions of ancient myth. Therefore, not just Ray have in verse nine, Ray have another word for Egypt, but the dragon at the conclusion of that ninth verse, not just Egypt, but the tyranny of superstitions from ancient myth. The Lord then, in that deliverance, brought his people into glorious joy. But now, what does the prophet pray for? It is that joy of which the Lord himself has been speaking.

    The joy that is described repeatedly through those first eight verses of chapter fifty-one. that joy for which there is no possibility of interruption, a joy that is absolutely full and complete, as the prophet prays in the eleventh verse, an everlasting joy that will be upon the heads of the people of God. Therefore, The Prophet must be understood as asking for more than just a resolution to present problems, more than just a resolution for even some distant distress that’s coming upon Israel, like the exile. The Prophet must be understood as asking for that full and final visitation of God. nothing through the profit is great by income. By kingdom. Or in the language of the expectant church the profit is praying come Lord Jesus even so more quickly. Take note.

    The image used by the Prophet in his prayer is again that image of slumber, where formerly it was the servant and then the people who were seen as sleeping and who were in need of awakening. Now it is the Lord Himself who seemingly sleeps and is called upon by the Prophet in his prayer to awaken. He said, awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord, awake as in the days of old, the generations of long ago.

    And the desperate and impassioned plea that we’ve already heard about spoken by God to the people as he pleads with them to awake. That plea is now reciprocated by the prophet as he speaks to God. As impassioned as the Lord himself was in his attempt to awaken the people, so impassioned is the prophet as he speaks to the Lord and cries out for the Lord’s attention. Thus we have the picture of God. who so desires his people, and the prophet who so desires his God. You see it, the love of God for his people, that there seems to overtake in the Lord, as he describes his attitude toward them.

    A desperation. As he pleads with them, so he loves them. But so love the Prophet, the Lord. That a similar passion. Overtakes him. I so love the Lord. that nothing less than the Lord and his coming. Will satisfy me. But you might be thinking. How is the prophet able to say these things to the whole. What kind of man is he?

    Is he not vain and presumptuous as he says, Awake, Lord, awake. Isn’t it amazing that God is asleep? God is asleep. We must not think that this prayer of the prophet is irreligious or profane. Even though we may be tempted. To think how dare the prophet speak of God. As if he were asleep, doesn’t he know that he that watch it is really slumbers or sleeps. But how perfect.

    A prayer this is. How perfect a prayer this is. It is not a prayer of unbelief or presumption. It is not a prayer given over to profanity or to the irreligious notions that abound in the world. Rather, it is a prayer filled with faith, built upon a serene confidence in God’s former redemptive act.

    And it is a strength in its eagerness For God’s concluding redemptive act, the act in which God will grant the full and perfect kingdom of eternal joy, the prophet’s passion to have the kingdom has been trained by the Lord’s desire to give it. And therefore the prophet is told and says, Awake. Act now. Bring in the kingdom. And all this misery will be passed. All the sorrow inside will flee away. And we will know only, only perpetual, unending joy.

    But now, you see, we come to the Lord’s answer. And the Lord’s answer is found in verses twelve and sixteen. And what a strange, strange answer it is. It is fraught full of a built-in complexity and difficulty that may well alluded. If we are not careful. You see. How the Lord respond. Complexity brought out. A difficult one out. In the language itself. The Lord begins in what appears to be a response to a singular about. One you. One you. If you have a King James, the number of the pronoun becomes clear. The response is as if to a singular thou.

    As if, then, you see, Against the background of the Prophet’s prayer in verses nine to eleven, the Lord is making his response specifically to the Prophet as the singular vow. But, note, by the end of the Lord’s response, the conclusion of verse sixteen, that that singular vow has been translated into a collective or plural vow. Thou art my people, he says.

    More than the prophet, therefore, is imbued as the Lord makes his response. In fact, there seems to be a reversal of roles for the prophet and the people as the Lord speaks in his response. On the one hand, this response by God to the prayer of faith from the prophet makes the prophet, as you read down through it, makes the prophet look very bad. The prophet here, then, as the Lord responds to the prayer, is actually dressed up in the foibles and failures, shortcomings, and sins of the faithless people.

    Therefore, while we might think God is simply replying to the prophet, He is actually replying to the people in the prophet. You see, it is the people, it is the people who are afraid of a man who dies. In verse 12, not the prophet. It is the people who have forgotten the Lord, their maker. In verse 13, not the prophet. It is the people who fear continually all day long. And the people have these responses in the spirit of that original unbelieving note of rejection sounded in Isaiah forty nine verse fourteen where the Lord says but Zion says the Lord has forsaken me the Lord has forgotten.

    This overlay. of the profit by the people is God’s response. This overlay of the profit by the people in God’s response makes the profit, as I have said, look very bad. But actually, as you take stock of it, it is a marvelous, marvelous thing. For it suggests and identification of the problem with the people in this. Sound familiar. Sound familiar.

    As the prophet gives himself over to intercession as he gives himself to prayer As the prophet, in a sense, takes upon himself the form of a priest, the response of the Lord literally translates him into the priest, so that superimposed upon him are the sins of the people, the very pattern of the servant of the Lord becoming plain in him. Yes, the very pattern of that servant of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, becoming plain and clear in him. But moving further, we see that the Lord, by his response, does more than speak to the people in the prophet. For he also sees the prophet in the people.

    It is not the people. who have God’s word in their mouth. First. Sixteen. It is the proper to have the word of the Lord put in his mouth. After the similitude of After the similitude of the promised prophet of Deuteronomy 18, after the similitude of Jeremiah, who has the word put in his mouth. It is not the people who have God’s word put in their mouth, rather it is the prophet. And it is not the people who have been covered with the shadow of the Lord’s hand, like unto most in essence. rather.

    It is the. But just as the profit is addressed in ways that involve him in the people in so the people are addressed in ways that involve them in the profits all. The profit. Is humbled. The people are exalted. The prophet is made last, and the people are made first. The prophet is made the servant, the people are made lords. Sound familiar? Sounds something like the prescriptive character of the law and the prophets of which we speak. The prophet is made last and the people are made for. This magnificent reversal. In which the profit becomes like the people and the people like the profit. Is to the end.

    That God’s eternal purpose may be made clear. The New American Standard in verse sixteen translates the conclusion of that verse very roughly. I’m not going to attempt a good translation for you tonight, except to say that at the heart of this conclusion of that verse, we are to see that the heavens have been established and the earth founded. so that the Lord may have those in Zion to whom he may say, Thou art my people. To that end, to that end, not just the prophet making himself last, not just Isaiah making himself last, but God himself making himself last.

    That I might have my people, and that they may be with me forever. I will not be denied, for as surely as I have made the world, I will bring everything to that conclusion wherein it shall be clear that I have done all things for the sake of my life my own my people and I will not let them go even if it means that I have to become last for their sake even if it means I have to die.

    So great. So that. So overwhelmed. Is the law. Of God. And that love you see now. Is playing itself out. In a prophet named Isaiah. Who lived in the eighth century. And it shall, of course, you know, play itself out in that one of whom Isaiah was but a shadow, the Lord Jesus Christ. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting Joy, life, synonyms.

    Well, we have some more slumber images to deal with. I think you realize that. Verse 17 talks about slumbering too, a sleeping people. who now become the objects of the profits preaching. And in Isaiah fifty two once more the first verse the profit preaching once again away away. He says that. To the captive daughter of. And we will deal with the profit preaching. With.

    O Lord, forgive us in that we have been hard of heart, not only failing to see the Lord Jesus in all the law and the prophets, but failing likewise to live in keeping with what is declared there, with a willingness to be last, that others may be first. Willing to be slaves, that others may be free and exalted. Do be gracious to us, Lord, we pray. In this congregation, our Father, do be with us, as we, with humility, would be clothed in Christ.

    Let’s be sure to remember our brothers and sisters in South Africa, the struggles, the very severe, distressing struggles that the churches of Jesus Christ are undergoing there. We certainly do not have to sympathize with those churches in their sin, but as they are our brothers and sisters in Christ, let us be sure we plead to God on their behalf that they may be whole, and in a spirit that doesn’t exalt ourselves at their expense, but rather seeks to see us as servants for their sake. We ought to be remembering our friends in Morgantown.

    Some of you know already that the church there is being evicted. And they’ve been asked to leave the Seventh Day Adventist church building by the end of January. It’s a little soon. So I believe that the men in the church are going to try and negotiate in order to get a few more months out of the Seventh-day Adventist church. That will give them time, we hope, to find a place to meet. Not an easy task in Morgantown, where they’ve tried many, many times before to find suitable places to worship. So, pray for Morgantown. It’s the first major crisis for them.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • God Shouts at Self-Pity

    God Shouts at Self-Pity

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Suffering Servant” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 16, 1986.

    About this sermon

    God has to shout at a people gone deaf in their own self-pity, who cannot hear comfort offered plainly. Abraham and Sarah, and the garden imagery of verse 3, anchor the promise in real history. At the end of that promise waits the perpetual melody of heaven.

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    Sermon transcript

    Tonight our scripture reading is, first of all, from Genesis chapter 21, and we’ll be looking also at Psalms and then at Isaiah. So we’ll start in Genesis with the twenty-first chapter. We’re going to look at the first three verses and then move on. Then the Lord took note of Sarah, as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.” When the Lord brought back the captive ones of Zion, we were like those who dream.

    Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting. Then they said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us. We are glad. Restore our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting.

    He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, shall indeed come again with a shout of joy. bringing his sheaves with him. And then Isaiah chapter fifty-one. The first three verses, certainly we could be moving on in chapter fifty-one And truly, the various sections of this chapter say virtually the same thing as you go through each section. But once more, we will look at verses one through three.

    Listen to me. You who pursue righteousness, who seek the Lord, look to the rock from which you were and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave birth to you in pain. When he was one, I called him. Then I blessed him and multiplied him. Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places and her wilderness he will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her thanksgiving and sound of a melody.

    That indeed, our Father, we would empty ourselves of all that stands in the way of our God. Lord, we have died with Christ, and in him been crucified to this world. And Lord, we are alive now to live for you and unto you. Lord, may this all be found in us, and may the truth of your word stand plainly above us, beneath us, about us, and in us. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

    We should all be convinced by now that the intent of the Lord in Isaiah 40-66 is this, comfort. Comfort to the people of God. In fact, as this section begins, chapter 40, verse 1, those words are spoken, and we do well to underline them as we move through the entirety of this portion of scripture. Don’t grow weary of hearing The Lord say to you, to his people, comfort, O comfort my people, speak kindly to Jerusalem and call out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. comfort.

    That intention, by the Lord, rises high enough to overshadow, I do not say contradict, it rises high enough to overshadow even the Lord’s indictment of his people. It rises high enough to overshadow the Lord’s judgment upon his people. They may well be woeing in pitiful lack of faith which is becoming, because of the severity of their distress, remember the times, Sennacherib sweeping across the land, the prospect of Babylon announced to you in chapter thirty-nine, immediately before you launch into this message on comfort. But here The people may well be wallowing pitifully in their lack of faith, which is becoming, because of the severity of their distress, an open, in some cases even concealed, hostility towards the Lord.

    Remember, then, as much as you might the opening of the entirety of this segment of the prophecy with Isaiah 40 verse 1, Isaiah 49 verse 14, but Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me, and that an expression of her own unbelief and the rising hostility within her to her circumstances. But the Lord is promising salvation, and salvation is promised in such a way that it overrules the judgments that spoil Israel. Israel can produce no document certifying a divorce from the Lord. She can produce no document that can serve as a bill of sale, ushering her into permanent enslavement. She, you see, can produce none of these things. Note the first verse of chapter fifty.

    And although, although no one understands No one understands this about the Lord’s disposition towards Israel. Although there is no one within Israel herself that understands the Lord’s dealings towards Israel, the Lord has in fact provided one who does comprehend, namely his servant. That servant, you see, is described in the servant song of chapter fifty, verses four through nine. This servant, while innocent, endures distress completely, and I might say perfectly. completely and perfectly committing his cause to the Lord, expecting deliverance from him alone. And in this, now you see, the servant who is described for you there, in verses four through nine of chapter fifty, contrasts the response, the religious disposition of Israel in her distress. Israel, in her distress, turns on the Lord. The servant in his distress turns to the Lord.

    Now, with regard to the tone of the Lord’s message We may think that the sincere, steady tone of this message of comfort is interrupted by what we find towards the end of that fiftieth chapter in verses ten and eleven. If you take stock of that tenth verse, you may well detect in it a sarcastic twist. the Lord himself, being a bit sarcastic. But then, if indeed there is that sarcastic twist to verse 10, what of the terrifying images of verse 11? We find there, you see, the descriptions of fire torment. and judgment. We may well think, then, that the sincere, steady tone of the Lord’s message of comfort is interrupted by what we find in these two verses.

    But this, of course, is not true. You see, as is evident from the prophecy The Lord stands out in front of all of his words, and he knows the certainty and the reality of all that of which he speaks. He knows, therefore, the futility and the senselessness of Israel’s attitude. The people in their unbelief, and as well in the covering up of that unbelief through hypocrisy, have given themselves over to foolishness.

    Therefore the Lord, who loves them, goads them, by making fun of them in verse ten. Who among you fears the Lord, obeys the voice of his servant, and then the twist, that walks in darkness and has no light? Then the Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God, just as the servant does. The Lord also shocks his people with a message of impending judgment in verse 11.

    I’ve described it to you already. It’s as if you are privy to some kind of pagan exercise, in which people surrounding a fire then surround themselves with fire, making for themselves belts of fire, thus giving themselves over to self-immolation. It is, I believe, the most horrifying picture of the fires of hell presented in the Old Testament. You cannot think about it without your flesh crawling.

    But now you move on, you see, into chapter 51. and note the tone. There follows here, as if in exception, a section of the prophecy that is as much overlaid with urgency as it is with comfort. The Lord, as it were, take stock of the language, is grabbing hold of Israel’s lapels. Nothing less is in view here than an image of the Lord as one passionately driven. It is nothing less than his great love, truly, his passion for his own. for his people that impelled him.

    Listen to me, he said. Verse one. Pay attention to me, verse four. Listen to me, verse seven. The Lord literally shouted into the face of his people. Preachers are always to be controlled, I hear. But note, the choice of the language is magnificent. You see what is going on here, calling to mind those things that have been said formally. The plea by the Lord at this point rounds out Israel’s healing problem. Remember chapter 50, verse 2? We’ve already noted the first verse of that chapter. Move on to the second. Remember what is said there?

    The Lord’s question, specifically, when I called Why did no one answer? Because, you see, no one was listening. No one heard. No one answers because no one hears. And no one hears take in now what is being said against the background of that fourteenth verse in forty-nine. No one hears because they all are so self-centeredly and so self-pityingly wrapped up in their own present current distress, privation, and suffering. and therefore they are deaf to the Lord’s voice.

    The Lord has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me. Why should I listen for him or to him? But what is it, precisely, that the Lord is saying when he grabs hold passionately of Israel’s lapels and shouts into her face? What is it that the Lord says?

    Actually, you may be surprised. So given what we find in verses 10 and 11 at the end of chapter 50, you might well have expected a message of unparalleled judgment. But what appears? Not a message of judgment melting us with horror. Rather, the overwhelming concern in this communication of love from God is comfort and promised blessing, certain blessing. If we are reading it aright, Although the sweet of the whole has been comfort, given the sentiments of the Lord at the end of that fiftieth chapter, we are starved. So unexpected is what we hear.

    After that eleventh verse in the fiftieth chapter, we would expect the Lord to capitalize on the point that he is made. For how better to shake Israel by lapels than with vivid and multiple descriptions of fiery torment? Not that that isn’t an appropriate tool that the Lord often uses. But here, at this point, here things are quite different.

    Remember now, as you feel your way through the Lord’s words, it is the Lord who stands at and beyond the end of all things. And this Lord sees more at the end than the judgment. In fact, his heart is set upon that which is other than judgment. He sees blessedness, and he sees eternity’s glory.

    He dwells in eternity’s glory, and he speaks from it. in Israel’s present circumstances. However, the people cannot, no, they will not see in faith beyond their distress and take the Lord at his word concerning realities that they do not perceive. Yet Truly, as blessedness in glory lies beyond the final judgment, so the salvation of the Lord lies beyond the siege of Sennacherib, the devastation of the northern tribes, and the Babylonian captives. It is therefore with this sort of urgency that the Lord lays full of Israel’s lapels and shouts in her face.

    He strains to awaken her, not with pictures of judgment, but with pictures of glory. Don’t you see what you’re doing? In the midst of it, there is an effervescence about the Lord, as He speaks of that which surrounds Him, inborn. He speaks of that which He knows, for He is there. And the promises that He speaks of are certain and sure, as sure as His own existence. And in the midst of that blessedness, that environment of glory, the effervescence, he bubbles over in his argumentation, he bubbles over with glee. That should infect all who hear what he says.

    So it is. the sarcastic tone of the 10th verse of chapter 15, the word of impending judgment of that 11th verse, those verses themselves submerged in the song of incomparable delight. That takes thought of how the Lord in his passion with urgency develops, makes his argument.

    He makes mention of the rock and the quarry, not to leave you in a shroud as to who he is speaking He translates for you in the next verse, the rock is Abraham, the quarry is Sarah. What is the Lord doing here when he brings up Abraham and Sarah? And especially you see in that second verse when he makes mention of Sarah giving birth in pain. Underwater. In pain. Do you see it? The Lord is matching things up. The Lord is matching the patriarch and his wife. in their anguish with Israel in hers. And the message is plain.

    As surely as the pain of Sarah and the distress and the trial to Abraham gives birth to the nation of promise, and that by the power of the Lord, so will deliverance and salvation of wise and tap in the restoration of the people and in the transformation of the present desert environment into one of matchless bliss the transformation will be staggered The description goes on in verse three.

    What is coming is the garden of God. Patterned after the garden of Eden. And in that environment you see and why it is appropriate to raise the image of the garden at all. Appropriate indeed. Underscore that. because in the new environment, the garden of God, the curse will be removed and the wilderness will be displaced. and O, the singing.”

    Note that the Lord here describes a periodic interruption of joy and gladness, thanksgiving, and melody. An occasional intrusion into the frame of our days, or that this intrusion will come in certain places and be found where formally it was. No. The Lord speaks from beyond judgment and distress.

    From that region in which the melody, the delight, the joy, the gladness, the thanksgiving are perpetual and pervasive perfectly permeating everyone and everywhere. There is no interruption of it. And there is no place in this region where it is not found and where it is not heard. The trace of this joy, this delight.

    Think of it for a minute. Will the Lord last? The Lord will last in utter joy when judgment is over and all of you are at home. The Lord will sing! He sings. In that same environment. And the trace of this, has it not already been found at the corners of Abraham’s mouth when he says, And is it not found upon the lips of Abraham’s children of and by faith when they sing.

    When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue was singing. Then said they among the heathen, The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us. of which we are glad, about which we laugh with joy. Nothing less than eternal grace and life is breaking forth here Still, we’re not done. So having moved into the first three verses of chapter 51, I haven’t said anything as yet about the service. Is it conceivable?

    You take all of that language in the New Testament, where Paul speaks about the one, and then, through the one, many being cursed and broken, or through the one, many being blessed. Now you see here, in the ruminations of the Lord himself, communicated through Isaiah, mention of the one, who? Abraham. through whom many are blessed. You see, in the midst of this passage is made reference to Abraham, and specific things are said about him. We are told here that he was one when I called him. You see, obviously, now if we place this in the context of hearing and Israel’s hearing problem, this does stand one at the inception of Israel’s history as a nation who listened. Abraham was called and he heard, but he was one when called and when he listened. And through the call of the one who listened, the many were blessed.

    But now, in Isaiah’s day, the many who were blessed don’t listen. They don’t believe the promise given by God through the one and their circumstance may well call out for God’s irremediable judgment upon them. But instead you find the promise of yet another one, the servant.

    And note what is said of him in those glorious words, the Lord God, verse four of chapter fifty, has given me the tongue of disciples that I may know how to sustain the weary one with the word. Those ready to listen, those weary who know it. He awakens me, he’s the one who opens my eyes morning by morning. He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple, an obedient one. The Lord has opened my ear and I will not be disobedient. There is then one yet who steps forward into Israel’s deafness, who has the power to open the ears of those who cannot hear, and sovereignly does so.

    In him there appears the promise of glory beyond. beyond all the gardens of this creation, beyond all the wastelands and wildernesses, beyond all the cities and estates. Faith in Him and by Him, a faith which is like unto His, defined by His own steadfastness. sustains every wearied one who knows and does not hear unless he has the ears of the one who has heard. By him and by him alone do you believe and endure.

    What distress for you? Causing you to say, the Lord has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me. To you, the Lord speaks even better than he spoke through Isaiah through Israel. He speaks to you in Jesus Christ the Son of God who has gone to prepare a place for you and will come again to receive you to himself. There is the form, Lord, of the servant found in Abraham, the one by whom the many were blessed. But truly, Father Abraham looked forward to the day of Christ, and having seen it, he laughed. And with that mirth now, we would rejoice before him. For the fullness of the promises is secure in Christ, and our faith is measured by that determination with which we lay hold of our Christ, for the sake of blessings that never diminish nor fade away. hear us Lord as we look to you and receive even now that smile impressed upon the corner of our mouths we even now beginning to laugh as we shall do

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Willing, Not Slumbering

    Willing, Not Slumbering

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Suffering Servant” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 9, 1986.

    About this sermon

    God’s tone shifts sharply between the pastoral comfort of 50:10 and the severe judgment of 50:11, and he speaks both to the same people. The servant wakes willingly to God’s call, while the people lie in drunken spiritual slumber. Isaiah 51 offers its eschatological comfort to those who can still wake up.

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    Sermon transcript

    Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion, he will comfort all her waste places, and her wilderness he will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and sound of a melody. Pay attention to me. O my people, and give ear to me, O my nation. For a law will go forth from me, and I will set my justice for the light of the peoples. My righteousness is near. My salvation has gone forth, and my arms will judge the peoples. The coastland will wait for me. and for my arm, they will wait expectantly.

    Lift up your eyes to the sky, then look to the earth beneath. For the sky will vanish like smoke and the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants will die in like manner. But my salvation shall be forever and my righteousness shall not Listen to me, you who know righteousness, a people in whose heart is my law. Do not fear the reproach of man, neither be dismayed at their revilings, for the moth will eat them like a garment and the grub will eat them like wool, but my righteousness shall be forever and my salvation to all generations. Awake! Awake! Put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake, as in the days of old, the generations of long ago!

    Was it not thou who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not thou who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a pathway for the redeemed to cross over? So the ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion, and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and silence will flee away. I, even I, am he who comforts you.

    Who are you that are afraid of a man who dies, and of the son of man who is made like grass? That you have forgotten the Lord your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth? That you fear continually all day long because of the fury of the oppressor, as he makes ready to destroy? But where is the fury of the oppressor? The exile will soon be set free and will not die in the dungeon, nor will his bread be lacking.

    For I am the Lord your God who stirs up the sea and its waves roar. The Lord of hosts is his name, and I put my words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of my hand to establish the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, you are my people.” Rouse yourself! Rouse yourself! Arise, O Jerusalem! You who have drunk from the Lord’s hand the cup of His anger, the chalice of reeling you have drained to the dregs.

    There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne, nor is there one to take her by the hand among all the sons she has reared. These two things have befallen you. Who will mourn for you the devastation and destruction, famine and sword? How shall I comfort you? Your sons have fainted. They lie helpless at the head of every street like an antelope in a net, full of the wrath of the Lord, the rebuke of your God.

    Therefore, please hear this, you afflicted. You are drunk. but not with wine. Thus says your Lord, the Lord, even your God, who contends for his people. Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of reeling, the chalice of my anger. You will never drink it again, and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who have said to you, Lie down, that we may walk over you. You have even made your back like the ground and like the street for those who walk over it.

    Awake! Awake! Clothe yourself with your strength, O Zion. Clothe yourself with beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city, for the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you. Shake yourselves from the dust. Rise up, O captive Jerusalem. Loose yourself from the chains around your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

    For thus says the Lord, you were sold for nothing and you will be redeemed without money. For thus says the Lord your God, my people went down at first into Egypt to reside there. Then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now therefore, what do I have here, declares the Lord, seeing that my people have been taken away without cause. Again the Lord declares, Those who rule over them, how and my name is continually lasting all day long. Therefore, my people shall know my name. Therefore, in that day, I am the one who is speaking here. I am.

    Now, Lord, we would look to you and receive again by your word, which we have heard, your encouragement, correction, reproof. We ask our Lord that taking to heart your word, we might be content to live in keeping with what we have observed in our Savior Jesus Christ. For Lord, it is true that hidden in him are all the treasures of wisdom. We rejoice, Lord, in this provision given us and that of your grace for our health, strengthening and salvation. Amen.

    We have now covered the third servant song. of Isaiah. The third servant song appears in verses four through nine of chapter fifty. Now, in that song, those verses there recorded for you, the servant speaks for himself, and he speaks about himself, his perpetual vigil and his ready discipleship. In describing himself in this fashion, he also makes plain that his stand for the Lord as the Lord’s servant is not without cost.

    In fact, the cost is extreme. Hostility multiplies together with the severity of the servant’s humiliation. Therefore, as you look at that servant’s song, you are struck by the fact that here, described for you in a very rudimentary way, is the suffering of our Savior. I gave my back to the smiters. and my cheeks to those who pluck out the beard. I did not cover my face from shame and spitting.” Hostility, then, multiplies in the face of the resolute character and determination of the servant of the Lord, his perpetual vigil and his determined discipleship. That hostility generates the severest kind of humiliation as humiliation described here for you in a rudimentary way. But note that the sufferings that are incurred through this discipleship of the servant are nothing that the servant himself shuns. For precisely in the sufferings the servant finds his vindication.

    As it is apparent, he has no one to come to his aid but the Lord. He commits himself to the Lord and calls upon the Lord to vindicate him. In New Testament language, he calls upon the Lord to justify him. Now this song ending in verse nine. Issues in a twofold response by the Lord, at least as Chapter fifty comes to an end. In verse ten, the Lord extends an invitation. It is couched well in the pastoral tone of which we have spoken repeatedly. The pastoral tone that characterizes the Lord’s speaking at this time to his people.

    Nevertheless, this invitation, at the same time that it is given with the pastoral tone, seeks to unmask the pretense of many. the many who imagine themselves amongst those who fear the Lord. Therefore, verse ten, who among you fear the Lord? Who imagine themselves as those who obey, or are ready to obey, the voice of God’s servant?

    When in actual truth these walk in darkness, and have no life. Third line of that 10th verse. The divine plea, therefore, is for all such presumptuous, though they may be for all such before it is too late to trust in the Lord and rely on him. So you have there, including statement of the 10th verse. Now the urgency of this plea is accented by Judah’s circumstance.

    You see what surrounds Judah at this time by taking stock of the historical circumstances that prevail. The northern kingdom has already succumbed. Samaria has been destroyed. And the people have been taken away captive, dispersed as it were never to be began. Judah had escaped Syria through no merit of her own, but by the skin of her teeth. The power of chapters thirty six through thirty nine. We’ve spoken of those chapters before. The power of these chapters serve as a prelude to all we read here in chapters forty through sixty six.

    And you see not only is it a matter of the Northern Kingdom having been taken away, captured and Judah, the Southern Kingdom, having been spared by the skin of her teeth. It is also this fact that is made clear by those chapters in Isaiah thirty six through thirty nine. There is Certainly, coming the captivity whereby God’s people in the South shall themselves be carried away out of the home and into a foreign land. In the face of that. We are confronted by the impotence of the leaders of Judah, especially their kings, in particular, Hezekiah, to say. Now, the impact of these circumstances is this. The picture that we are given is one of absolute desperation.

    Thus, the divine plea for a people loved by God. The divine plea for a people loved by God. If they fail to respond in faith and trust, then the imagined light of which they boast becomes the fire of their consummation and destruction. In one of the most graphic and horrifying descriptions of God’s wrath and the fires of hell, the Lord puts before His people the warning about the inevitable end and its corollary judgment.

    Verse eleven. But now we move on into chapter fifty-one. And notice just how the love of God persists. As if with a desperate, no, the Lord takes to shaking his people. In light of what we have said, there comes the invitation to the people of God, in light of the circumstance, there comes as well the warning. But now, as we move into the fifty-first chapter, We hear a desperate note from the Lord, as if the Lord himself is being shaken by the desperateness of the circumstance.

    His people are in the balance. So it is that the Lord, shaken himself, as it were, takes to shaking his people. His judgment is revealed. No one sees as clearly or understands as deeply as he does the significance of that judgment. So now, as we begin chapter fifty-one with renewed intensity, with greater yet urgency, he grabs hold of the lapels of his people, and he shakes them.

    As if to shake them away from their distractions. As if to shake. If, in fact, they had slipped. Into an indifference. Or even an hostility. To him. He shouts at them. Listen to me, he says in verse one. Pay attention to me. In verse four, and again in verse seven, listen to me. The power of those words are meant to communicate the shape that has grabbed hold of God himself. Consequently, that shaking of his people, which he is involved in himself. He shall Listen. Pay attention. You know, as the passage progress. You have an interlude. You have an interlude that moves from verses twelve through sixteen. And here the Lord pictures himself.

    As a trusted friend. or possibly a dear relative. Who seeks to around one to awaken one within the household. Seeks to awaken one possibly who has drunk too deeply. Of the war. And now is really sleeping off the effects of their drink. Verse seventeen, while you’re well yourself.

    First one chapter five away away. I’ll take stock of the image here, and the power of the Lord uses them in the fifty-first and then into the fifty-second chapter. You see what he’s doing You see how he’s interweaving the images used here and those that have been employed before? For you see, those images employed here are precisely the ones that were employed when the servant himself spoke earlier. Go back to the fourth and fifth verses of chapter fifteen. Note there that the servant speaks of his own awakening. His own awakening by the Lord. And how beautiful description that is of the servants awakening the Lord himself awakens me. He opens my eyes.

    But he does not find, namely the Lord, does not find an unwilling servant. He does not find one here who resists, not in the least He finds one who awakes willingly to the touch of the Lord, and that one responds. He responds from within himself to the constraints of the Lord and the Lord’s word and will. It is as if the servant is so ready to do the Lord’s will, that the Lord encounters no resistance, no hesitancy whatsoever in him, even if it means the humiliation and the suffering that is described subsequently.

    Likewise, the Lord finds in the servant no one at whom he must shout Listen to me. Pay attention to me. The Lord finds in the servant no one at whom he must shout. The servant hears and delights in what the Lord says. The image is then of hearing and awakening, used by the servant first, and now passed on into the description of the people as God addresses them. You see, in contrast to the server. The Lord’s people addressed here. Are not as alert. Are not as ready. Are not as willing. To do the Lord’s They, in fact, do hesitate. They, in fact, do pause. And why? And why? Well, there are many reasons, you see. You might say that the reason why the people pause and hesitate is because of the stubbornness of their own heart and their wilfulness.

    And pointing out the sin of the people is a proper exercise on our part in trying to understand why he that they. But you see, there’s more. Quite a bit. Remember, the Lord is being pastoral at this point. And while it is true that you cannot dismiss the sin. In our consideration of the people’s hesitation. It’s much more that to the front has come. The suffering of the people. The sufferings of the people. Of God. Listen to me. You who pursue righteousness. Would you count yourself amongst those people? Listen to me, all my people, give ear to me, all my nation. Listen to me, you who know righteousness, that people in whose heart is my law.

    The pastoral tone here of the Lord in treating his people and that before the circumstances that they pray. You see the predicament? The righteous here, because of suffering, because of their distress, are liable to be distracted in their devotion to God, and as they view that suffering, as they take it to heart, as it weighs in upon them, they are liable to forget, therefore, and forget what He has done and what he has accomplished. Therefore. The Lord says to them, look to the rock from which you were here. And to the quarry from which you were done. The rock is Abraham. The quarry is Sarah, but note what is said about Sarah.

    Sarah gives birth to you in pain. It is the pain there that’s the problem, and the pain presently in Israel’s experience, that is the problem, too. Not just for the unrighteous and those who run the other way from God, but for those who are the Lord. those who would be the righteous, those who would seek and pursue righteousness and seek after the Lord himself. That problem of pain is introduced there because, you see, it then is the fact that stands common in the experience of Sarah and in the experience of Israel itself. But note what the Lord said in the midst of the pain. Think about the pain. Was the pain just the fact that she had labor pains in birth? Or was the pain also the fact that she had to wait so many years for a child and struggle of Sarah, the struggle of Abraham in their faith.

    Abraham was in fact one when he was called, but the blessing. The blessing was promised. And Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. The Lord then kept his word. It was through the pain, the privation, the distress that the glory of the promise was revealed and promise was kept. Note then. How. The Lord and this particular section. First three. He tells his people, I will comfort Zion. I will comfort all her waste places. And her wilderness will be made like Eden. It will become like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her thanksgiving and found.

    Can you see yourself inside the city walls of Jerusalem? Can you imagine having been under siege for a year or two? Can you imagine how all of the crops and all of the trees have been stripped and torn down in the surrounding countryside and the devastation that you would see as you peered out over the city wall? The Lord is saying to his people that all that you see will be transformed. Now you may be thinking that this is a remedial promise, quite limited in its scope. But the promise in view here pertains merely to the return from exile.

    But you see, what is envisioned here by the Lord is not some narrow, restricted blessing, but rather a blessing that is incomparable and immeasurable. The comfort spoken of here by the Lord is not the kind that will ever end. The comfort here spoken of by the Lord lasts forever. The condition of the garden spoken of here in the third verse, the conditions of that garden are the conditions that shall endure forever. The joy and the gladness spoken of here, the thanksgiving and the sound of the melody, these things shall never be diminished. They shall never cease.

    Now you ask, how I know that this is the proper interpretation of the third group. And I suggest to you that no other interpretation is possible as you move on to the fifty-first chapter. Take, for instance, the description given by the Lord of the salvation that is to be revealed. Look down at verse six.

    He is telling you there that what is in you shall come about when the sky, the heavens and the earth. He tells you that these things will come about when the earth has worn out like a garment and inhabitants have gone. In contrast to the temporality of all that we see, the Lord declares my salvation shall be forever. My righteousness shall not win. He speaks similarly in the eighth. He concludes that verse with these words, but my righteousness shall be forever and my salvation to all generations. It doesn’t end. But. More pointed still. Is the 11th.

    For here you see the images of the return from exile and the image of eternal joy and habitation are combined. So the ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting design and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy.

    And no sorrow and sign. The Lord is describing no city of this creation. On the background of the events that transpire in Jerusalem in the eighth century B.C., he is describing for you the eternal habitation of all those who seek righteousness and pursue the Lord. One final thought. The matching of the images here. Remember, hearing and awakening. As the people of God are in need of shape. as they need to be around.

    So, they are contrasted by the one who does not need to be around. The one who does not need to be shaken. And therefore, as we talk about pursuing righteousness and seeking the Lord, and as we think about our eternal habitation, and the glory that are our because of the promises of God. We need not flatter ourselves at all.

    Rather, you see, the perfection of our listening and the perfection of perfection of our arousal, our awakening to the command and the demands of the Lord. These things are found. The perfection of that is found in Jesus Christ, the servant. who is described previously. So now, how will it be that imperfect servants such as ourselves shall attain an eternal habitation where sighing and weeping flee only through Christ?

    Our Father in Heaven, it may well be that we need to be shaken so that we might become alert. It may well be, Lord, that we have sunk into a drunken stupor because of the chalice of your wrath and that we need to be aroused. There is one Lord who listens attentively always and who awakens perpetually to do your will and that without prodding. O Lord, we would be found in him having his righteousness, which is by faith, not the righteousness that is by the law. We plead with you, therefore, that as the Lord speaks to his people, we would hear, understand that the habitation granted us is no habitation of this creation, but rather it is the habitation above And it is to that habitation you shall eventually bring us through Jesus Christ.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Our Only Hope: Union With Him

    Our Only Hope: Union With Him

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Suffering Servant” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 2, 1986.

    About this sermon

    The servant’s discipleship holds steady amid real opposition throughout this passage, obedience that does not waver under pressure. Verse 10 names our only real hope plainly: union with Christ, the suffering servant himself. Verse 11’s warning is just as plain, the alternative to that union is hell, not a neutral middle ground.

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    Sermon transcript

    Tonight, we are once more in Isaiah fifty. They call that we didn’t make it through the whole chapter last week, and this week we will complete our thoughts on the fiftieth chapter. Let’s listen to the word of God. Where is the certificate of divorce by which I have sent your mother away? Or to whom of my creditors did I sell you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities and for your transgressions. Your mother was sent away.

    Why was there no man when I came, when I called, Why was there none to answer? Is my hand so short that it cannot ransom? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, I dry up the sea with my rebuke. I make the rivers a wilderness. Their fish sting for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness. and I make sackcloth their cover.

    The Lord God has given me the tongue of disciples that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not disobedient, nor did I turn back. I gave my back to those who strike me, and my cheeks to those who pluck out my beard. I did not cover my face from humiliation and spitting, for the Lord God helps me. Therefore, I am not disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let’s stand up to each other. Who has a case against me? Let him draw near to me. The Lord God helps me. Who is he who condemns me? Behold, they will all wear out like a garment. The moth will eat them.

    Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with firebrands, walk in the light of your fire and among the brands you have set ablaze. This you will have from my hand and you will lie down in torment.

    Let’s pray. Father, let us not pass by the message that you have given. And certainly, Lord. That message, as it centers in the servant that servant of your choosing, upon whom rests your spirit in full measure. O Lord, may we perceive the intent that you have purposed from all eternity in that one you have made plain to us in this latter time, namely your son. Lord, May we love him, and may we love you with all that is in us, and may we abide in his word and under the shadow of your wing forever.

    Amen. There is a line that we have pursued with regard to this third servant song in Isaiah. That third servant song being verses four through nine here in chapter fifty. You mark your Bibles, don’t hesitate to mark out this servant song. But the line that we have pursued with regard to this third servant song is in relation to the questions that are asked by the Lord in verse two of this chapter. Namely, why was there no one when I came? When I call, why was there none to answer? Is my hand so short, or is my hand withered that it cannot say, or have I no power to deliver?

    The picture given us is that Israel has given up on God. I have made this point to you repeatedly, and asked you to consider the weight of the fourteenth verse of the former chapter. There you have Zion saying, the Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me. Now, that Proclamation or declaration by Zion. Is actually a statement of disbelief in God’s care and love. So it is. The picture is given us.

    Israel has given up on God. In her heart of hearts. she has given up on God, regardless of external affirmations to the contrary. Now that is why, you see, as we go on to verse two in chapter fifty, that is why the Lord is able to say there is no one to greet him when he comes. There is no one to hear when he called, because Israel as a whole has given up on God.

    But the marvel, and I have tried to stress this with you, the marvel of this message from the prophet by the Lord is its pastoral tone. The Lord here truly Despite the obstinance of Israel and her waywardness, pastors shepherds his people and does so kindly, gently.

    So you have it. The Lord as pastor to his people, and this despite their unworthiness, Now, we’ve been through this section before. It doesn’t hurt us to rehearse it once again. You note, as we go on from those questions asked at the beginning of verse two, how the Lord makes plain his care for his people. He reminds them of his marvelous work of salvation. Take stock of what he says. Behold, I dry up the sea with my rebuke. In that, you see, he means nothing less than to call Israel’s attention to the former deliverance, which she as a nation had experienced a deliverance from Egypt.

    But he also, in response, then, to those questions that he asks in verse two, he also introduces the figure presented to you in verses 4 through 9, namely the servant. And it is in the servant, then, that the questions asked in verse 2 receive their ultimate resolution. This person, the servant of the Lord, presents himself, then, speaking as he does in the first person in these verses, he presents himself as the answer to the questions posed.

    Here is the one who, in presenting himself, suggests that it is he, none other, that it is he who is ready, open, standing, accepting at the Lord’s coming. He plays the role expected of people. There’s no one to greet the Lord when he comes off, but there is a third of the board. He is the one who presents himself at the Lord’s coming. He also is the one who listens when the word falls in this one can be added. Is that one who proves that the Lord’s arm is not withered? He is who proves that the Lord can and does say. We have then this description of the Lord’s serve. He here speaking in the first person, describing himself, speaking of his own piety, his own godliness.

    The description is stirring, if not convicting. First of all, as we have marked out formally, emphasized is the fact that the Lord’s servant is absolutely submissive. I do not know whether we, in our circumstance and setting, understand the character of Semitic religion. At its heart, Semitic religion, its contribution to the world, is that notion of absolute submission to God. In the person of the service submission is perfected. In the person of the service submission is perfected. Emphasize, then, first of all, here, as the servant speaks for himself, is his submissiveness.

    He is not a rebellious one. but one who, through discipline, knows how to supply the word of encouragement. And in this, he is like the Lord, for it is unto the Lord and by the Lord that he has been disciplined. Do you see the coalescence? The coalescence between the servant of the Lord and the Lord himself. Is it not the Lord who, in this circumstance, endeavors to pastor and shepherd his people? speaking kindly to them, despite their unworthiness. Here comes the servant, one disciplined by the Lord, one utterly submissive, and it is said of him in a phrase, in a line that is as magnificent a line as you find in all of Isaiah, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. with a word. The fruit of his submissiveness is his ability to sustain those who are weary and heavy laden, and by the word, give them rest. But note the consistency of his submissiveness. And that is what strikes next.

    I remember. A discussion that I had many years ago. When I was a student at Geneva College. A group of Christians walking across campus talking about the faith, expressing concern about their many failings. And one friend of mine asked me, what would you like most of all in your Christian experience? And without as much as a hesitation, I said, consistency. Well. Note. The consistency. Of the submission. How beautifully it is expressed catch poetry. The Lord would move. By the sweet of this language.

    Morning by morning, day by day, it is the Lord who opens my eyes. None other. The Lord opens my eyes. How have you thought of your own awakening in the morning? It’s the Lord that opens my eyes. And as my eyes are opened in the morning, so are my ears.

    I see and I hear, and it is the Lord that awakens my ear to listen from the very point of awakening as a disciple, one who is submissive. I see and I hear as a disciple.” It is the Lord, then, that opens the servant’s eyes and his ears. And being the only one to greet the Lord, remember, reflects to that question in verse The only one to hear the servant is faced, then, with great obstacles and hindrances to his discipleship. Having been awakened, now seeing, now hearing, being that one who greets the Lord and hears obediently the word of the Lord, the servant of the Lord in the midst of his discipleship, in the midst of his submissiveness, he faces obstacles, hindrances, he faces opposition and hostility. He faces opposition and hostility from everyone else. he standing alone. All of Israel collectively, once more, sunk into disbelief, they having surrendered their hearts to hopelessness. The Lord has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me. How severe the opposition, the hostility, the oppression faced by the servant. It involves the most extreme, the extremist humiliation.

    But even here, we are face to face with the consistency of the servant’s submission. His discipleship. His discipleship here proves itself, for with determination, the servant sets his face like flint, the servant endures the suffering, undeserved suffering at that, and in the midst of that suffering, confesses his God and his God’s faithfulness. He is not one who gives himself over to despair, saying in disbelief, the Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me. No. And this in contrast to Israel as a whole, who in her suffering, her suffering being deserved, not undeserved, who in her suffering has found reason to abandon God. How resolute the servant. So confident is the servant in the Lord that he knows that no one is able to bring a successful suit against him.

    Garments wear out and moths will eat them before a suit will be successfully tried against the servant of the Lord who has entrusted himself to the Lord. Thus you have the power of verses eight through nine. And the declaration by the servant. He who justifies The servant stands and you might know that even though the servant is righteous. It is not because of his own abilities or because of his personal resourcefulness that he stands no you see the servant’s confession as you move through. The eighth and the ninth verse makes it clear the servant stands because the Lord himself vindicates him and helps him, and he has entrusted himself to the Lord and the Lord alone.

    But now comes this conclusion. for the chapter. Verses ten and eleven. And a startling message. Indeed. First, as we look at these verses. Keep in mind the pastoral tone. That has been observed throughout You see. In one sense, we have here. An invitation. Issued by the Lord. Subsequent to this description of the servant of the Lord. Having presented the servant of the Lord, then there comes the invitation. This invitation to be sure is couched in intriguing language in language of contrasting positives and negatives.

    The Lord asks a question. He asks who is among you that fears the Lord that obeys the voice of his servant that walks in darkness and has The language here is somewhat confusing. If we fail to recognize that in these questions asked by the Lord, there is really a challenge. Who among you fears the Lord? The Lord himself asks. The power of this question registers when we understand it in light of the fact that there is no one who will save the servant of the Lord himself. Therefore, the question is meant at the deliberate unmasking that is intent is to challenge those who claim that they fear the Lord.

    This is why the next question is to be understood as inseparably tied to that lead question in verse ten. As we go on from who is among you that fears the Lord, we come to that obeys the voice of his servant or who is it that obey the voice of my service. You see, when the Lord asked who is it that obeyed the voice of my servant, he means this question in the second part of the tenth verse to parallel the first part of the tenth verse, namely, who among you fears the Lord? In other words, each question is saying precisely the same thing, not things that are different. This means that to the Lord, the one who fears him equals the one who hears his servant.

    The challenge, then, must be read along this line. Those of you who claim to fear me must be those who hear my. That putting the whole matter in better perspective yet. The last line of the series of questions in verse ten makes clear. What the Lord is saying in this challenge. The one who claims to fear God.

    First and part one. The one who claims to hear his servant first and part two is also the one who must admit that he has no light in himself and walks in darkness. Part three. And you see. That is precisely the confession that Israel as a whole is unwilling to make. We come to the conclusion of that 10th verse. And the challenge is sealed.

    Those of you who claim to hear the Lord. You must hear the voice of the servant that servant that has just spoken. You must admit acknowledge. that you have no like in yourself, and that you walk in darkness. You are called to trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon your God. This, you see, then, in light of the fact that there are multiple trusts There are multiple trusts for those who claim to rely upon God, yet don’t who make a claim upon the Lordship of God who claim that they fear him. There are multiple trusts in them, but now the Lord challenges them in light of that single confidence of the servant of the Lord that they are to trust in none other than God and in him alone. Only God, no one else. He alone will vindicate you. He alone will justify you. He alone is able to make you stand righteous before his sight. There is no other hope. No other hope and no other alternative.

    The challenge, therefore, to these so-called servants of God These who claim that they fear the Lord is that they prove the servant of the Lord trustfully and completely on the Lord as the servant of the Lord has done himself. We learn in the New Testament that this is accomplished by union with Christ by union with the servant in which Christ’s perfect trust and absolute reliance is made our own through the work of the Spirit. It is into that confidence exhibited by Christ that you enter His trust becoming your own. But we have her.

    Now if you doubt the seriousness of this whole matter, I plead with you, I plead with you for the sake of your soul and its eternal destiny to listen to personal. The issue here is life and death. The issue here is glory versus damnation. I can’t say it any more clearly than that. Now please, the Lord is not twice like with you. He is not playing a game with you. Your eternal destiny is in the balance as the servant has been presented as the challenge has been issued. I don’t think the language could be more graphic.

    Now it might confuse you a little bit as you work through that 11th verse, but hang in there, look at it clearly, and let it register. And by that I mean, let something of images that the Lord uses here affect you. Feel them. If you feel that the terror will be. The terror. See it. The Lord says now on the backdrop of all that he has proclaimed concerning his servant and the challenge challenge issue people. We got. We got. to those of you who claim that you hear the Lord.

    You must hear the voice of his servant. If you don’t, yes, you walk in darkness, have no light. Yes, you who would fear the Lord obey his servant. You must Admit that you walk in darkness and not in light, but look at the reality of the situation for you in Israel.

    Behold, all of you claim that you have the light. All of you have kindled a fire of your own making, and this fire of your own making has become your light. You have done it. It’s not the Lord, because the Lord’s light shines forth from his servant. You’re rejecting his servant. You don’t even understand the servant. You kindle for yourself a fire, that of your own making, and you say, This is the light of the Lord.

    Then note what Isaiah says next. If you have a New American Standard, read in the margin, please, because that’s exactly what Isaiah is trying to get across here. You make your own fire, you claim it as your light, and then, as a fool, as an idiot, you take firebrands out of that fire and you weave them into a girdle and you put it around your loins and you walk around.

    You claim it as light. It is nothing less than destruction. You say it is salvation. My friend, it is burning you. It’s like some kind of ancient pagan rite. You get the picture. You see it. People making a fire, then taking the firebrand, making a belt out of the firebrand, putting the belt on. It burns them. It sears the flesh. They walk in the light of their fire among the brands that they’ve set ablaze. And then the Lord comes down. This burning, this searing of your flesh you have from my hand, idiots, the just judgment upon your fall. You idiots! You fools! The last line, it simply cannot be more terrifying.

    Have you ever seen anyone burn? They run around in a frenzy for a while and then the flames take over. You see the image the Lord is using having spent themselves in a frenzy, they lie down exhausted in the torment of their seared flesh. There is hardly a more graphic description of hell in all scripture.

    Now, you might say. It doesn’t sound like the Lord’s being very pastoral here. Quite the contrary. The challenge has been issued in verse 10. And now comes the awesome warning. If you persist to live in your own light. The light of your own making You are merely sowing seeds for your own destruction. The end is like unto that of a person who has been burned thoroughly over the entirety of his body. It is on the background of this pastoral concern. That the Lord will continue to make his appeal as we go on.

    I said. That appeal will be. For everyone. Everyone. You come. You partake without one line. and enjoy the delight that the Lord has intended for you through the service to all eternity. And Father, if we are unsettled by what we have heard, if there is that sense in which we ourselves have failed to hear the challenge, vainly imagined for ourselves a righteousness, vainly imagined that we had a light in ourselves, for ourselves, May that day in which we have imagined these things come abruptly to an end. Lord may we therefore before your word. Realize. What you are saying about your servant. About those who would serve you. Your people. Take to heart the challenge heed the warning, be ministered unto by you for our eternal well-being.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Servant Songs Continue

    The Servant Songs Continue

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Suffering Servant” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 5, 1986.

    About this sermon

    The second and third servant songs, in chapters 49 and 50, get read together here, each one deepening the picture of the one who suffers on Israel’s behalf. God’s questioning of Israel’s own faithlessness carries real weight, not rhetorical flourish. Our justification, finally, rests entirely on Christ’s own justification, not anything we contribute to it.

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    Sermon transcript

    It takes me a while to catch up with technology. Tonight our scripture reading is from Romans chapter 8. First of all, and we’ll be reading a couple of verses from that chapter, and I think it will become apparent why. We’re looking at verse 28. through thirty four. Words are well known to you. Romans eight twenty eight through thirty four.

    And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God. Those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed into the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And whom he predestined, these he also called, and whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified.

    What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies, who is the one who condemns. Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather, who was raised. who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. And then, from Isaiah chapter 50, we will read the eleven verses of this chapter.

    Where is the certificate of divorce by which I have sent your mother away? Or to whom of my creditors did I sell you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away. Why was there no man when I came? When I called, why was there none to answer? Is my hand so short that it cannot ransom? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, I dry up the sea with my rebuke. I make the rivers a wilderness. Their fish stink for lack of water. They die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

    The Lord God has given me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I am not disobedient, nor did I turn back.

    I gave my back to those who strike me, and my cheeks to those who pluck out my beard. I did not cover my face from humiliation and spitting. For the Lord God helps me, therefore I am not disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up to each other. Who has a case against me? Let him draw near to me. Behold, the Lord God helps me. Who is he who condemns me?

    Behold, they will all wear out like a garment. The moth will eat them. Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with firebrands, walk in the light of your fire and among the brands you have set ablaze.

    This you will have from my hand, and you will lie down in former.” faith. Our Lord, is there encouragement for us from your word? Truly, we who have believed find consolation and strength in what you have said. Father, it is more than just a message given it is life itself. And therefore, Lord, we would partake of it, and Lord, having partaken of it, our souls will be at rest. We ask, Lord, this evening, that the import of your word may be apparent to us, and may the glory of your servant pass before our eyes, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

    The third of Isaiah’s servant songs occurs in this fiftieth chapter, verses four through nine. The setting in which it occurs is one of remarkable contrast. The one side of that contrast sees God. the absolutely faithful. This the concluding thought of the second servant song found in the forty-ninth chapter there in the seven. Note the conclusion. The world is a. Holy one of Israel. In Isaiah forty nine verses eight through thirteen.

    The faithfulness of the Lord is further explained. The faithfulness of the Lord is seen as foundational for that coming favorable time mentioned in verse eight. as foundational for the approaching day of salvation, mentioned in that same verse. The Lord’s faithfulness, so the prophet goes on, transforms the physical features of creation and affects the restoration, the deliverance of God’s own people. the heavens and the earth. The heavens, the earth, and the mountains are called upon to join in triumphant chorus, for as we find there in verse thirteen, the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.

    But then, introduced to us is the other side of the contrast. Verse fourteen. Here we are presented with the response of Zion to this glorious gospel message of the faithfulness of the Lord and his salvation purpose. Zion says, The Lord has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me.” This accusation by Zion must not be misunderstood by those who read, by those who hear, by us. It is no momentary lapse because of the severity of God’s chastisements, the severity of Israel’s ordeal. Instead, it is in direct response to that gospel message of God’s absolute faithfulness and his salvation purpose. It is in direct response to that gospel message and expressive of a persistent disbelief in that message.

    What is so truly amazing is the tone of the Lord’s words which follow. The Lord, by these words, proves himself so accommodating and so thoroughly reassuring I might say. The Lord by his word proves himself so wonderfully. He asked a number of questions. The first one is found in the fifteenth verse of chapter forty nine. He asked. Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her room. To this, the Lord responds, even the. May forget. But I will not forget. You. And then follows the marvelous litany of promise. concerning all that the Lord is sure to accomplish for his own. The second question occurs in verse twenty four.

    The Lord asks, can the prey be taken from the mighty man or the captives from a tyrant rescue? I might say, parenthetically, at this point, that we can hear in these words the foundation of those expressed by Jesus in his ministry. For instance, if you were to turn to Matthew 12, verse 29, you would hear Jesus speaking a one-line parable concerning rescuing those who are oppressed from the strong man, taking them from his house, in reference to the tyranny of Satan and Satan’s kingdom. But, the question here in verse 24, can the prey be taken from the mighty man? the captives rescued from the pirate.

    And the Lord answers with a resounding, yes! The Lord shall in fact accomplish this and thus prove his case. The case for his faithfulness. But demonstrating that the original accusation by Zion back in the 14th verse of that 49th chapter, demonstrating that that original accusation lodged by Zion has not gone. The next question is quite pointed. The one that appears at the opening of the 50th chapter.

    Where, asks the Lord, is the certificate of your divorce? or the bill of sale from your creditors. Despite Israel’s disgrace and chastisement, well-deserved to be sure, no such documents exist. Proof, once again, of the Lord’s constant faithfulness. For even though Israel has proved faithless, the Lord has proved Then comes the final battery of questions.

    Second verse of the fiftieth chapter. This final battery expressed here comes on the background of this overwhelming demonstration of the Lord’s care and love. It comes on the background of the tender pastoral tone of the Lord’s entreaty and proclamation to his. But here you see the ultimate is put before the people of Israel.

    Given my love and care, given the demonstration of my faithfulness to you, why is there no one to receive me when I come, and no one to answer when I call? Is it not because there persists that disbelief? By which my own, by which my own arm is thought as withered and incapable of delivering anyone? The response to those questions then that appear in the second verse of chapter fifty pursues.

    Three long. In the verses that follow. First of all. As we noted last week. Israel is reminded. Of that. Magnificent rescue. Which the Lord accomplished for her. when she was delivered from Egypt. The language there is unmistakable. Behold, I dry up the sea at my rebuke.

    But this rescue mentioned here is couched in what we might call apocalyptic terms. Especially as we move on to the third birth. And the mention that that birth makes of the heavens being clothed with blackness and sackcloth being there. Who can forget other prophecies? Portions of the Book of Revelation that use similar language to what is expressed here. The rescue then. Rounded in the deliverance of Israel from Egypt is couched in apocalyptic terms.

    And this is so in order to indicate clearly both the past and future significance of that great event that underlies Israel’s identity. That is to say, The past event of the Exodus touches the apocalypse, the end, the conclusion of everything. The final resolution of all things, when God and his righteousness will triumph over every evil force that opposes his people. But this being the case, the point is that God’s future success is as certain as his past victory in Egypt. That past victory itself partaking of the coming, climactic vindication of God and all his ways. When you look at the Exodus, you are supposed to see the end of the world. that the pastoral tone in this is so that the people of God may be assured.

    God’s future deliverance is as certain as his past deliverance. And as you have been visited with that past deliverance, so surely are you the recipient of the future deliverance. it is yours, because you are the chosen of the Lord, and he wishes nothing more than to give it to you.

    Now, how much this is the case is brought on by the second line of the Lord’s response to that battery of questions that appears in the second verse of the fiftieth chapter, namely verses four through nine, and the service psalm. Here you have it. You realize what is being said here.

    There was no one for the Lord When he came, there was no one to answer when he called. But even though Israel fails to produce anyone to greet the Lord and no one answers when he calls, this does not mean that there is not someone ready and receptive to the Lord. we might not be as yet all that clear about the figure presented here, clothed in mystery as he is. And if we could attempt to transport ourselves into a Hebrew setting, to try to think the thoughts of Hebrews after them, as they heard these words, truly, The figure presented here would be mysterious, indeed, with mystery. Nevertheless, the one here described steps forward at this point and by so doing is united to both the questions of whether there is anyone rather than no one and whether the Lord’s arm is whether unable to say what is presentation. Effectively fills a void created by Israel’s failure of faith and as well as tied to the ransoming of Israel and to her salvation. All of the questions that are asked in verse two will find their resolution.

    Let appears first in this picture of the servant. Read through it. Let it settle in. Think about Isaiah. A lonely prophet with a tiny band of disciples gathered around him in Jerusalem. And now out of the language of discipleship. There comes the voice.

    Of. What appears first in this picture of the servant is his total submissiveness. And that’s the absolute. Requirement. Is total submissiveness. He is portrayed as a disciple. Whose speech is controlled by the Lord, the Lord himself being the master. Over this company of disciples.

    But note how much this is true. Just as the Lord’s voice has been so pastoral throughout who is so also is the servant. His conformity to his Lord is such that he knows how to sustain the weary one with a word. Has there been anything as beautiful as that? Yet, in those things which we have read about this servant, in his submissiveness His discipleship to the Lord, as the servant, has meant that, like the Lord, he knows how to be pastor. But, note the effectiveness of his word. I know how to sustain the weary one with the word. So thorough is the submissiveness of the servant’s service that it never misses a beat. Going on in that fourth verse, morning by morning, he never fails.

    He awakens, listening for the Word of God. His ear has been opened by the Lord himself, and he has been obedient to all that the Lord has said. Not that his determination to be all that the Lord has called him to be. Not that his determination to obey the Lord has not met with opposition. He cannot, he will not, he does not turn back. However, in the face of that opposition, in the face of that abuse, despite the fact that there are those who strike him.

    He gave his back. To the fighters. But know how the words of rain. It is as if the service literally. Is giving himself over to this abuse. as if he’s making a conscious choice to embrace it, as if it’s something deliberate. One of the greatest humiliations to be experienced in the ancient world is to have your beard plucked. He gives himself over to this and more.

    I did not cover my face from humiliation and. Over again the picture of Israel’s fallen servant. Israel has failed is then presented this horrifying, this terrifying image of one so righteous, so undeserving of abuse, who gives himself over to that abuse and suffering, and gives himself to it, willingly, as if one who chooses it. Over against Israel, who reacts in disbelief to her suffering and well-deserved chastisement, comes one who embraces suffering in an expression of his own faith, as if through this suffering his vindication and justification and his trust will be made plain.

    I choose it because in it my faith is proved. In fact, I embrace it. Therefore, we pass from the testimony concerning the servant submissiveness to his wonderful. Active and resolute trust. In God. The expression of that trust. Is recorded there for you in verses seven three nine. And how stirring it is. He looks to no human vindication. Only the Lord’s. No opponent is a match for his advocate.

    Therefore, he’s able to ask. Who can contend with me? Who has a case against me? Who is he who condemns me? Verse 9. And his confidence stands. The Lord, he says, helps me. Verses 7 and 9. He who vindicates me is at hand. Verse 8. anyone who would therefore. Bring a case against the Lord’s servant. Cannot stand it is impossible for him to stand long enough to present a convincing case. For as the servant song concludes. before the opponent can present his case against this against the Lord. He is worn out like a garment. And can. I’m on. The. The service. Justification.

    Now, you’re ahead of me, because you have recognized in these words from Isaiah the very toned sentiment of what appears in Romans 8. But there in Romans 8, we are not so much speaking about the servant of the Lord as the servants of the Lord. not of that one who is justified in the first order, but those who are justified in the second order, and because of the justification in the first order. What justification is there that awaits any of us? Is it something that we hope to work out, that we penetrate, that we perpetrate? By no means. It is a justification that is, first of all, accomplished in Christ, and we are justified. Why?

    Because we enter into the faithfulness of that servant of the Lord. He was faithful. And because he was faithful, now I, by my faith, over against the disbelief of Israel, by my faith, I am joined to him, I am united to him. And as his vindication means for him eternal endurance, it means the same thing for you and for me.

    Who will lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Who is he who can dare? Those who would stand against you will decay as an old garment, will be eaten by moths before your justification is extinguished. For as utterly impossible as it is for you to think of Jesus not being justified, the servant of the Lord, so. It is to be impossible for you to think of yourself as anything less. Than justified.

    I. Am declared righteous. In God’s. And faithful. Only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to me and received by faith alone. I told you there were three lines. The third will have to wait until next week.

    It is found in verses 10 and 11 and has to do with the response to the gospel message as it now is becoming focused in the servant of the Lord. The portrait of the servant Lord is overwhelming in every respect. First in terms of his submissiveness, then in terms of his willing embrace of suffering, and then in terms of his resolute determination, his faithfulness, even in the face of abuse, and in the face of all those who would make accusation against him. Lord, it is plain to us that justification is found in no one else, and if we are to be received by you, declared righteous in your sight, the only avenue for us is through the servant here described. May we be certain in our own minds that we believe and trust in him, that we believe and trust as he did. and that we love him after the pattern of how he…

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Judgment, Then Comfort

    Judgment, Then Comfort

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Suffering Servant” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 9, 1986.

    About this sermon

    Hezekiah’s own failure in chapters 38-39 sets up the sharp turn that follows: real judgment giving way to real comfort. Isaiah 40-66 answers that judgment with God’s own promise to comfort his people through Christ’s coming. The suffering servant’s faithfulness, unlike Hezekiah’s, never wavers.

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    Sermon transcript

    And Isaiah, the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, Thus saith the Lord, set your house in order, for you shall die and not live. Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, and said, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, I have walked before thee in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in my sight, and Hezekiah, what good is.” Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying, “‘Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears.

    Be bold, I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city. And this shall be a sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that he has spoken. Behold, I will cause the shadow on the stairway which has gone down to the sun on the stairway of Ahaz to go back ten steps. So the sun’s shadow went back ten steps on the stairway on which it had gone down. a writing of Hesakiah, king of Judah, after his illness and recovery.

    I said, in the middle of my life I am to enter the gates of Sheol. I am to be deprived for the rest of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, the Lord in the land of the living. I shall live on man no more among the inhabitants of the world. Like a shepherd’s tent, my dwelling is pulled up and removed from me. As a weaver, I rolled up my life.

    He cuts me off from the loom. From day until night, Thou dost make an end of me. I composed my soul until morning, like a lion. So he breaks all my bones. From day until night, Thou dost make an end of me. Like a swallow, like a crane, so I twitter. I moan like a dove. My eyes look wistfully to the heights. O Lord, I am oppressed. Be my security. What shall I say? For He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it. I shall wonder about all my years because of the bitterness of my soul. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit. O restore me to health, and let me live.

    Lo, for my own welfare I have had great bitterness. It is Thou who hast cleft my soul from the pit of nothingness, for Thou hast cast all my sins behind by Thou. For Sheol cannot thank Thee, death cannot praise Thee. Thou, those who go down to the pit, cannot hope for Thy faithfulness. It is the living who give thanks to Thee, as I do today. A father tells his son about Thy faithfulness. The Lord will surely save me. So, we will pray my songs on stringed instruments all the days of our lives at the house of the Lord.

    Now Isaiah had said, let them take a cake of this and fry it to the boil that he may recover. Then Hezekiah had said, what is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord? At that time, Merodot, son of Balaban, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick, and that he suffered. And Hezekiah was pleased, and showed them all his treasure house, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious oil, and his whole armory, and all that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah did not show them. Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, What did these men say, and from where have they come to you? And Hezekiah said, They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon. And he said, What have they seen in your house? So Hezekiah answered, They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing among my traitors that I have not shown them.

    Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts. Behold, The days are coming when all that is in your house and all that your fathers have laid up in the store to this day shall be turned to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your sons shall, who shall this issue from you, when you shall be dead, shall be taken away and they shall become officials in the palace of the King of Babylon. Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, the word of the Lord which he hath spoken is yours, O Ephraim.

    Today there will be peace and truth in my place. Our Father, we bow before you, your servants We look to you for health and strength, and Lord, you know that your grace supplies us these things. But your word comes to us in the power of the Spirit to grant us life, and that eternal life. And therefore, Father, we will be filled with your word, and strengthened by it. And Lord, may it be true that we are those who are found within and come backward to the glory of your name.

    Tonight we want to work a little more deeply into Isaiah. We surveyed the Prophet’s times, we looked at him as a personality, we looked at him as a prophetic figure, and we reviewed generally the content of his message from chapter 1 through chapter 66. This evening we want to look a bit more thoroughly at those factors that concern us. Chapters 40 through 66 specifically, or at least set the tone for those chapters, those chapters being the ones in which the single chapter, Isaiah 53, appears. And that chapter interests us most. Now, our present concern as we think about these chapters, 40 through 66, is the matter of eschatology, and the way in which that theme of eschatology impacts upon Isaiah 53. The point of departure, as I suggested to you last week, the point of departure is chapter 36 through 39 and we’ve read two of those chapters this evening. Now, this story about Hezekiah was very instructive. It will prove to be a help to us as we endeavor to understand better the chapters that follow.

    Hezekiah The King is one of the finer things of Israel. He is one in whom comes to expression the patterns and forms of the coming Savior, the Redeemer, the King of Israel. He is one, however, in whom there is played out the drama of God’s relationship to His people. Therefore, as you read about him here, as introduction to chapters 40 through 66, you are to see him a bit as a comprehensive figure, one in whom you are able to perceive God’s dealings with his own, and even see in him those portents of things yet to be realized.

    The situation is this. Hezekiah, with the people of God, is rolled up inside the city of Jerusalem. The Assyrians have laid siege to Jerusalem. And, as Sennacherib, their leader, has said, he has sealed up Hezekiah in Jerusalem as a bird in a cage. Now, as this circumstance develops, chapter 38 makes plain to us that inside the city walls another drama is developing. Mainly, the Lord has sent Isaiah to Hezekiah with a message that he is about to die.

    Now, do you see what’s taking place? On the one hand, you have the people. On the one hand, you have the people of the city, the kingdom of Judah, and the assault of the Assyrians. That being one level of the story. But there’s another level, and that is presented to you in chapter thirty-eight.

    Namely, Hezekiah himself is being besieged. And it isn’t that he’s being besieged by an army. It’s better to be defeated by death. So the Hippocrates tells us that his confrontation with death’s first presence becomes superimposed upon the story of Jerusalem and its presence today. Hamlet, Jerusalem, and Jesus, by the way. It’s not just that. You have to get yourself out of the way. One circumstance, situation, imposed upon the other, in the end, is, you wish you could say, death. And such a pile of promise of death seems as if, through these days, a coming But Moses is coming to do that.

    But you know of a phrase, that the Messiah cries out to the Lord, and he is heard, and he is delivered from death. But look what he said. For as God has delivered a client of death, so also he has delivered Judah and Jerusalem from their tyranny. And now, in light of the answer sent for the king and ordination, there is the celebration of praise and glory before the Lord.

    For God has proved himself gracious and merciful, But that isn’t the end of the matter. That is why we go on to read chapter thirty-nine. more pragmatic than any project can be. So, we’ve got to work with you to account for changes, of the rise of consumerism, for what we’re more interested in is the fact that with Salisbury’s son, it grows from the most intimately serious Nebuchadnezzar and Babylonians rejoined because the plan of Edo and Elysium and the recovery of Nebuchadnezzar spells out for the Babylonians the loathing of the Egyptians, of the Assyrians the right hand of this victory for Buddha will come at a certain period from now on.

    Real presence, yes. They present them to us as a fire, as a firefly of victory. We will yield to these strangers, like these earthy glories, This is an unborn man. It is an act generated by fire and false light. It is an act that is filled with the best of glory and recognition by the city of God. The fourth law is God’s promise of Babylon. The city of God. Open your doors to the grace of the city of God. You have that. You have that. This drama played out for you. You have that.

    Babylon is produced. And the judgment that is to come in light of the unsuppliant and the sin of Hezekiah. The judgment on the backside now. of the deliverance that has been experienced, the judgment pronounced that, yes, Babylon will run to such heights that she shall accomplish what the Assyrians were incapable of accomplishing. May that be the case. And the consequence of their triumph over Judah and Jerusalem will be The sons of this world are faithful to God’s will.

    It’s not in this world. It’s not in heaven. It’s not here. So now, just let us. The word of judgment is announced upon the human race. The northern flags are already gone. They have been over somebody’s experience. Take my experience and mix with the nations so that seemingly they are lost. Who can collect them again?

    But, if Judah is lost, what then will become of the promises of God? How will you, the God sent, be spoken of as faith? to those promises that he was making. Back in his day, he ruled in the chapters 40 to 66, and the declaration of faithfulness of God. How will that faithfulness be expressed?

    Behind the words of the prophet, Behind those words, as he speaks of comfort to the people of God, speak kindly to Jerusalem, call out to her that her truth has ended, that her iniquity has been removed, for she has received of the Lord’s hand double charity. Behind that, you see, is the temperance, communicator to the prophet and through him to the people. that that city of man, which has risen up against the city of God, shall not have the last word.

    That city shall be destroyed, and all of the triumphs will be in the city of God, the city of the Lord, his kingdom. There are sins of the world, no forgiveness, no forgiveness. How will God’s favor and grace reveal the Son of Man? Then the defeat, the overkill of Babylon.

    And issuing forth from that city to city there will be a stream, a stream of pilgrims whose direction is westward bound to that land which God has promised. And in that logic too, as we have understood at the beginning of our lesson, the eschatological expectation of the people of God to approve a prevailing text line, and by will of God’s judgment, the city of man may be overthrown and the city of God may be triumphed, and in the center of that city there will stand one of Jesus.

    Not at the moment. Not when we do it now. A couple of words. But you see, the message about the faithfulness of the Lord, serving the people, that actually our attention is moving to the campus. And that three, that three of us, we are compelled to take one more step, understand the faithfulness of God, express itself, and act like a good, right person. Your God, so great is God, that He is close to you. It is difficult for you, but that’s it. The faithfulness of God was untrue. That incomparable demonstration of faith is the fact that you are in. The root by which we shall both claim His faithfulness and His dominion, it is a root that only those who are born of Him can understand, only those born of Him can see, and learn, and comprehend. How will He bring us about this sinful thing? Run. Run away. These people who stand before God, incapable of any other response than, I’m a sinful man, I’ve fallen from the midst of a people that is sinful and unseemly.

    The world by which the world shall demonstrate its faithfulness is extremely ironic, for we see Into the midst of this circumstance, those of us who come forth from it to serve, to serve unto the Lord, we shall be the means for the people of this world.

    As chapter 42, 66 pronounces, the prophet sees one, yet rejects him. A tone of emotion that hasn’t as much as movement of substance, an unknown silence, a change of means of expression. He will be the chosen one, in whom there will come for the people a topographical message of success. That’s good. beyond this present statement in the Word of the Spirit, is without end. Man is complicated and impenetrable. For the servant, for the servant of his true brother, to the people of God shall reach by which God will give this statement to his people, which one he doesn’t know or what he’s not. That’s wonderful.

    To live upon this flesh and blood is one’s birthright. He does not appear as one who insists on privileges and rights, who demands his due by a slap in the face, unjustly. From birth to birth, a servant to choose what’s right. to their sins, and not of others. Rather, this is the one who sees approaching the central part of the earth, chasing its grace upon all men.

    Here is one right unto the Lamb of God, and by root of this one, all of our sins are forgiven. Here is the message that is coming in chapters 40 through 66. In that the Lord himself reigns, his purposes shall be completed. Come to you, his servant, at the center of it all, the one by whom we shall be reconciled and restored.

    And finally, by this group which the Lord has chosen, there shall be renewal for the face of the earth, the new heaven, the new earth. that we sing because of what the servant of God has done. There is good reason why this passage in Scripture is turned to so often. These chapters are rehearsed by the people of the Lord time and time again. They are filled, yes, with the sentiments of judgment that come rightfully upon God’s people. And at the same time, even more glorious, there is mediated unto us in these chapters a marvelous message of consolation and comfort. At the center of it all is the King of the Romans and the servant who bears the sins.

    Our Lord, we thank you for the message of Ezra. We plead with you, our Lord, that we will understand the significance of this message for Israel and for ourselves. Lord, we know that the servant of whom you spoke was greater than Cyrus. The servant of whom He spoke was greater than Hezekiah or any of the kings of Judah. The servant of whom He spoke was the Lord Jesus Christ, who appeared in our world to take away the sins of His people. Lord, now we ask that our joy and our rejoicing be purged of life of disaccomplishment. The Father may receive in the work that He has done, the very foundation of His work which shall not be completed until the heavens and the earth are renewed and the power of God is acknowledged as the one who alone ends.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Isaiah’s Call, Christ’s Shadow

    Isaiah’s Call, Christ’s Shadow

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Suffering Servant” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 2, 1986.

    About this sermon

    Isaiah’s own prophetic call comes with real historical circumstances worth tracing, not a timeless vision detached from Judah’s actual crises. Hezekiah reflects David in ways that already point forward to Christ. The suffering servant who threads through this whole book, seen first in shadow here, is Christ himself.

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    Sermon transcript

    Tonight we begin our study of Isaiah 53, but before looking at Isaiah 53 specifically, we want to read Isaiah 6. So our scripture reading this evening is Isaiah chapter 6, and I read this because it is characteristic of the entirety of the prophecy of Isaiah. And the events described here certainly are determinative for Isaiah’s perspective on life and his ministry. So Isaiah chapter six. In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of his robe filling the temple.

    Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. and the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of Him who called out while the temple was spilling with smoke. Then I said, Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with palms.

    And he touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? when I said, here am I, send me.

    And he said, go and tell this people, keep on listening, but do not perceive. Keep on looking, but do not understand. Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull and their eyes dim, lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and repent and be healed. Then I said, Lord, how long?

    And he answered, Until cities are devastated and without inhabitants, houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate, the Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land, yet there will be a tenth portion in it, and it will again be subject to burning like a tab of keratin or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.

    The holy seed is its stump.” Our Father, we heartily feel adequate to take up the word of your servant, for we know that he stands on your side and speaks for you. We realize, our Father, that we are those who are addressed and that your word comes to us with threatenings and rebuke, with correction and chastisement. At the same time, we delight in that word, for heard through all of these things, is also that note of mercy and grace and gospel triumph, whereby we are reconciled to the Holy God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, your Son. Lord, encourage us as we, your people, have gathered. We gather, Lord, not to turn a deaf ear to your quickenings and chastisements, But yes, Lord, we come as well to hear that message of refreshment, that message of grace found only in you. Hear us therefore, our Father, as we make our prayer to you. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

    We have been taking up familiar passages. And the first passage that we spent a great deal of time on was 1 Corinthians 13. The second, just included, was John 3. Now we want to take a look at Isaiah, chapter 53. And we want to look at it in some detail.

    In setting the tone for this study, We want to say something about the time of Isaiah, also the man, and something about the comprehensiveness of his message recorded here in the sixty-six chapters of this book. First of all, then, the times of Isaiah. that Isaiah began his official ministry in the year in which King Uzziah died. That’s spoken to you at the beginning of this sixth chapter. The year, as we calculated, was 742 B.C. 742 B.C. Although Isaiah was of work in his ministry then, in those immediately subsequent years, the years of the reign of Joseph, 742 to 735, his early ministry was eventful, concentrated in the reign of the following king. the infamous Ahaz, who reigned from 735 to 715.

    These kings reigning in Jerusalem over the southern kingdom of Judah. Ahaz, as you know, was a particularly wicked king. His wickedness was emphasized in many ways. not the least of which was as he turned to the empire of Assyria and sought from that empire help against an alliance that had been organized against him. That alliance was made up of the kingdoms of Syria. and the Israelis, or the kingdom of Israel, to the north. Razan was king in Syria, the capital of Syria being Damascus, and Pekah was king in Israel, his capital city was Samaria.

    What about Assyria, the empire to which Ahaz turned? What do we know about Assyria? There was no empire more treacherous. The Assyrians proved power-hungry, driven by a bloodlust. The Assyrians at the request of Ahaz, did attack Damascus. They destroyed it in 732 B.C. And next, they set their sights upon Samaria. And yes, they destroyed Samaria and the northern kingdom in 721. But as a result of the aid offered by Assyria to Judah, the Assyrians gained the upper hand even with Judah. And now, as Ahaz’s reign comes to an end, the Assyrians are extracting a heavy price for their support. kingdom, Judah, Jerusalem, the inhabitants thereof, are reduced to the state of a vassal kingdom beneath the Assyrian war machine. Now comes, after Ahaz, Hezekiah.

    And an amazing reigning from 715 B.C. to 687. He now, King of Judah, reigning in Jerusalem, and under him those who live in Judah initiate a number of revolts against the Assyrians. There are various appeals. There is an appeal to the Egyptians And in the end, there is an appeal to the Babylonians for help.

    Still, Hezekiah, son of this wicked king Ahaz, is a glorious king, a king in whom we see the very patterns of the coming Messiah, the true son of David. He is a king. He is a king who learns obedience through the things which he suffers, who, through these ordeals of sufferings and maturing, presents to us a figure in whom we find some of the greatest of the Bible’s stories. of the book of Isaiah. Then, there stands these things and these events, culminating, it would seem, in a siege brought against Jerusalem and Hezekiah in 701 B.C. A siege by the Assyrian horde, as they are alleged by their leader, a combination of themes, namely God’s judgment upon His people in the North and to the South, His miraculous deliverance of Judah, together with the story about the sufferings and the humiliation of the king who sits upon the throne of David. These themes provide background for the overtures of Isaiah 5. Well, so much for the historical circumstances. What about Isaiah the man? What can we say about him?

    In giving a fix on Isaiah, it is interesting to contrast him with his contemporary, Micah. Micah appears to have hailed from the rural communities west of Jerusalem, a man of the country who sees the power in the cities corrupt as it is, especially the power of Jerusalem as that power reaches out into the countryside and wreaks havoc amongst the simple believers. Micah displays in his prophecies an intimate acquaintance with life in the countryside. While, on the other hand, Isaiah seems to be the city boy. well conversant in urban life. It is thought, therefore, that Isaiah was a resident in Jerusalem.

    It seems, from what we find in his prophecy, that he was a Levite, or a priest who served in the temple. Note, Isaiah says. He was a man, also, if we were to go on and read chapter seven, who seems to have had ready access to the court of the king. This proved by his confrontation with Ahaz in that seventh chapter.

    Some have thought that his ready access to the king was a result of his office, others because of his high social standard. there is even a Jewish tradition that claims that Isaiah even had royal ties. He was thought by some Jews to be the cousin of Uzziah, or so the story goes, since his father Amoz and Amaziah, Uzziah’s father, were brothers. But again, this is merely Jewish tradition.

    But what of Isaiah’s religious character and disposition? Isaiah seems to be extraordinary among the prophets. His life is imprinted by the event of his call, which we have read. He is absolutely captivated by the transcendent holiness and glory of God, which breaks forth in the description of the events there in Isaiah 6. So total is Isaiah’s submission to the vision of divine glory. that he seems to be taken up in a sublime union with the Lord. From this standpoint, Isaiah seems to be an appropriate vehicle for revealing the character and the ministry of the coming Savior. My wife tells me it’s psychological. It is true that in Isaiah we have given to us a remarkable picture of the coming Savior. and not just simply through the things that Isaiah says.

    Equally, through the medium of the prophet himself, so that we are able to perceive in the prophet the pattern of the coming Lord. But what of the actual content of his prophecy? We have spoken about the historical circumstances, we have spoken about the man. Now, what of the content of his prophecy?

    The book of Isaiah could be divided in various ways. I have divided it into five sections. provided this way by any authority. It’s a convenient way, in my estimation, to divide the book, and I present it to you this evening. First, chapters 1 through 12. In these chapters, God presents his case against And we hear that right off in the first chapter.

    But these chapters also speak about the prospects of God’s glorious kingdom, and how, even in the midst of Judah’s indifference, Judah’s rejection, and Judah’s sin, the prophet and his disciples will become a picture of a salvaged woman. True, God’s case against Judah, against his people, is unmistakable. True, Judah’s sin is compounded because she refuses to hear the message of the first out of indifference, and then in open rejection. Yet, nevertheless, as the message of these opening chapters of Isaiah progresses, we hear of unmistakable hope and promise. We hear about the victory of God’s glorious kingdom. These people, rebellious as they are, cannot withstand. In the midst of this rebellion and rejection, this sin and judgment, the prophet himself stands for and those whom the Lord has given him. I and my brothers, he says in chapter eight.

    The prophet and his own the Prophet and those who are his disciples then become a picture of a salvaged remnant, and the theme of the remnant becomes one of the dominant themes throughout the book. But there’s more. There is more to this image of the remnant than just its existence. So the question is, how is the remnant sustained in the midst of all around that remnant that depresses and distresses it? That is why, you see, we have this central chapter, Isaiah 6, placed as it is for us in the opening section of Isaiah.

    We see that vision of glory given the prophet becomes the means by which the prophet himself and those who stand with him are sustained. They see the glory of the Lord. They see the King, the true King, high and lifted up, and it is by the root of this vision that then the remnant endures. It is similar, is it not? As we come to the New Testament. For how will the disciples of the true prophet of God, the last and final prophet of God, be sustained? It will be through the vision of glory. The vision of glory. The prophet and the king superimposed upon one another. They being one, prophet and king together. The vision, then, of the risen Christ being that which sustains. in the midst of the world, and all the destructive that people have done.”

    The prophecy continues, chapters 13-27. Here Isaiah, in chapters 13-23, God’s case against the various nations that have set themselves against him, and he includes in this list, once more, Judah herself, and specifically Jerusalem. God’s judgment is inevitable. But then there follows chapters 24 through 27, rounding out this section. being called, in these chapters, Isaiah’s little apocalypse in which we are treated to a vision of God’s triumph over the enemies of his people. Summarily, in conclusion, the greatest enemy, death itself. God we are told will prepare for his people a lavish banquet upon Mount Zion and there he shall bring all of his own from all of the nations of the world and they shall feast before him and he then will remove from them the terror of death and he shall wipe from their eyes every tear Next comes chapters 28 through 35, and here we have a litany of woes pronounced by the prophet, six out of twelve. Pronounced, yes, against God’s people, principally, but also against the present threat, a sin.

    The theme is falseness, and falseness obvious in the hearings, but also a falseness that is apparent in Judah herself, a faithlessness to the Lord. Once more, this session ends with a little apocalypse, chapters 34 and 35, in which the struggle of God’s people against the world is portrayed for us in the struggle between Zion and Edom, you remember, Edom, the descendants of Esau, and here in view then is that ancient struggle between Jacob and Esau, and once more we have here laid before us the truth of the fact that God loves Jacob, but Esau he has hated. The struggle then between Zion and Edom becomes the pattern for universal conflict between the forces of God and the forces of Edom. And in the end, Zion gaining the victory and Edom destroyed. The fourth section. Chapters 36 through 39. the fulcrum of Isaiah. Read these chapters.

    Here we have an historical interview descriptive of Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem and God’s miraculous intervention. But we also have here the description of a greater consequence, a greater struggle. For it is in these chapters that we have described for us Hezekiah’s bout with sickness and the shadow of death that comes over him. We are here treated to a description of Hezekiah’s plea to God that he might be spared. and God’s gracious answer to them. He spared from the ultimate enemy, death itself. On then to the final section, 42-66. As we said, Isaiah 36-39 is the fulcrum of the prophecy, a historical interview, and foundational for the rest of the chapters of this prophecy. The development in these chapters is like this.

    Israel and Judah have been severely judged by God. Israel has been destroyed, and now Judah will follow suit. However, there is an and intervening of the grace of God, who keeps covenant, who keeps his promise. His promises do not fail. There have been, of course, various salvations tried by the kings of Judah. A has tried Assyria, as we call, Hezekiah himself has tried various salvations, but given even Hezekiah’s good character at heart, a good king is not enough, for here even the weaknesses of Hezekiah are stoned, as those historical chapters come to a close, we notice in them there is an exposure of Hezekiah’s weakness.

    He yields to vanity, he exposes the glory of God’s own kingdom and throne, the glory of God’s temple house in Jerusalem to the furious Babylonians, the eventual invading enemies themselves. But if the invading enemies have not been enough, there remains the most awesome foe of all, death. And who, what, can deliver from death?

    Considered by themselves, you might suggest that we turn to the Prophet. We turn to the Prophet and his little band, those that we’ve mentioned earlier. the picture of the remnant. Maybe they can deliver, but not even the Prophet and his band of disciples can deliver. And if the circle of the Prophet cannot save the way being Israel’s best, much less can anyone else be found to save. But while there is this descent into the pit of despair, there is also the corresponding ascent of the glorious picture of glory, glorious picture of deliverance and salvation. Although we have progressed from Ahaz to Hezekiah, we realize that there is no help or hope to be found in them. There is no hope to be found in the Prophet as he stands by himself or with his company with him. None of this will save. So it is, you see, that when we come to Isaiah 40-66, there is no one left to turn to but God Himself.

    The cry of Israel must be for the Lord! I know it. crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. God himself. No one else will do. And this is so because when I was second-born, going back to Isaiah, Is Uzziah really the King? Is Joseph, is Ahab, is Hezekiah? No. The Lord is King.

    The Lord is King. With this assertion, you see, The prophetic tradition. The word of the prophet reaches its end point. It is this which is brought to light in the siege of Jerusalem. God alone is king. He alone can save. His power is checked not by any threat, physical or spiritual. And such power belongs to God, that there is nowhere in all creation where it can be resisted. And there is no God, no idol that is His match. His power is executed by His sword, the Word. By whose decree? Who can say his hand? His word shall accomplish his purpose and not return to him void. The extent of his word’s power shall not be restricted to Israel, but mediated by his servant.

    It shall touch the ends of the world, and it shall be the means of restoration and transformation of all that is, the full cosmos. everything that has been made, the new heavens, the new earth, the finance of the vision of our day. And at the center of this restoration and reclamation by God the King, we see that one who is the servant of the Lord, that one who bears his word. That one who descends into the pit, the pit of our greatest foe, no, not an Assyrian, not a Babylonian, but death itself. And that one who descends will emerge victorious, and by that means he will become the root of our vindication, our justification. the substance of our righteousness.

    Isaiah 53. That description of the suffering servant of God. In that chapter, we shall plumb the depths of the heart of God, revealed in a king long ago, revealed in a prophet equally long ago, but fulfilled in the true king and the last prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ. How could we ever summarize your message through Isaiah, your servant, our God? How can we ever think that we have comprehended it in all of its vastness and scope? but before us now in this latter day there stands one the Lord Jesus Christ and we know that even though there may be many things that we fail to comprehend or even consider in Jesus Christ we have a content, a message of the prophet Isaiah. And yes, we have in him the meaning of that prophet as well. For his ministry was to the end, that Jesus Christ might be held for it. Lord, we pray that as we look into this prophecy, we would see our Savior and love him all the

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • A Great Light in Galilee

    A Great Light in Galilee

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Christmas” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 31, 1978.

    About this sermon

    Isaiah prophesied to a king, Ahaz, and a people in the northern tribes who had run out of hope. Into that darkness Isaiah 9 promises a great light, the hope of Christ. The world has secularized Christmas, and it misreads the angels’ ‘peace on earth’ in Luke 2:14 in the same way.

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    Sermon transcript

    But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In earlier times he treated the land of Zebulon and the land of Napoli with contempt, but later on he shall make it glorious by the way of the sea on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.

    Let us pray briefly. Father, it is not eloquence, it is not style, it is not even the sound of one’s voice that makes the word compelling. It alone has its own compulsion. for it is the word of the Spirit, the word of the Christ, the word of the living God. Today it is important that we hear this word, for the overtures of the word are serious, and the matters contained in it are matters of life and death. We beseech you then, in godly fear, that we might hear and that we might obey And that, Father, in everything we might exalt you, the one who is glorious indeed, through Jesus Christ. Amen. It was a great reign.

    The kingdom flourished under Uzziah. and the kingdom flourished under Jotham, his son. But now Ahaz has ascended the throne, and troubles have come. Ahaz is king in Jerusalem, in the midst of the two southern tribes, Judah and Benjamin. To the north there is Syria, And Syria is led by Reza, the son of Ramallah, whose throne is set in Damascus. He has taken up cause with the king of Samaria, the capital of the ten northern tribes, and they’ve made their assault upon the south.

    Ahaz is looking for help. It’s the message of Isaiah that help is found in trusting God, and that our fears can only be taken away if we see and understand that the promise of God is to be with us, his people. and thus the significance of the name Immanuel, God with us. The glorious message of Isaiah to Ahaz and to the southern tribes, trust in God. But Ahaz can’t trust in God, for he doesn’t believe in God.

    He has rebuilt temples for idol worship. He has refurbished the groves. He has again established the high places, so that the people themselves are being led away into false worship and idolatry. Ahaz is breaking covenant with God, forsaking the word of the Lord.

    And when he looks for help, he does not look to heaven, rather he looks to the northeast. For there’s an upstart of a kingdom just beginning to develop on the Euphrates. Its capital is Nineveh. The king of Nineveh has a name that’s a real mouthful, Tiglath-Poleser. He looks to the Assyrians to help him against the alliance. They will be able to stay the threat.

    I suppose that the events of this last week have finally brought about the culmination of things that we have feared for a long time in our own nation. Now I don’t want to be so foolish as to match up one-on-one the events that took place in Judah and Israel, and those things that are taking place in our own day, but there is the matter of wisdom. Do we actually believe that China is a reed upon which we can lean? What are the reasons that we give for the alliance which we have struck?

    Is it righteousness? Or is it profit? Is it the sinking dollar? Is it the prospect The prospect of an incredible resource of cheap labor. Is it entering into the balance of trade and the balance of power? And what some analyzers of the modern corporate scene have called gamemanship. There’s wisdom in the Word. And it should be wisdom that we apply to the situations at hand. Well, that’s the historical background at least.

    We have the last days then of the northern tribes. We have Jerusalem perched upon her mountain and she thinks that she’s unassailable, unable to be touched. We have the alliance of Syria and Israel against Judah. And we have Judah turning not to the Lord, but to the upstart kingdom of Assyria for help. In the midst of this, Isaiah has a message to speak. And his message has meaning on the background of hopelessness.

    You see, the ten northern tribes had leaned upon Assyria for their aid, but they found that in the game of power politics and international intrigue, Syria was not reliable. It could not protect it against the onslaught of Assyria and Tiglath-Balazer. The ten northern tribes fell. and they fell in an irretrievable way. What is it like to live without hope? Can you imagine utter hopelessness, absolute despair? Have you ever thought of suicide? We have an example of hopelessness in our own most recent history.

    The effect of Jonestown is beginning to wane, but I believe that the question that remains to be answered with regard to that event is, how can nearly a thousand people reach a state in their mind, collectively, in which they completely abandon all hope in this world? I think that for Americans, that’s what makes Jonestown incomprehensible. An American without hope? I can’t understand such a thing. The background of this portion of scripture that we’ve read this morning is hopelessness, utter hopelessness.

    And Isaiah is playing upon the lesson in hopelessness that Judah should learn from the events that have transpired in the ten northern tribes. The lesson of the ten northern tribes is one that leads us into the depths of complete and utter despair. For here are ten tribes that were destroyed, literally destroyed, by the Assyrian army and led away captive in such a manner that their identity has been completely lost to history. That’s as if history has devoured them and there’s no trace of them left anywhere. Now, of course, we do have the modern theory that the nation of Britain is comprised of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and the modern cult of the British Israelite-ish movement, and we also have the belief of the Mormon Church that the Ten Lost Tribes were the Aztecs and the Incas and the Mayas and the American Indians, and therefore they hold them in great respect and honor. But these constructions are mere fables, not true. The lesson of the ten northern tribes is a lesson in hopelessness and utter despair. And that is what is being described at the end of chapter eight. He’s describing the fate there of the ten northern tribes as they have been led into utter distress, darkness, and bloom of anguish.

    They have been driven away into darkness, and you should read that as utter darkness, no light at all. The darkness and the anguish and the gloom that is in view here is literally, in the mind of the writer, the disappearance into death, the dissolution into nothingness, so that nothing is left and you are forgotten.

    It is the ultimate judgment of God. This lesson then is given to Judah, the southern tribe, so that there would be no thought at all that God’s work and word and his judgments are idle threats. It’s on the background of hopelessness that the word of grace is given. And thus begins chapter 9. The correspondence in the mind of Isaiah is simply this, as with the ten northern tribes, so with Judah. except that with Judah now there is the word of grace, but that word of grace should always be measured by the seriousness of the threat of the lesson of the ten northern tribes, the threat of nothingness, the threat of extinction, the threat of the doom and darkness and gloom of irretrievable death. their experience in the future, as Isaiah foretells, will be one of being led away into exile, into captivity, much like the ten northern tribes. They are not permitted to think of that exile in any other terms than a descent into death from which there is never any hope of ever coming to life again, except by the promise of God.

    And that is where the hope, the hope of Isaiah resides, that though it is true that Judah shall be led away in conformity to the judgment that had been meted out upon Israel, there will be that message that God Himself, by His power, will make again glorious that land that has been desolated. He will bring them back from the other side of the Jordan, and there, in Galilee of the Gentiles, the glorious light will begin to shine. It is that light that begins to appear when the Jews return from Babylon to be sure, when the remnant is returned to the land, but it is culminated only when the light of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ appears in those northern calves. in those counties which were thought by every Jew to be thoroughly and completely desolate and worthless, to the extent that it had become a proverb in Israel to say these words, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Does any prophet come from Nazareth? The scene of the glory of God will be the scene that he himself has made desolate to show to you that it is only by the power of God that there can be a reversal of all of these things that seem to have led into complete and utter despair.

    In the middle of the message of doom and gloom, Isaiah preaches the message of Christmas promise. Only God can deliver, and there is no hope but in Him. The point is that dead men and women do nothing. Their condition is hopeless except God act. There is no light except God say, let there be light.

    And that light shines in our hearts. Here begin the contours of gospel faith as well. not merely Christmas promise, but gospel faith. For you see, it is only those who hear the word of promise that survive. Habakkuk in his prophecy When he is reflecting upon these events, the devastation of the Babylonian army, the leading away of the people in the captivity, says, he that lives by faith shall be justified. The just man shall live by his faith. Even here, gospel is being preached. Even here in Isaiah, 700 years before the coming of Christ, the message is being proclaimed.

    He who holds on to the promise of God by faith, though he descends into hell, though he goes down into a pit from which there is no rescue, though he goes into utter darkness and gloom, The man who holds on to faith will be raised up, will be resurrected, and the light will shine upon him. It will be by the act of God and him alone, so that you should not boast in yourselves. There are important things for us to say at this time of the year in light of what Isaiah says.

    We all know the Christmas spirit, how it has been secularized and how every aspect of Christ himself has been excised from it. I think on the one hand the Christmas spirit says something like this, well, people are really good after all. And Christmas time is a time for believing the best about your fellow man. Because, after all, people are good.

    They are not. But you see, it’s not our custom to send Christmas cards, nor is it the custom of Hallmark or any other card company to produce Christmas cards that say, repent because if you don’t repent, you’re going to hell. That wouldn’t be very good business, I guess. But that’s the message, you see, of Isaiah. That’s his Christmas card. That’s the kind of message he’s handing out to Ahaz and the people of Jerusalem in his day. What is awaiting you is exactly what’s taken place to the ten northern tribes. Unless you believe in the promise of God, you will share their fate.

    I think on the other hand, the Christmas spirit says, well, God, if there is a God, must be nice. If he looks like anything, he looks like Santa Claus, except he has white sheets on instead of a red suit. And after all, God loves us regardless of what might be true of us.

    And I think that this comes from a loose understanding of what the angels say when they visited the shepherds. You know how that passage has come down to us. Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. This is how that passage should read. living to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is well pleased.”

    The spirit of Christmas is not that God loves us anyway, regardless. The message of Christmas is God keeps covenant for the sake of those who believe. And that’s why you see in Isaiah’s prophecy there in the eighth chapter, he has spoken about the law and the testimony, and those who have given themselves to the law and the testimony of God, that being the focus of their faith and their commitment. Less and less people in our world understand this kind of Christian and Christmas greeting.

    The seriousness of sin and its threat. The call for faith. The firm assurance and promises of God. A God who alone is able to deliver us from the pits of hell and death. Let’s learn to rejoice with that kind of background in mind, for having seen that we have been rescued from utter despair, death of an irretrievable kind, let us praise our God and his Father in heaven, we thank you for the ministry and the work of Isaiah the prophet, who preached the gospel to his own generation. We rejoice, Lord, in your calling of him and the sealing of his ministry in the temple, when he had the vision of the great glory of God and his Messiah. We pray now, Lord, that as he confessed that he was not worthy a man of unclean lips who dwelt in the midst of a people of unclean lips, that we too would receive of you your cleansing and sanctifying ministry, so that we, our God, might stand with him, receptive, having humbly believed the message of judgment with regard to ourselves, and embraced the message of deliverance through the arrival of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray these things now, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Child Called Wonderful

    The Child Called Wonderful

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Christmas” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 31, 1978.

    About this sermon

    Isaiah uses the child as a symbol, and a barren woman conceives by God’s power alone. Isaiah 9:6 names the child Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. The minister’s job is to proclaim that child, and the church confesses him.

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    Sermon transcript

    Our text this morning is Isaiah chapter nine, verse six. Isaiah chapter nine, verse six. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace.

    Briefly, our God, we would halt before we speak to ask of you that the word proclaimed would come from you and not from us, and that our spirits would agree with the intent and purpose which you have intended. Our God, forgive us, for we have been hesitant to be obedient We have refused our God to show our love as we ought. And now, our Father, hearing your word, we would repent and renew our faith and obedience to our Lord. We pray, our God, that you will keep us in your care and guide us in the road that we should travel. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    What is it about a child, a child that causes us, often for unknown reasons, to be so joyful, to be so exuberant, to renew our hope? I don’t know, sometimes when I got discouraged in Carrington, New Jersey, my former congregation, I always was grateful that God sent us, our own family, a child, because it was with the coming of the child that our spirits seemed to lift. And by seeing the child, we even gained new hope for the congregation that we were serving. and how often true that is for a family. Spirits are low, problems in the home, husbands and wives at each other’s throats, but the child comes and suddenly things are laid aside and there’s a new harmony, a new hope, a new joy. It’s almost as if new life has come. Child, the child of hope. This is an ancient thing. It’s an ancient habit. As long as there has been mankind, the child has been the symbol of hope and expectation. From the first promise given to sinful Eve and Adam. to the promise, the expectation that was given to Abraham, the promise and expectation of the child about which this passage concerns itself this morning.

    There was a sign given to old Ahaz, king of Judah, He ruled in Jerusalem, but not wisely, not according to the commandments of God. In fact, we learn from ancient history, and from the word reported in the Bible, that he caused his own child to pass through the fire, which means that he sacrificed his child to a foreign and heathen God. To this king there came a word spoken by Isaiah. Isaiah, who had asked Ahaz to demand of God a sign, spoke to Ahaz when Ahaz said, Oh, I wouldn’t ask for a sign. Under his breath he was saying, I don’t even believe in this God.

    But nonetheless, the sign was to be that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, and his name would be called Emmanuel, God with us. The names of Isaiah’s children also spoke prophecy, spoke hope to Israel to Judah in her future. In the seventh chapter, we read that one of Isaiah’s sons’ names was Shir Jeshu, a funny name, to our way of thinking, but a beautiful name in Hebrew. It means, the remnant shall return. so that the child itself in Israel was a symbol of hope. It was a symbol of Messianic expectation, the coming of the promised one, the expectation of Jerusalem’s deliverance. Because of this hope associated with the child, in scripture bearmanness or inability to bear was a particular problem.

    It was almost as if the woman who could not bear was devoid of hope. She had no hope. She was not one who would experience the kind of life the kind of hopefulness and exhilaration that a woman who did bear children would. But barrenness in the scriptures is also a sign to us, so that the women who were barren and spoken of in the Word become for us a symbol, a sign of the inability The inability of man, of our inability, to bring forth our own hope and our own deliverance.

    The barren woman is then shut up to God alone, and except God act, she will not know joy. Except God intervene, she will not be delivered. Except God act, Sarah will never mother a child. Except God act, Hannah’s reproach will remain upon her. Unless God, in the mercy of miracle, hear the prayer There will be no child, and there will be no joy, and there will be no life. These people then are like, these women then are like the people of God, whose hope cannot be even conceived, let alone born, except by God.

    This verse, this morning, is the conclusion of a very powerful passage. It spells out for us the last factor, the ultimate reason and cause of the coming glory that is mentioned in the first verse of this prophecy. but there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish in earlier times. God treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on he shall make it glorious.” The cause of the great glory coming is the child spoken of. It is He who shall be the source of the great light that rises upon those who dwell in darkness. He will be the cause for the multiplication of the nation and the abundance of joy, and He it will be who is the source of the presence of God.” Verse 6 then of Isaiah 9 begins by stating, that the child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. There are two things that we should notice then about this opening.

    Isaiah here is speaking on behalf of those who will keep faith with God, even though they, according to the word of the prophet, will go down into darkness and experience exile, according to the judgments of God upon them as a nation. Though they descend into darkness, they will keep faith with God. will then by their faith be declared to be righteous. And in that circumstance, the righteous man will live by his faith, and only by his faith will he endure. And that faith is not some sort of nondescript optimism. but confident faith in the promises of God who has spoken His word.

    Isaiah speaks on behalf of them. The us of that passage is the faithful. The faithful remnant, those who endure, those who have not broken faith with God, who have maintained the covenant by their faith in Him. This is not to say that they are perfect. This is not to say that they are without sin. It is merely to say that the direction of their life, the commitment of their heart, is to God.

    It is as if then we are to see this remnant as the barren mother The faithful themselves, who cannot of themselves produce deliverance, cannot bring forth joy. The exhilaration of the new life will not issue from them unless God acts, unless God intervenes.

    This child born, promised, then is to be seen as our child, our son. He belongs to us, and the message of the prophecy is so that you might understand that. The stress here, then, is not that the child is the son of God. but that the child is the son of the faithful remnant. He belongs to us. The remnant, as I have said, in the second place is to be understood then as unable to produce, as down. She cannot produce, and therefore the son must be given. The son must be a gift. The Son, then, is the product of God, who alone can accomplish this. And how the degree of difficulty is compounded when in the hour of fulfillment we discover that the woman, Mary, is not barren, but a virgin.

    But this child, so verse 6 tells us, is meant for rule. The government will rest upon his shoulders, and in this he contrasts the misrule of Israel, the misrule of Judah and her kings, who for their own self-indulgence have sold Jehovah. This child answers also the tyranny and oppression of the Gentiles, and it is by this child that the boot of every warrior is consigned to the fire. The child is not misshapen for rule, so as to be childish in his irresponsibility, so as to play at his job, or to look at his job as if it were play. And there needs to be a word spoken today about this very thing.

    Because within the Reformed community it has become the habit of some to begin to speak of their tasks as mere celebration, and celebration only. That can be nothing but a misrepresentation of facts to which each of us can attest. Work is not mere celebration.

    It’s hard. It’s exacting. Especially for those who work well. And who works well? The son. The son works well, who bears the government upon his shoulder. He is not playing at the job. He remembers whose child he is. It is not at this point that we speak of him as the child of God, but our child, and he keeps faith and he rules for us, and he works hard at his job for us.

    He alone has the strength to bear the load of such government that is placed upon his shoulders, and he discharges his office faithfully. And I love the phrase of Calvin, not merely with the tips of his fingers, but with his full strength. The image that you should have in your mind is a man stripped to his waist, putting his full strength into the job. Not some sort of a feminist king who sits upon some throne eating dainties all day, delighting in people merely coming to serve his whim and his wish.

    He is a child fit for the task. He bears the burden, he does the work, he does it with all his strength and for you. Although he is a child, and our child, And we name him. The naming of this child is something that takes place in the experiencing of his wonderful ministry for us. And as we know him, we come to name him in such a way as to burst human containment. As a counselor, he’s a wonder. That is, he’s incomprehensible. He’s without human equivalent. He’s awe-inspiring in the wisdom that he displays.

    We are left dumbfounded before his counsel. Before him and his word of wisdom, we are left speechless. much like many of those who came to confound him in the days of his flesh. They were left without a word, without a retort. They had no comeback, even though they were trained to debate. Here is a king, a wonder of a counselor, who needs no staff of advisors, He needs no cabinet, for all the wisdom is in him.

    We shall give him this name, Wonderful Counselor. It will be our confession when we have beheld how he, by his counsel, has preserved us. It is by his word of wisdom that we endure. And we survive, and we maintain faith, and we live as we are. How beautiful the benediction of the book of Jude is. Now unto him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise Why does Jude put wise in there? To the only wise God our Savior. Because by His wisdom, we are preserved. Only His wisdom will do it.

    I am somewhat amused at the little volumes that appear on the bookshelves, the wit and wisdom of this celebrity, that celebrity, this governmental figure, that president. Here’s the counseling. We will be able then to cry out with Paul, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and unfathomable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has become his counsel? We will profess with the Apostle, in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Beyond that, we will also pronounce upon him, this child of ours, the name Mighty God.

    No counseling for this king that leaves the advice suspended someplace near the ceiling over your head. Advice suspended someplace in theory dangling as pious advice. Words of wisdom, words to live by, if you so chose, so choose. Not advice or counsel that’s cooped up in the remote and removed quarters of the counseling center.

    No. But in the thick of things, this one, this counselor, as the mighty God, will execute his counsel for us. By the root of power he ensures his word and will keep his word. The mighty God proves the match for all of those things that are aligned against us and whose intent is the overthrowing of our faith. Our mighty God proves the match for the principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, the spiritual wickedness in high places. By Him we are preserved, not merely by His counsel, but by His might, and His might is the very might of God.

    By this the remnant shall endure, and the faithful in every generation shall survive. Jesus says, he who endures to the end shall be saved. We call Him the Eternal Father, or the Father of Eternity, or the Father of the Age to Come, because He, as Father, is the One who is the author of everlasting life, and everlasting, eternal life proceeds from Him. As Father, He gives life to all His children, to His Church, to His people who live by His Word. And as Father, he tenderly cares for those who are his children and who have passed from death to life and now are his children forever.

    Our confession ends with the phrase, Prince of Peace. And here, one can be lost in a good sense. Not in the bad sense of being lost in darkness, but lost in peace. in an incomprehensible peace, in a peace that passes all understanding, for it is this peace which this prince affords us. He ushers us into the realm of peace which secures the conscience of each of his children against the accusations of Satan. The realm of peace belongs to him and preaches to us the prosperity of life with our king, for with him at the father’s right hand there are pleasures and treasures forevermore.

    Here is our child, our son, and these are the names that we give to him. We were without power to conceive We were unable to bring him forth, but by the power of God he has been born to us and for us. And now, observing him, we are compelled to call him Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace.

    That is our confession about this child. This is no description of a superstar, a superhero, Superman. And none of those descriptions are adequate. To apply to him merely human title to us who have found him to be what our confession declares is sheer foolishness. We stake our stand with a man who finds himself with a group of other men inside a closed upper room. He’s been a doubter.

    But now he sees the risen Christ. He says, my Lord and my God. We confess with those who at Nicaea in the year 325 A.D. spoke of Jesus in these words. God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God. With those at Westminster who confessed Him to be the Very and Eternal God.

    What about herself? Can you number yourself with the faithful remnant to whom this child has been given? And is it your confession that now names the child that has been born? Are you able, with all of your heart, to say of Him that He is for you the wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, Father of eternal life, the Prince of your peace. If you can say that, you will live forever with Him. If you cannot, the faith of Israel and Judah shall be yours.

    Our Father in Heaven, we do ask you that our confession might be triumphant and and that all gathered here today may join in naming the child with their confession. O Lord, may it be that we see your son at your right hand as the one who is the very fullness of wisdom, the strength and light of our God, the source of eternal life, the One who conveys to us the peace that passes all understanding. Now, Father, may we add our voices to those in every age with the remnant of Isaiah’s day, taking our stand with the prophets and the apostles and your people, and as your Church May we live in the might and glory and counsel and wisdom and peace of our Redeemer for eternity.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.