Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Series: Highlights from the Prophet Isaiah

A sermon series on the book of Isaiah by our Pastor Geoffrey Willour.

A Strong City, and Perfect Peace

About this sermon

Isaiah 26 is a song for the day of salvation: “We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.” Ancient cities needed walls for protection, and God’s people, weak in the world’s eyes, have him as their defense. “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” The Lord God is an everlasting rock. Those in Christ have legal peace with God and can grow in experienced peace as they trust him. Meanwhile the Lord brings the lofty city of man low and lays it in the dust, and the feet of the poor trample it.

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Sermon transcript

Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word, my sermon text this morning. is from Isaiah chapter 26 verses one through six and you’ll find that on page 696 in your pew Bibles. I’m gonna begin reading towards the end of chapter 25 in verse nine and I’ll read through verse six of chapter 26 to kind of fill out the context a bit. So let us hear God’s holy word beginning at Isaiah chapter 25 verse nine. It will be said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord, we have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain and Moab shall be trampled down in his place as straw is trampled down in a dunghill.

And he will spread out his hands in the midst of it, as a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim. But the Lord will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill of his hands. And the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down, lay low, and cast to the ground to the dust. In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah. We have a strong city. He sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. Open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust.

The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the proclamation of his word. Our Lord and Father in heaven, We tremble before you recognizing that your word is powerful and it is intended to accomplish all that which you ordained for it to accomplish. We pray this morning that indeed, as you’ve promised, your word would go forth and would accomplish all that which you ordained for it to accomplish. And we pray that you would cause your word to accomplish mercy and grace, edification and building up of your people. Be with us now as we consider this portion of your holy word, and we would ask that you would give us open hearts, open minds, the grace to speak forth and declare your word with clarity and power.

Grant me the assistance of your spirit that your word would have its effect. We pray these things through Christ our Lord and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this morning is A Strong City and Perfect Peace. And there’s five key words you can be listening for. The words trust, trustworthy, city, peace, and humiliation. Just who are you going to trust these days? It seems that trust has fallen upon hard times. But trust is the vital glue in various types of human relationships. Trust is an adhesive that cements friendships, marriages, business arrangements, legal contracts, employer-employee arrangements, and yes, relationships within the church. when people or institutions show themselves over time to be reliable, to be trustworthy. in their dealings with others, then those who are in relationship with those individuals or those institutions can rest with confidence knowing that they will not be cheated or manipulated or taken advantage of.

To give you an example, let’s say that, this is from the consumer realm, let’s say that your car needs some repairs and you’re in a situation where you need to find a new auto mechanic. And so let’s say that there are two basic choices open to you. On the one hand, let’s say that across town there is an auto mechanic that has an excellent, well-deserved, and long-standing reputation in the community for things like honesty, fair prices, high-quality workmanship, and treating customers well. But on the other hand, just down the street from where you live is another mechanic. However, this one has a highly questionable reputation. And as you do an online search, you find out that this particular mechanic nearby has tons of negative reviews. Now, which mechanic are you going to trust with your business?

Well, my suspicion is that most of you would choose to go a little bit further, perhaps across town even, to the mechanic that has the good, trustworthy reputation. You’re more likely to trust that mechanic than you would the mechanic that has a bad reputation. or to give another illustration from the most important relationship of all human relationships, namely the relationship of marriage. I want you to think, brothers and sisters, about how absolutely essential trust is to a healthy, stable, loving marriage. If you are confident, husband or wife, if you are confident that your spouse is totally loyal and faithful in their commitment to the marriage, then you can rest at ease whenever your spouse isn’t home, whenever your spouse is not under your scrutiny. Why? Because you know that your spouse is loyal, trustworthy. But on the other hand, when there is a breakdown in trust within any kind of human relationship, whether we’re talking about personal relationships, businesses, commercial relationships, or what have you, when there is a breakdown in trust, depending upon the circumstances and the nature of that breakdown, it can be extremely difficult, if not humanly impossible, for trust to be restored.

Now, beloved, I bring up this matter of trust and trustworthiness because, dear ones, the sovereign triune God revealed in the Bible is absolutely trustworthy. He is absolutely worthy of our trust, for He is totally reliable. He is reliable and trustworthy, both in His threats and in His promises. Considering the trustworthiness of God, I want you to go back in your minds to the Garden of Eden. Remember, God made a threat to Adam and Eve in the garden, right? When God threatened Adam and Eve in the garden with deadly consequences if they disobeyed him and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When he made that threat, we know that he meant business. And as the first couple discovered to their dismay as they were cast out of the garden when they sinned against the Lord, God’s threat of judgment was absolutely reliable, absolutely trustworthy.

For after all, again, God himself is utterly trustworthy. And we see the trustworthiness of God woven throughout the scriptures, throughout the biblical revelation. And so we consider, for example, think of God’s promise to elderly Abraham. the elderly patriarch, when God promised Abram that his wife Sarah would have a child of promise, even in her old age. Even though she was years beyond the age of childbearing, the Lord kept his promise and enabled her to bear a son. We think of God’s trustworthiness, his faithfulness in his dealings with Israel. We see the typological covenant blessings and curses that God made to Israel under the Mosaic administration. If you read the history of Israel, the history of Israel is a history of God keeping his word, both his threats to curse them when they abandoned him and went after other gods and his promises to bless them when they repented and when they showed faith and fidelity to the Lord.

And of course, The trustworthiness of God is especially seen in the promises of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There’s a very real sense in which our salvation, brothers and sisters, is grounded in the trustworthiness of God, the fact that we can rely on His word. That’s why we can confidently affirm John 3.16, for example, for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. we can confidently say, I believe in Christ, so this promise applies to me, and I can be assured of it. Beloved, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning continues the so-called Isaiah Apocalypse section of the book of the prophet Isaiah. This section goes from chapter 24 through chapter 27. Our passage for this Lord’s Day morning underscores once again the absolute trustworthiness and complete reliability of Yahweh, our faithful covenant-keeping Redeemer God.

In our passage, the Lord is revealed in verse four to be an everlasting rock. He is the rock of our salvation. He is solid. He is stable. He is unmovable, unchangeable, and therefore trustworthy. Because we believers are in spiritual and saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ and in the fellowship of the Church, we can join our voices with the voices of this eschatological choir as we sing We have a strong city. We have a strong city and therefore we can enjoy complete peace, complete shalom or wholeness as our minds are stayed upon Him. Beloved, as we fix the eyes of our faith upon Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, we not only enjoy the objective peace with God promised in our justification, but we can also experience what the Apostle Paul described in Philippians 4, verse 7, as that peace of God which surpasses all understanding, that subjective sense of peace with God which surpasses all understanding.

And along with that peace, we can also experience what the Apostle Peter describes in 1 Peter 1, verse 7, as that joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. And this is all made possible because God is worthy of our trust. And because God is worthy of our trust, we have a strong city. Let’s consider the first couple verses of our passage for today as we consider the strong city of God, the strong city of God. The theme of the city of God is a theme that is woven throughout the scriptures. And the city of God represents the redeemed people of God, the covenant community of God’s people. And here at the beginning of chapter 26, in the midst of the Isaiah apocalypse, we read these words, in that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah.

Once again, we need to ask ourselves, what does Isaiah mean when he says in that day? Well, as the context would seem clearly to indicate, this is ultimately the final eschatological day of the Lord. This is the day, ultimately, of Christ’s return in glory. And that ultimate final eschatological day when Christ returns in glory and judges humanity and rights all wrongs and ushers in the new heavens and the new earth, that ultimate final day was anticipated by many other days of the Lord that have occurred throughout redemptive history, where God has intervened with acts of judgment and acts of mercy on behalf of his people. So again, ultimately speaking, this is speaking of the day of the Lord, the day of Christ’s return. Friends, in Christ and in the fellowship of his church, we have a foretaste of that final day as we commune with him in holy worship.

But who is spoken of as singing this song? It says, in that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah. And now some would say, especially our dispensational brothers and sisters, would say, well, look, this is talking about Judah. This is not talking about the church. But what we need to understand, brothers and sisters, is that the Old Testament prophets often spoke of new covenant and church realities of the New Covenant using Old Covenant language. That’s true, for example, even in the prophet Jeremiah, where he predicts the New Covenant. Turn to Jeremiah 31, verse 31. Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 31. this famous prophecy of the coming new covenant. And the author of Hebrews, in, for example, Hebrews chapter eight, indicates to us that this is fulfilled in Christ and in his church.

And yet notice the language here. In Jeremiah 31, verse 31, it says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with whom? With the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Now, Brothers and sisters, are we part of the New Covenant? Does the New Covenant apply to us? Of course it does. And yet we are not, in a literalistic sense, we are not the house of Judah or the house of Israel in terms of physical descendants of Abraham. We’re mostly Gentiles, I imagine. We’re probably all Gentiles gathered here today. But this is an example of how, in the Old Testament prophets, this kind of Old Covenant language is used to represent the true people of God, the covenant community of the church. And so new covenant realities are often spoken of by the Old Testament prophets with Old Covenant language.

And so this Old Covenant language is used to communicate New Covenant blessings and realities. And so getting back to our passage for today, when it says, in that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah, well that’s the people of God. That land of Judah represents the true people of God, the covenant community of the church. And what is the first line of this eschatological song? We have a strong city. We have a strong city. Why does he mention a city? What’s with this imagery of a city? Well, this strong city is used here in the context of this passage in contrast with the worldly city represented by the ancient land of Moab, represented also by the Babylonians, that worldly city which is compared in chapter 25, verse 10, as being trampled down in a dunghill under the judgment of God.

In contrast to the strong city, the city of the Lord, Zion, the city of God, the covenant community of the redeemed, which Yahweh defends with impregnable and impenetrable walls of salvation, in contrast to that city of which we are part, where we hold our membership, brothers and sisters, stands the worldly city, the city of man, the city which represents the godless opponents of God’s truth and God’s people, the forces arrayed against Christ and his church. In Old Testament times, those forces were represented by Gentile, pagan, idol-worshipping nations that were hostile to God’s people, like the Moabites, like the Babylonians, and so forth. In this present age, the city of man often seems to be the strong city in comparison to the church, the city of God, as ancient Babylon seemed to be the powerful ones, the strong ones in the view of God’s people in Isaiah’s day.

But this passage assures us, brothers and sisters, that in the end, the Lord will reverse this situation, bringing judgment upon the city of man and enabling his people, so weak in the eyes of the world, to exclaim in song, we have a strong city. And why do we have a strong city? Well, because as we’re told in verse one, he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. any ancient city was exposed to danger. The ancient world was brutal and was dangerous and required strong cities with high walls and fortifications to protect it from foreign aggressors and enemies who would attack the city. But we, brothers and sisters in Christ, we who are part of the city of God, we who belong to the spiritual Mount Zion, we are part of a strong city that is surrounded by walls of salvation, walls of deliverance.

One commentator points out that in the view of Isaiah’s original readers, they would likely think of the double walls on the east side of Jerusalem that protected ancient Jerusalem. And the comparison is that the salvation of God will protect his people as walls protected ancient cities. Like a wall, our Heavenly Father protects us. He protects us from spiritual danger. He protects us from disgrace, and He keeps us secure in our salvation. That’s what this language and imagery points to, brothers and sisters, our absolute security in Christ and in the body of Christ. For in Christ and in His body, the church, we have a strong city. And therefore, as verse two, points out, therefore, as we as pilgrims of God approach the city, we say, open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.

Open the gates, one commentator says, the picture seems to be that of pilgrims who have come a long way to enter the city. Beloved, on that final day, that day of Christ’s return, when we finally enter the heavenly Jerusalem in its consummated glory, on that day, we will be able to see that our pilgrimage has finally come to an end. We finally arrived at home. But until that time, we are a pilgrim people of God. But we can still say to the Lord, open the gates. Open the gates. Why? that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.” Those who may enter in are described here as the righteous nation that keeps faith. Now here We as a church, we’re not a nation in terms of being a political entity. And yet the scriptures describe the church, God’s covenant people, as a holy nation.

And now in the new covenant, we are an international nation, a holy nation of Jews and Gentiles throughout the world who believe in Jesus as Messiah and Savior. The Apostle Peter reflects this kind of thinking In 1 Peter 2, verses 9 and 10, I’d invite you to turn there. As Peter addressing a group of persecuted Christians, or at least Christians facing severe persecution, he reminds them of who they are. He reminds them of their identity. He speaks here of the church, and here’s how he describes the church. He says, but you, you, God’s people, God’s church, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a what? A holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. But again, getting back to our passage, righteous, open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith or is faithful may enter in. You may say, wait a minute. Righteous nation? Think about God’s people in Isaiah’s day. Were they a righteous nation? No, they were a faithless nation. They were, in many ways, an apostate nation. Many of God’s professed covenant people had gone after foreign deities. They had forsaken the Lord and run after other gods and broken God’s holy commandments. How then can we, as God’s people, be described as a righteous nation when we are sinners, when we have fallen short of the glory of God? Well again, in the context here it’s clear that the righteous nation is righteous not by its works or worthiness, rather righteous purely by the grace of God and through faith.

As Dr. E.J. Young explains it, he says, they are a nation that stands in right relationship to justice and to law, and so are truly righteous. But then he goes on to say, inasmuch, however, as the walls and ramparts of this city are salvation, it is clear that this righteous nation, composed of those who have come from all over the earth, is a nation that possesses no inherent righteousness. It is rather one that has received righteousness from the king who reigns in Zion and who has prepared the city for his people. This nation therefore is righteous because it has received its righteousness from the Lord Yahweh of hosts. This is what is proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must have a perfect righteousness to stand before the heavenly King. And we lack that righteousness.

We fall short of the glory of God. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is not simply the message that Jesus died for our sins. Praise God, that is essential to the gospel. Praise God, Jesus did indeed pay the penalty for our sin. Brother, sister in Christ, Jesus took your sin upon himself. The debt of your sin, the guilt of your sin was nailed to the cross of Christ and the debt has been canceled. The slate has been wiped clean, but you need more than a clean slate to enter into heavenly glory. You need a positive righteousness, a perfect everlasting righteousness. And that righteousness is not attained by your own works or worthiness or religious efforts. It is a gift. It is Christ’s perfect righteousness. So in the gospel, God offers not only to atone for your sin, to cleanse your sins through Christ, but to clothe you in the robe of his perfect, everlasting righteousness, so that when you trust in Christ and receive him for salvation, Not only are your sins forgiven through the blood of Christ, but you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

His perfect righteousness is imputed, credited to you. And that righteousness, and that righteousness alone, serves as your title to glory. Not your works, although works are brought up on the judgment day to testify to the reality of our faith. But nevertheless, it’s Christ’s works that saves. As Dr. R.C. Sproul used to say, yes, we’re saved by works, but not by our own works, by the works of Christ. He is our righteousness, and therefore, in Him, we are a righteous nation. And we are a righteous nation that keeps faith or faithfulness. This nation, this holy nation, God’s covenant people is the guardian, the custodian and preserver of faithfulness because it consists of a people who have true saving faith in the Lord and who therefore live a life of faith. Again, as Dr. Young points out, there is no room here for human merit, for it is the Lord who gives us faith and preserves us faithful.

Dear ones, in Christ and in the fellowship of his body, the church, we believers have a strong city, for we belong to the eschatological city of God, the true Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. That is testified to in the passage from Hebrews that I read earlier in the service, and just again to read a couple verses from that passage, verses 22 through 24 of chapter 12, Hebrews chapter 12, it says this, reminds us of this glorious truth. But you, you believers, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

And as we are given that vision in Revelation chapter 21 of the new heavens and the new earth, we are told, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. We, brothers and sisters, as the church, we are the bride of Christ. We are the new Jerusalem. We are the heavenly Zion. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. for the former things have passed away. Beloved, since this is the case, let us be confident in the Lord, for he is trustworthy, and his power is perfected even in our weakness. In ourselves we are weak, but in the Lord we are strong. And because we have a strong city, therefore, we can enjoy this perfect peace. And that brings me to my next point, as we consider the perfect peace of the faithful, the perfect peace of the faithful. It says in verse three, you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. perfect peace. In the Hebrew, it is literally shalom, shalom. The term shalom, the Hebrew for peace, is repeated for emphasis. And it points out that this is not just ordinary peace or wholeness.

This is true peace, perfect peace. And what does that shalom indicate? Well, again, as one commentator puts it, wholeness and fullness of well-being, true repose in the sunshine of God’s favor belong to those whom God keeps. And who is it that enjoys this shalom, shalom, this perfect wholeness, this perfect peace? We are told it is those whose mind is stayed upon you because he trusts in you. This is a picture, this language, and it’s a good translation. We speak in our own language of having a mindset. So, for example, you might say of someone, well, this individual has a mindset for work, meaning they’re focused, they’re diligent, they’re constant, they’re reliable and persevering in their work. Or so-and-so has a mindset in their sports performances or what have you. Well, in Christ, we are to have a mindset that is set upon Christ.

This speaks to a firm, constant, steadfast faith that perseveres in clinging to the Lord and the Lord alone. See, true saving faith isn’t just making a decision for Christ. It is an ongoing personal trust in and clinging to Christ that results in this kind of mindset that is stayed upon Him. And after speaking of this mindset and the wonderful promise of this perfect peace, we then in verse 4 have, as it were, an evangelistic summons. The earth is summoned to trust in the Lord, Yahweh, forever. Why? For the Lord God is an everlasting rock. Here is an evangelistic call to trust in the Lord forever, along with the reason for that trust. Why are we to trust in the Lord, Yahweh, forever? For the Lord God, now notice those two words are probably in all capital letters in your English text.

That’s an indication that the Hebrew word for God The Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, is being used, but it’s not just Yahweh. For emphasis, it’s Yah-Yahweh. Lord God is literally in the Hebrew, Yah-Yahweh. And this God, this faithful covenant-making, covenant-keeping God, He is an everlasting rock. He is the rock of our salvation. Beloved in Christ, When it comes to objective, legal peace with God, when it comes to being in a state of peace with God, well, that comes through justifying faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Apostle Paul writes of in Romans 5, 1 and 2, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have a standing in grace. But we can only experience perfect peace, subjectively speaking, as our minds are stayed upon Christ. The Apostle Paul speaks of this kind of mindset in that familiar passage in Philippians chapter 4. where he says in verse four, rejoice in the Lord always.

Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious for anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And what will be the result? Verse seven, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Is your mind stayed upon Christ? Are you trusting Him as your everlasting rock, the everlasting rock of your salvation? May you rest in the Lord. May, by the grace of God, may your mind be set upon Christ, for He alone is our Savior. But finally, this passage that we are considering today closes with a warning, well, not just a warning, a prediction of the ultimate humiliation of the worldly city.

That’s the final point in your sermon outline. We have in verses 5 and 6 a prediction of the ultimate humiliation of the worldly city. Again, in our passage for today, Zion, the city of God, is contrasted with the worldly city, this city that is described as the lofty city, a city known for its arrogance, its pride, its loftiness, a city which trusts in its own resources, its own high walls and fortifications. As it says, In verses five and six, for he, the Lord, has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust. The foot tramples it. Which feet trample it? The feet that had once been trampled by this lofty, arrogant city of man, the persecuted poor among the people of God.

Their feet will trample down. the lofty city, the worldly city that the Lord brings down to the dust. The foot tramples at the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy. Here in this brief closing section of our passage for today, we see two kingdom principles at work, two kingdom dynamics at work. We’re talking about the kingdom of God, his reign of grace and salvation in Jesus Christ. Jesus spoke of this kingdom dynamic often when he says in the Gospels, for the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The ones who now in this present evil age are in rebellion against God and seem to be so strong and persecute the poor and the weak among the people of God. they will be brought low, and those who were their victims will be exalted.

And so we have two kingdom dynamics. First of all, the dynamic of the great reversal, where the godless proud are abased, and the godly poor are delivered, vindicated, and exalted. We also see here the great antithesis between the city of God and the city of man. We see an antithesis not only between the cities themselves, but between their ultimate destinies. As the city of man, the lofty city, the arrogant city, the city that exalts itself in its own autonomous reasoning, we see that city brought down, humbled to the dust, abased, humiliated. But we see the city of God, represented by the poor, exalted, vindicated, raised up. Beloved, as citizens of Zion, the city of God, let us persevere patiently on our pilgrim way, for God will ultimately judge our enemies and will ultimately vindicate us.

And so, dear ones, as we have considered today the truths of God’s covenant faithfulness and his total trustworthiness, these truths are seamless threads interwoven throughout the tapestry of redemptive history. Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is because our great and gracious God is faithful and trustworthy that we can join our hearts and our voices with the eschatological choir of chapter 26. In singing before the Lord, we have a strong city. And we’re strong not in ourselves, but we are strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. And it is because of our spiritual and saving union with Christ and our faith in him that we know true lasting peace, true shalom. And we can know this peace even as we continue to make our pilgrim journey as God’s pilgrim people through this weary fallen world to the celestial city of glory.

And praise God. We who by God’s grace trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as the everlasting rock of our salvation, we can be assured that we will arrive safely to our heavenly destination. For God, our Heavenly Father, through Christ our Lord, has set up salvation as walls and bulwarks. Hallelujah. To put it simply, we who are believers, we are secure in Christ, and we are headed for glory. And therefore, we can sing from our hearts, as we will do in just a moment, the words of that closing hymn, like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace. Beloved, may the grace and peace of Christ be with your spirit. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we have a strong city in Christ and in his body, the church. We ask, O Lord, that you would strengthen us with the power of your might, for in ourselves we are weak.

And we pray that you would grant us that shalom, that true sense of wholeness and well-being, for we are complete in Christ, we are whole in him. And so, Lord, Bring us your fullness, give us your grace, and strengthen us in our discipleship. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s rise and we’ll sing as our closing hymn, number 485, Like a River Glorious, 485.

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.

July 20, 2025
The Christian View of Death

About this sermon

Isaiah 25 promises that the Lord will swallow up death forever. The materialist view, that death is simply natural, fails: people are image bearers created to live, and death is abnormal because the wages of sin is death. Other popular views also fall short. Scripture teaches that at death believers’ souls are made perfect in holiness and pass into glory, while their bodies rest in the grave until the resurrection, as Shorter Catechism 37 summarizes. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, so Christians can live with hope under the shadow of death.

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Sermon transcript

Well, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We were in Isaiah chapter 25 on the Last Lord’s Day. We are in that chapter again, but we’ll be focusing in especially on verses 6-9, Isaiah chapter 25, verses 6-9. You’ll find that on page 696 in your Pew Bibles. Dear friends, this is the Word of God. Hear it with reverence and awe. On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. And the reproach of His people He will take away from all the earth.

For the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, Behold, this is our God. We have waited for Him that He might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for Him. Let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Friends let’s bow our heads and seek the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of the Word tonight. Our Lord and our God, gracious Heavenly Father, we ask that by Your Spirit You would enable us to receive that which the Spirit is revealing in this portion of Holy Scripture. And we pray, Lord, that this would be to our edification and encouragement. We would ask, Lord, that Jesus would be exalted in the assembly of Your saints tonight through the preaching of the Word.

And we would ask, Lord, that You would use this to strengthen us, to build us up in our most holy faith, and to give us hope, to bolster our hope even in the face of death. For we know that Jesus, Your Son, is the Lord of life, and He is our Lord. For it is in His name that we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. Title of my sermon this evening is The Christian View of Death. And there are four key words that I’d encourage you to listen for. The words death, sorrow, victory, and joy. Well let us face it, funerals and memorial services are sad occasions, but they can also be awkward events. They can be events where well-intentioned attendees, in an attempt to comfort the grieving, will sometimes make rather unhelpful or cliche-ish comments and statements.

And perhaps that has been true of you. I’m sure it has been true of me as well in those contexts. For example, many years ago I attended a funeral service for a close relative. And either before or after the service, I don’t remember exactly when because it was many years ago. But before or after the service, while we were mingling with the gathered crowd, I remember one attendee saying to me something like this. She said, We’ve just got to learn to accept that death is a natural part of life. I’m guessing that this individual was well-intentioned and was trying to be comforting. But in all honesty, her statement was really ill-timed and was not all that helpful. Plus, biblically and theologically speaking, her statement was flat-out wrong, as I hope to discuss in a little bit.

But I figured that starting a theological debate over her comment on such an occasion would probably be even less appropriate than her comment itself was. And so I restrained myself and I bit my tongue and didn’t say anything. Well dear ones, the truth is that there are probably few things that we human beings labor the most to put out of our minds and try the hardest to forget about than the reality of our own mortality. It’s not a comfortable subject. Who wants to think about their own eventual, inevitable death? The subject of death makes people uncomfortable, obviously. In fact, death is such an uncomfortable topic that we have invented numerous creative euphemisms that are designed to kind of blunt the force of the harsh and unwelcome reality known as death. And so when friends or loved ones in our lives die, we don’t say things like, well, Uncle Barney is dead.

Instead, we say things like Uncle Barney has, quote, passed away or Uncle Barney has departed this life or crossed over to the other side or one that I’ve heard is that so-and-so has met the sunset of his life. I’m not saying it’s wrong to use euphemisms to refer to death for the purpose of comfort. But again, why do we do that? Well, because death is a harsh reality and it makes us uncomfortable. Dear ones, in this fallen, sin-cursed world, all of us live our lives under the shadow of death. If our Lord Jesus does not return within our lifetimes, then we will all one day close our eyes in death. It is the great inevitability. And the best that we can do is to try to delay this unwelcome inevitability. And we can take steps to try to do that.

For example, we can seek to live safe lives. We can take common sense, everyday safety precautions. You know, when you’re on the road, you put your seatbelt on, you follow the rules of the road and so forth. You look both ways before you cross the street and so forth. And of course, we can seek to live healthy lifestyles that may extend our lives by eating healthy foods, getting regular exercise, learning to manage our stress levels, getting adequate sleep and so forth. But nevertheless, death is still inevitable. So while the subject of death is an understandably uncomfortable subject, we would be wise, brothers and sisters, to face this uncomfortable reality. We would be wise to stare the grim reaper in the eyes and to deal with the reality of our own mortality. Well, beloved, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we would do well to base our view of death not on what popular culture or popular sentiment has to say about death, but rather We should base our view of death on what God’s word, the Bible, has to say about this uncomfortable subject.

Our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, found within this section of Isaiah, which scholars call the Isaiah Apocalypse, offers us helpful and hopeful revelation of death’s ultimate eschatological defeat. And therefore, it helps to inform us in sound doctrine as we seek to embrace a biblically Christian view of death. But before we dive into the biblical Christian view of death, I think it might be helpful for us to review some defective views of death in the first place. Sometimes we better understand the truth by understanding what is not true, so we can contrast it. And so, let’s first of all consider defective views of death, which I am going to describe and seek briefly to debunk. Defective views of death described and debunked. As the awkward comment made at my relative’s funeral illustrates, there are some very wrong-headed and unbiblical ideas out there about death and about its significance.

And I want to describe three common, but biblically defective views of death and of the afterlife, and then debunk those views from our passage for this evening, as well as from other passages in the Word of God. And a very prominent and common view of death that is out there today is the materialist view. Now this is the view that matter is basically all that there is, hence materialist. We’re talking about philosophical materialism, the idea that the only thing that exists is matter, time, and energy, and therefore you don’t really have a soul. There’s no immaterial aspect to our humanity. We are all just physical beings with brain activity, and our sense of consciousness is simply that’s simply neurons firing off in your brain and so forth. And this of course is the view held by most atheists and agnostics and skeptics.

I think it was the view that was held by this attendee at my relative’s funeral service that made that comment. And again, it is a view that denies the existence as well as the immortality of the soul. So according to this view, when your organs shut down and when your brain waves cease, that’s it. You cease to exist. It’s simple as that, according to this view. I think I may have shared with you once in a previous church that I served, there was a ruling elder who recounted to me an experience he had with a cab driver, I believe it was in New York City. This elder was very zealous for the gospel, and as he was taking a cab in New York City, he tried to engage the cabbie in conversation and tried to share the gospel, and he recounted to me that the cab driver basically told him, when you’re dead, you’re dead.

That’s it. When you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s the philosophy. So you don’t have to be a philosopher to hold the materialist view, it’s a view that is held by everyday people in our culture today. And again, how do we refute this view? Well, very simply, because the Bible clearly refutes this view. Contrary to this view of naturalistic materialism, we human beings, we’re not merely animated meat bags with brain waves who just cease to exist once our bodies and our brains shut down. On the contrary, God’s word teaches us that we were created in the image of God, and in the words of our Westminster Confession of Faith in Chapter 4, Section 2, we were created with reasonable and immortal souls. We’re not just bodies and brain waves. We have souls as well. We are body souls, and souls that are able to reason, souls that were created to be immortal to live forever.

As Ecclesiastes Chapter 12, Verse 7 tells us, the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Now, the Book of Ecclesiastes is complicated to interpret, but what that passage seems clearly to recognize is that there are two aspects to our humanity. There is the part of us that returns to the dust, the physical part of us, but there is also the spirit or the soul, which upon death returns to the God who gave it. And furthermore, the idea, often presented by the materialist philosophy, that death is just a normal or natural part of life. Well, friends, on the contrary, our passage from Isaiah says that God will swallow up death as if death is not natural, not normal, because it isn’t. There is nothing normal or natural about human death.

And if you’ve been to a funeral service, or if you’ve been to a viewing, and you look at that individual who’s in the caskets, and you remember in the past having conversations with that individual and seeing that individual’s personality, but now there’s just the body remaining. You know in your heart of hearts, we all sense in our heart of hearts, this is not right. There’s something not right about this. We know that this is not normal. This is not the way God intended it to be. And so, death is not normal. In fact, in numerous places in scripture, death is compared to a famished monster that swallows up its victims. We consider this on the last Lord’s Day, as we considered verses 7 and 8 of our passage, but in terms of this imagery of death being a monster that swallows up its victims, we don’t need to go beyond Isaiah.

You can look back at chapter 5, verse 14, and as Isaiah chapter 5, verse 14, it says, Therefore Sheol, the state of the dead, the place of the dead, has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure, and the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitudes will go down, her revelers and he who exults in her. As we saw on the last Lord’s Day, here in our passage, the Lord promises that the great swallower, death itself, will one day itself be swallowed up. The great swallower will itself be swallowed up forever. But of course, all of this implies that death is not normal or natural. Instead, death is presented in scripture as our last and final enemy. The apostle Paul speaks of it that way. For example, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 25 and 26, just read that very briefly, 1 Corinthians 15, 25 and 26, it says this, I just need to get there.

For he must reign until he’s put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Death is an enemy. Death is not normal. The materialist philosophy is wrong. The materialist idea of death is wrong. Death is not a normal part of life. On the contrary, God’s Word teaches us that human death is not normal because we are God’s image bearers and we were not created to die. Instead, God’s Word teaches that human death is deeply abnormal. And why is it abnormal? It is abnormal because as Paul tells us in Romans 6, verse 23, the wages of sin is death. We human beings die because death is the wages of sin. So the materialist view of death is to be rejected clearly from the scriptures. But another popular view that is out there in our culture is the reincarnation view.

This is the view held by some eastern philosophies and religions such as Hinduism, and it basically teaches that death is the doorway to rebirth into a new earthly life, the same kind of life that we have. And by the way, keep this in mind. If you’re ever in gospel conversation with a Hindu and you ask them, you know, are you born again? Well, they’re likely to receive that or think of that differently than you and I do. And they’ll say, well, of course I’ve been born again. I’ve probably been born many, many times. I probably have many past lives. When we say you must be born again, they say, no, I don’t want to be born again. I want to escape this endless cycle of birth and death and rebirth by becoming one with the divine.

But this view again holds, this view holds that when we die, we simply come back again in another form. However, again, the language of our passage for this evening is not compatible with the reincarnation view. While our passage does not directly address that view, the language of death as the great swallower and as the great swallower that needs to be swallowed up in victory, that language shows that death is a decisive event. And furthermore, the Bible teaches very explicitly that we will die only once. As it says in Hebrews 9, 27, it is appointed unto man to die once, not two, three, five, 50 million times. It is appointed unto man to die once, and after that comes the judgment. So we reject the materialist view. We reject the reincarnation view. And another view that I want to address before we see the proper view as it is explained in our passage and throughout the Word of God is the universal salvation view.

This is a view that has more to do with what happens after death, but it is also known as universalism. This view teaches that sooner or later everyone will ultimately be saved. Some versions of universalism teach that even the devil himself will one day be finally saved and redeemed. In this view, death will ultimately lead to eternal salvation sooner or later for everyone, although there are different versions of universalism out there. It seems to me, my friends, that the ultimate impact of this view of universalism is to imply that death, well, because everyone’s ultimately going to be saved, death is maybe a big deal, but maybe not as big a deal as we have tended to make it, especially those of us who believe that there’s heaven and hell after death. There’s one or two of those two options.

I mention this view in particular because it would appear that so-called Christian universalism seems to be on the rise with its popularity within the Christian world today. However, once again, the scriptures are very clear in presenting death as a fearful reality. It’s a big deal. It’s a fearful reality not only because it is the wages of sin, but also because hell is real. God’s word indicates that all who die apart from Christ and in a state of unbelief and impenitence are destined for hell. Furthermore, there are no indications in the scriptures of a so-called second chance to repent after death. We’ve considered just a few of probably what are many defective and unbiblical views of death. What then is the Christian view of death? Let’s consider what our passage has to say that informs a Christian understanding of death.

We learn in this passage, for example, that for the believer, Christ has swallowed up death in victory. In verse 6, it says this, on this mountain, the Lord, Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine, well refined. As we considered on the last Lord’s Day, this imagery of the mountain of the Lord, that’s a figure that points to the church. That’s speaking of God’s covenant people. The mountain, Mount Zion, is a figure for the church. Here the Lord, we are told, spreads the feast of salvation for all of the nations of mankind. This anticipates an age of redemptive history when the gospel will go out to all of humanity. That is, of course, describing this present new covenant age, this messianic era.

In this age, the church and the Great Commission spreads the gospel throughout the world. It makes known that the feast of salvation has been spread in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the gospel. Of course, this feast of salvation has only been made possible by the saving work of Christ. We proclaim it, we declare it in the church throughout the world. And then verse 7, it says, and he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He speaks here of a covering, of a veil, and of this veil and covering that is cast over the peoples and that this will be swallowed up by God. Now what is this covering, this veil referring to? Well probably, as I mentioned on the last Lord’s Day, probably this is an allusion to the veil that was worn by those who were mourning over death.

So this is probably a picture of the mourning that results from death. Whenever there is death, there is sadness, there is grief, there is mourning, there is this covering, this veil that death brings. But then we read the good news in verse 8, he will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth and to underscore this promise, it says, for the Lord has spoken. In other words, you can bank on it. This is a certainty. Death the great swallower will be swallowed up forever. While death is indeed inevitable, unwelcome, and fearful, yet for us believers in Christ, death will not have the final say. For death itself will be swallowed up in victory. Death has been decisively defeated.

It has been defeated through the saving work of Christ. We know that this was all accomplished by the death and resurrection of Christ who by his atoning death on the cross has forever swallowed up and conquered death and whose resurrection from the dead demonstrates that for those who know him as Savior, death will not have the final word. For we will be raised incorruptible even as our Savior has been. We also notice here in having a Christian view of death, we can have the comfort of knowing that the sorrow brought on by death will be wiped away. As it says, he will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. He will wipe away tears from all faces, you know, in tragic circumstances, especially when it comes to a sudden or tragic or unexpected death of a loved one or a friend or a neighbor or what have you.

There are many tears and the grief can be overwhelming and some who are processing and going through that grief may wonder, will it ever end? Will the tears ever stop flowing? Will there ever be an end to this grief? God’s word promises that there will be one day. Death brings sadness and mourning for those who have been left behind, but on that final day all causes for mourning will be removed. There will be no more sorrow and death itself will be swallowed up in victory forever. So take comfort if you or someone you know is in the process of grieving and feels like this grief is overwhelming and will never end. Christ promises, the word of God promises, it will end for he will one day wipe away all tears. But what about the intermediate state?

This leads to the question, okay, we’re dealing with death, we’re dealing with the grief that death causes. We know that death has been swallowed up in victory by Christ and that final victory will be manifest when Christ, it will be fully manifested and consummated when Christ returns in glory at the end of this age. But in the meantime, what happens to us believers after we die? What happens to us between the time of our death and the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead? What happens in that intermediate stage, that intermediate period? Now, some folks believe that what happens to the Christian during that time is what’s called soul sleep, that the soul just kind of is unconscious and that the next thing that you will be conscious of will be awakening on the day of resurrection.

But the scriptures indicate that our life goes on, the soul goes on after death and experiences a consciousness after death. We see that, for example, clearly taught and implied in the passage I read earlier in the Let’s turn again to 2 Corinthians 5 and look at verses 6 through 9. Second Corinthians 5, verses 6 through 9, it says this, So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. You notice the contrast he makes there. To be at home in the body is to be away from the Lord, away from the glorious heavenly throne room presence of the Lord, but to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

It’s based on passages such as this one that are the teaching of our shorter catechism in question 37, makes its statement, and again, I know we read this earlier in the service, but I’d invite you again to turn to shorter catechism question and answer 37 on page 970 where we read this, it says, What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death? The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory. Remember what Jesus said to the thief on the cross who repented, who by sovereign grace turned to him. Jesus said, well, you’re going to sleep for a while, you’re going to undergo soul sleep for a while and then you’ll be raised at the final day. No, Jesus says, today you will be with me in paradise.

The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory and their bodies being still united to Christ do rest in their graves till the resurrection. Hallelujah. That is what we have to look forward to. What happens at death is that the body and the soul are separated. The soul is, if you will, ripped away from the body, but for the believer, the soul goes immediately into the presence of the savior and dwells in unimaginable light and glory and blessedness from that point on, awaiting the day of final resurrection. Beloved, death is a fearful thing because for those of us who have never died, it is the great unknown. Only one man who has died has come back. Now, I know there have been many documented near-death experiences and then people are revived, you know, the heart stops and they have to be revived and brought back and sometimes they have near-death experiences.

And there’s debate about at what point are you really dead and not coming back. Well, again, there’s debate about that. But once death has occurred, the soul passes immediately to be with the Lord. But we don’t know what that experience is like because we’ve never been there. But one day we will, should our Lord tarry in returning. Based on what God’s word has revealed to us, if we are in Christ, then we have no ultimate reason to fear death because for us believers, death is simply the portal into a better, higher life, into eternal life in the presence of our resurrected savior. Beloved in Christ, may this truth comfort your soul even in the face of death. But in view of the fact that we each and every one of us live our daily lives under the shadow of death, how do we live with joy given that reality?

Let’s consider finally, briefly, living with joy under the shadow of death. First of all, in order to live in this present life with joy under the knowledge that every day that passes by is a day closer to the day when you close your eyes in death, living with joy requires coming to the feast of salvation. The feast of salvation that is spoken of in verse 6, the feast of salvation that Christ has spread in the gospel. You cannot live with joy under the shadow of death if you have not received the salvation that is found through faith in Jesus Christ, the resurrected Lord of life. So if you would have joy and peace as well as forgiveness and eternal salvation and live with confidence even under the shadow of death, may God in his grace grant you to come to Christ and rest in him for your salvation.

Believer also live with confidence that death is a defeated enemy. Remember that Christ conquered death and you are united to Christ. So in him, you are more than a conqueror through him who loved you and you will be raised incorruptible on that final day. But understand as well, believer, that for us believers, death is the doorway into the presence of our Savior and it is also the next step toward that final eschatological joy of the new creation, that joy that we will experience when we are raised from the dead in our glorified bodies to live with the Lord forever. And that joy is depicted in verse 9 where it says, it will be said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord.

We have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. Indeed, brothers and sisters, let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. Amen. Let’s pray. Gracious Lord and Father in heaven, the subject of death is a difficult and troubling subject. It is uncomfortable. It is unwelcome. And yet we know that it is a reality that we must face. But we also know, Lord, that you have given us hope, everlasting hope in the gospel, not merely a wish, but a sure and certain confidence that if we believe in Christ, if he is our Savior, that we have not only been given the gift of eternal life, but that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So Heavenly Father, give us comfort from these truths that we’ve considered tonight and give us, especially, grant us comfort from the knowledge that Christ, in rising from the dead, has conquered sin and death and hell and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people’s said, amen. Let’s close our time of worship this evening. We’ll rise and we’ll sing together. Number 390, Christ is coming, 390.

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July 13, 2025
Death Swallowed Up Forever

About this sermon

Isaiah 25 opens with praise: “O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you,” for he has done wonderful things and been a stronghold to the poor and needy. He protects his people from ultimate spiritual harm, though not from every sorrow in this fallen world. On his mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, and he will swallow up death forever and wipe away tears from all faces. On that final day his people will say, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.”

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Sermon transcript

Please remain standing dear friends for the reading of God’s word as we continue our consideration of the book of the prophet Isaiah. Tonight we consider Isaiah chapter 25 and you’ll find that on page 696 in your Pew Bibles. I’m going to begin reading just a few verses before the start of chapter 25 so I’ll be reading from chapter 24 verse 21 through the end of chapter 25. So dear friends this is the word of God let us hear it with reverence and awe. Isaiah 24 beginning at verse 21. On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven and the kings of the earth on the earth. They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit. They will be shut up in a prison and after many days they will be punished.

Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed for the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and his glory will be before his elders. Oh Lord you are my God I will exalt you I will praise your name for you have done wonderful things plans formed of old faithful and sure for you have made the city a heap the fortified city a ruin the foreigners palace is a city no more it will never be rebuilt therefore strong peoples will glorify you cities of ruthless nations will fear you for you have been a stronghold to the poor a stronghold to the needy in his distress a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall like heat in a dry place you subdue the noise of the foreigners as heat by the shade of a cloud so the song of the ruthless is put down on this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food a feast of well-aged wine of rich food full of marrow of aged wine well refined and he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples the veil that is spread over all nations he will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth for the Lord has spoken it will be said on that day behold this is our God we have waited for him that he might save us this is the Lord we have waited for him let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation for the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain and Moab shall be trampled down in his place as straw is trampled down in a dunghill and he will spread out his hands in the midst of it as a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim but the Lord will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill of his hands and the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down lay low and cast to the ground to the dust dear friends the grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God endures forever let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of his word Lord God Almighty Heavenly Father we thank you that you are the Lord who gives life the Lord of life we thank you that we have been given the gift of eternal life in your son our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we pray Heavenly Father that as we contemplate and consider the truths that the spirit is declaring to us in this passage of your God-breathed word we pray that by your spirit you would cause the seed of your word to find a lodging place in our hearts to indeed take root in our hearts and bear much spiritual fruit in our lives and once again that we ask that you would grant to me your unworthy servant the grace to declare and speak forth your word with clarity and power Lord Jesus by your spirit be present in the proclamation of your word may it go forth and accomplish all that which you ordain for it to accomplish for your glory and for the good of your saints we pray these things in your name and all of God’s people said man you may be seated this evening in the sermon is entitled death swallowed up forever and if you happen to have one of the sermon outlines I know we ran out of them but there are four key words to be listening for in my sermon today those are this evening the words Thanksgiving feast death and salvation well dear friends don’t you find it to be the case that it is really really hard to wait for something that you are eagerly looking forward to I know some of the young people probably very much looked forward to the end of the school year and the coming of summer vacation and now it’s finally here right or maybe in terms of looking forward to something special maybe it’s a special family vacation that you have been planning for a long time or maybe an upcoming concert featuring your favorite musicians or maybe a high-stakes sporting event that you’ve been looking forward to with excitement or perhaps a long anticipated reunion with an old friend or any number of other things that you might look forward to I remember how hard it was for me as a young child to wait for Christmas Day to arrive as November rolled into December I would start to count down the days until Christmas Day and those days leading up to Christmas Day they seem to be so long they seem to just go on forever but when December 25th would finally arrive my young heart would flutter with great excitement at least it would flutter with excitement until later in the day after I had gotten tired of playing with my new toys and started to feel the letdown of another Christmas Day come and gone well my brothers and sisters in Christ what is even more difficult for those of us who are believers than waiting for some eagerly anticipated earthly event is waiting for the consummation of our eternal salvation if Christ is your Savior then at least at a deep level at least at some level you long for the consummation of your eternal salvation you are in Christ you already have tasted the goodness of the Lord you’ve known the blessing of sins forgiven you’ve known the blessings of being adopted as a child of God the spirit of adoption abides in you by which you cry Abba Father and yet while you are thankful for the gifts and blessings of this life there is an emptiness there is a longing for that which is promised that which is to come and though we do not know that day when our Lord Jesus Christ will return in glory no man knows the day or the hour nevertheless we know that it is coming and we believers eagerly wait for that day and when that day finally arrives there will be great rejoicing the prophet Isaiah describes this kind of rejoicing in verse 9 of our passage for tonight it says and it will be said on that day behold this is our God we have waited for him that he might save us this is the Lord we have waited for him let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation and you know unlike the anticlimactic letdown that I experienced as a child at the end of Christmas Day when Jesus returns and we receive the final installment of our eternal salvation in our glorification there will be no anticlimactic letdown then after all at that time death will be swallowed up forever all tears will be wiped away and our joy in the Lord will be eternal unfading unmitigated without end the joys of this life come to an end and are mixed often with sorrows but the joy of the world to come will never end for our God is the ever-blessed God and in union with him and in the consummation of our salvation we will enjoy the beatific vision we will indeed be ever blessed in the ever-blessed one now friends our passage for this Lord’s Day evening continues a section of Isaiah that began back in chapter 24 and which extends through chapter 27 and in fact this these chapters this section of Isaiah running from chapters 24 through 27 this section is often designated by Bible scholars as the Isaiah apocalypse and it’s described that way by many scholars because the language of this passage sort of resembles the kind of eschatological language that is characteristic of eschatological literature or I should say apocalyptic literature you know portions of scripture like the book of Daniel the book of Revelation and so forth you kind of get hints of that kind of language here in these these this portion of the book of Isaiah in these chapters as we saw in the last Lord’s Day in these chapters the focus turns from the local and near term to the cosmic and remote future and chapter 25 begins powerfully it begins with a burst of praise resembling the Psalms here Isaiah is acting like a psalmist if you will and Isaiah here recounts Thanksgiving for Yahweh’s judgment and salvation and that’s the first point on your sermon outline and as we consider the opening section of this chapter verses one through five we consider Thanksgiving for Yahweh’s judgment and salvation again this chapter opens with these glorious words oh Lord oh Yahweh the the word in the Hebrew again is the word for God the name for God here is Yahweh the covenant name of God the name that has in view the Lord as the covenant redeemer and deliverer of his people oh Lord you are my God he doesn’t just say you are our God although that is true too he says you are my God I will exalt you I will praise your name for you have done wonderful things plans formed of old faithful and sure now we need to ask ourselves who is speaking this praise is do these words represent the language of Isaiah himself or is Isaiah depicting the praise of the elders mentioned back at the end of of chapter 24 in verse verse 23 where talks about the moon will be confounded and the sun is shamed for the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and his glory will be before the elders and then in the beginning of chapter 25 is Isaiah intending to depict the praise of these elders that are mentioned here well perhaps or perhaps Isaiah is simply adding his own praise but whatever the case may be what we learn here from this language is that Yahweh the sovereign covenant lord and deliverer he may be known on a personal individual basis as one commentator puts it though worldwide in scope redemption is personal and we can indeed enjoy the communion with the Lord not just corporately although we do indeed enjoy that by faith and together as God’s covenant people but we can enjoy personal communion by faith with the Lord and we can say along with Isaiah here oh Lord you are my God I will exalt you I will praise your name and what is the reason for Isaiah’s praise here in this chapter well he gives the reason at the end of verse one for you have done wonderful things plans formed of old faithful and sure you have done wonderful things indeed our Lord and our God has done many mighty and wonderful things things that inspire wonder and awe we think of his mighty works of creation we think of his mighty works of providence but probably what is in view here as Isaiah writes here under the spirit’s inspiration about these wonderful things that the Lord has done in the context these wonderful things are probably probably have in view his mighty acts of salvation and deliverance such as for example the Exodus event and of course we know as believers living in this new covenant era that the ultimate wonderful works wonderful things that God has done are the things concerning his son the Lord Jesus Christ incarnation his miracles and especially his atoning death and glorious resurrection from the dead and we read that these mighty acts these wonderful wonderful things which encompass both judgment and salvation these wonderful things were decreed from of old it says plans formed of old faithful and sure and that’s significance you see you see we are creatures of time and we are bound by time God is beyond time he transcends time space and matter and not only is he transcendent over time he is sovereign over all things and he causes all things to work out in accordance with his sovereign will and decree and the language here of this verse uh certainly supports that that truth of the absolute sovereignty of God so from our viewpoint as creatures of earth from our viewpoint the future can at times be uncertain but the future was never uncertain from God’s perspective because his plans of old will come to pass and that is a great comfort to the people of God especially those who would have originally heard the judgment oracles declared by Isaiah for they are assured that God has his plan and he’s working it out and he’s got this he’s got this you’ve done wonderful things plans formed of old faithful ensure and then he mentions one of those wonderful things in verse two for you have made the city a heap the fortified city a ruin the foreigners palace is a city no more it will never be rebuilt the people of God in Old Testament times were often assaulted they were often provoked by and persecuted by and attacked by foreign Gentile armies that sought to destroy them and those armies though were used by God to chasten his people but the Lord reassures his people that the Lord will indeed judge those foreign armies and he has made the city a heap a fortified city a ruin and what will be the result of that in the case of those that had afflicted and persecuted and attacked God’s people well it says in verse three there’s a hopeful note here in verse three therefore strong peoples will glorify you the strong peoples who had threatened and had been such a source of of misery for God’s people those strong peoples and ruthless nations would be turned to the Lord there would be an elect remnant even from among the nations which had opposed God’s people therefore strong peoples will glorify you cities of ruthless nations will fear you former Gentile enemies in other words will be humbled and converted resulting in their religious devotion to the Lord and that’s clearly what the language in this verse points to these strong peoples these ruthless nations will come to glorify and fear the Lord praise be to God the Lord is the one who is able to turn enemies into his friends and he does so through the gospel and by the omnipotent call the omnipotent power of the spirit through the effectual call of the gospel effectual call of his elect and then in verses four and five Isaiah uses some skillful metaphors and similes he says this of the Lord for you have been a stronghold to the poor a stronghold to the needy in his distress a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall like heat in a dry place you subdue the noise of the foreigners as heat by the shade of a cloud so the song of the ruthless is put down this is a reassurance to the people of God that though the Lord would use foreign nations to chase them and and correct them and discipline them nevertheless the Lord is the stronghold the refuge of his people again here notice how Isaiah’s skillful use of metaphors and similes has the effect of evoking powerful images in the mind as well as powerful emotions in the heart for example Yahweh the Lord he is described here as one who has been a stronghold and a shelter and a shade toward his people in distress what is the purpose of a stronghold the purpose of a stronghold is protection the Lord my friends is our protector that doesn’t mean that he protects us from suffering the effects of this fallen world but he ultimately protects us from ultimate spiritual harm he keeps us he is our stronghold he is our shelter he is our refuge and he is a shade he protects us from the heat that would that would wear us down the noisy threats of the ruthless enemies of God’s people are compared to a storm against a wall like heat in a dry place but the Lord sends a cloud to protect his people from that heat the assurance we have here is that the Lord will indeed subdue the threats of the foreign enemies of his people and he will be a shade for his people against the heat of their threats as we are told in verse five beloved this passage of God’s word presents the Lord as a stronghold a shelter a shade he beloved he is our protector he is our refuge he is the one in whom we can repose our entire trust and confidence I’m reminded of that old hymn that tells us Jesus is a rock in a weary land a shelter in the time of storm dear listener is Jesus Christ your shelter in the time of storm a storm is coming the storm of God’s holy wrath and judgment against sin that storm will come on the final judgment day and there’s no refuge in your works no refuge in your worthiness or your obedience or your even your church going there’s no refuge in these things valuable though they may be your only refuge can be found in the Lord Jesus Christ in his merit and sacrifice alone have you found refuge in Jesus Christ have you reposed your confidence in him can you say of the Lord he is my stronghold he is my shelter he is my shade he is my rock my refuge well the Lord promises here and we have a hint at it in verse three that even strong peoples will come to glorify him there will be an elect remnant even from among former gentile oppressors there will be those from the ruthless nations who will come to fear the Lord and that brings us to the next section of this chapter in verses six through eight where we read of the feast of salvation and the swallowing up of death the feast of salvation and the swallowing up of death in verse six Isaiah writes on this mountain the Lord Yahweh of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food a feast of well-aged wine of rich food full of marrow of aged wine well refined and he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples the veil that is spread over all nations now verse six mentions this mountain which mountain is he talking about do you think in the context of this passage what mountain could he be talking about well again we need to remember brothers and sisters that the chapter and verse divisions of scripture are not inspired they were added later to help guide our way through the scriptures and what’s the most recent mount mountain that’s been mentioned by Isaiah well if you go back to the end of chapter 24 again which is why I read this in conjunction or in connection with our passage for tonight we read in in chapter 24 verse 23 the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and his glory will be before the elders so in verse six this mountain must be a reference to Mount Zion and what does Mount Zion represent well it represents the people of God the covenant people of God what we would describe today as the church and so the implication is that having taken taken up his throne his reign on Mount Zion Yahweh provides a feast like an ancient king at his coronation would provide a feast for his subjects so Yahweh the Lord taking up his reign among his people his reign of grace and salvation he provides a feast and what is this feast a feast of well this is a feast of salvation and notice it’s not just a feast limited in scope to God’s ancient covenant people this feast of salvation will be we are told for all peoples which would even include the returning prodigals from among the strong peoples and ruthless nations mentioned back in verse three this is the feast of salvation of course that has been made possible by the saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ and this feast has been spread and continues to be spread how is this feast of salvation spread on Mount Zion it is spread through the gospel the good news of salvation through the obedient life atoning death and glorious resurrection of Christ this salvation that is received by God’s sovereign grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone apart from works of the law and it is salvation that is proclaimed and declared on Mount Zion declared by the church this message has been entrusted to God’s covenant people the church and it is proclaimed through the mouthpiece through a Mount Zion’s mouthpieces her preachers as we’re told in Romans 10 15 how can they preach unless they are sent so there is a rich feast the feast of salvation spread for for sinners and it’s spread for all peoples it’s not just for the Jews it’s not just for a particular ethnic group it’s for peoples all over the world peoples redeemed from every tribe and tongue and language and nation and why is this this redemption this feast of salvation necessary well look at verse seven he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples the veil that is spread over all nations he mentions a covering he mentions a veil and it mentions God swallowing up it mentions this this being swallowed up on Mount Zion what is this covering well some have suggested that this refers to the spiritual blindness of the Gentiles which had led them to worship false gods to worship idols but I think more likely in the context of this passage the veil that is spread over all peoples is an allusion to the veil worn in those days by those who were mourning at the death of someone in the light of the context of this passage this makes more sense it makes more sense to understand this covering as a picture of the mourning that results from death we’ve been reading about a lot of death recently with this horrible flood in Texas and and even children being victims of that flood and there is no doubt great mourning that is taking place down there but there’s good news in the gospel for what does it say in verse eight he will swallow up death forever verse eight he will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of his people he will take away from the earth and then to to emphasize the certainty of this it says for the Lord has spoken you can rely on the Lord’s word he has spoken and we know brothers and sisters as we live after the coming of Christ and after his resurrection from the dead we know that this word has been fulfilled at least in its initial phase and it will ultimately be fulfilled in our glorifications in our glorification he will swallow up death forever you know the scriptures often depict death and shale which is the this the place of the dead as a famished monster that swallows up its victims and just to give you a few examples of this if you’re a bible reader you know this to be the case but let’s just look at a few examples where death is depicted as a monster that swallows up look at isaiah 5 verse 14 in isaiah 5 verse 14 isaiah says this therefore sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure and the nobility of jerusalem and her multitude will go down her revelers and he who exalts in her sheol the place of the dead has enlarged its appetite death is coming and it will be enlarged many will be swallowed up by death or consider going outside of isaiah let’s go to psalm 49 verse 14 psalm 49 verse 14 is another passage where death is depicted as a great monster that swallows up its victims psalm 49 verse 14 it says this like sheep they are appointed for shale death shall be their shepherd and the upright shall rule over them in the morning their form shall be consumed in shale with no place to dwell and as an example of this imagery in the wisdom literature proverbs 1 verses 11 and 12 depicts it the same way proverbs 1 verses 11 and 12 it says if they say come with us let us lie and wait for blood let us ambush the innocent without reason like shale let us do what let us swallow them alive the whole and whole like those who go down to the pit and so forth so you see that the death is the great swallower it’s a great monster who swallows its victims and here’s the thing in this passage the lord promises that the great swallower death itself will one day itself be swallowed up in victory think about it the great swallower will itself one day be swallowed up forever now of course we now know living as we do in these new covenant times we now know that this was accomplished decisively by the atoning death and resurrection of christ who by his atoning death on the cross of calvary has forever swallowed up and conquered death and whose resurrection from the dead demonstrates that for those who know him as savior death will not have the final word for we will be raised incorruptible even as our savior has been raised incorruptible never to die again and what will be the result of this well it says the lord god will wipe away tears from all faces death causes mourning death brings forth tears we’ve all had the experience or many of us have most of us i imagine have had the experience of deeply grieving over the loss of loved ones death results in mourning and as it should because death is the great enemy death is not just a natural part of life death is the wages of sin the wages of sin is death but the free gift of god is eternal life in christ jesus our lord death results in mourning which results in tears but on the final day all cause for mourning will be removed in the case of those who are in christ for death itself will be swallowed up in victory as you contemplate and consider this imagery that isaiah uses here in this passage keep that in mind as we turn to the language of revelation seven verses 13 through 17 revelation chapter seven verses 13 through 17 where i think under the spirit’s inspiration john the apostle is influenced by the language of isaiah it says this then one of the elders addressed me saying who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come i said to him sir you know and he said to me these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb therefore they are before the throne of god and serve him day and night in his temple and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence they shall hunger no more neither thirst anymore the sun shall not strike them nor any scorching heat for the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to the springs of living water and god will wipe away every tear from their eyes believer be comforted for one day the great swallower of death will be swallowed up forever jesus made that certain by his death and resurrection and so what will that lead to well that will lead to in the end the arrival of god’s long-awaited salvation which we read of in the closing section of this chapter in verses nine through 12 again it says in verse nine it will be said on that day behold this is our god we have waited for him that he might save us this is the lord we have waited for him let us be glad and rejoice in his glad and rejoice in his salvation there we have that terminology again on that day which should raise the question what day is he talking about well brothers and sisters in christ ultimately this is a reference to the eschatological final day the ultimate day of the lord not just a day of the lord but the day of the lord the day when christ our savior will return in glory raise the dead judge humanity and usher in the eternal state the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells at long last those who have waited for the final consummation of god’s salvation will experience what they have been waiting for for so long what they have been longing for for so many ages and they will rejoice with unimaginable joy notice how this verse just pulsates throbs with excitement and joy behold behold this is our god we have waited for him that he might save us this is the one we’ve confessed this is the one we’ve waited for this is the one we’ve longed for this is the one that we have followed by faith and now faith has given way to sight this is the lord we have waited for him let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation and there will be no let down from that rejoicing for it will be an everlasting rejoicing but then what about the enemies of god’s people in this present age as represented for in this passage by moab the moabites were were often enemies of god’s people it says in verse 10 for the hand of the lord will rest on this mountain the hand of god’s blessing will rest on mount zion on his church his people his covenant people and moab representing the enemies of god moab shall be trampled down in his place as straw is trampled down in the dung hill what a picture that is huh on the one hand god’s hand representing his power his present his hand of blessing rests on his people on mount zion but his feet trampled down his sworn enemies in a dung hill yalways hand of blessing would rest upon mount zion but the great enemies of god and his people as represented by israel’s rival moab will be trampled down in judgment and shame under his feet as straw is trampled down in a dung hill proud moab will be humbled and destroyed but the lord’s people who had been humbled and destroyed by the likes of moab god’s people who had suffered under their hand would be blessed and exalted by the hand of their lord but how does moab respond to this judgment does moab humble itself no look at verse 11 he will spread out his hands in the midst of it as a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim it’s like he’s trying to swim in a dung hill but the lord will lay his pompous pride together with the skill of his hand moab was proud moab trusted in its own ingenuity its own works its own power and the moabs it’s as if moab is saying oh okay this is a problem but i can fix it let me spread out my hands and do my thing just as many sinners today try to say well yeah okay i’m a sinner i need i need to be saved but i can handle it i’ll pick myself up by my own bootstraps but no the lord humbles the self-righteous and the proud the lord will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill of his hand and what about the high fortifications of his walls oh moab was known for its high and mighty walls impregnable walls that they trusted in for their military might but though moab had trusted in the high fortifications of its walls even those walls would offer them no protection from the judgment of the lord and so friends as we wrap up our time in the word this evening a couple thoughts i want to leave you with first of all believer believer as you contemplate what verse 9 teaches think about this when you are finally in glory and you look back on all of the trials and sufferings and all of the waiting that involves this present life living in this present evil age when you look back from the perspective of eternity on this present life you will know then that your final salvation was worth the wait so often god’s people are depicted in scripture as crying out how oh lord how long and the saints cry out come lord jesus come and yet he still delays and we think how long must this go on but when we are in glory we will look back on this present life and all of its trials all of its sufferings all of its mourning and grief as but momentary light afflictions in view of the eternal weight of glory that is stored up for us so when we are tempted to grow weary and impatient with our present lot let us remind ourselves brothers and sisters that it will be worth the wait and let us resolve once again to wait patiently upon the lord but dear listener also realize that there are only two ultimate destinies you’re either headed for the feast of salvation spread in the gospel of christ or you’re headed for the dung hill of damnation like moab is will be oh dear listener the feast of salvation has been spread by the lord jesus christ and the good news is that there is no charge to partake of this feast you don’t have to pay an entry fee to go to the feast it’s free it’s available for all who through sovereign grace come it’s available and it’s free because because jesus paid it all when he died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin so come to the feast lest you like moab be end up laid low and cast into the dung hill of damnation come to the feast dear sinner embrace christ as he is offered to you in the gospel and all of god’s people said amen let’s pray heavenly father we thank you lord god that you through christ have swallowed up death the great swallower the death has been swallowed up in victory the death will not have the final say and therefore we can live with confidence and we can face death with confidence knowing that we will be raised on that final day and that we will join our voices with the voices that cry out behold this is our god we have waited for him that he might save us this is the lord we have waited for him let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation we rejoice in you lord and may that joy resonate with us and sustain us in the week ahead and throughout our journey here in this life in jesus name we pray and all of god’s people said amen as we close our time this evening let’s rise and we’ll sing as our closing hymn 365 vine be the glory 365

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July 6, 2025
Worldwide Praise and Cosmic Judgment

About this sermon

Isaiah hears songs of praise from the ends of the earth, as the godly remnant gives glory to the Righteous One. Yet he cries, “I waste away, woe is me!” because treachery still abounds. Terror, pit, and snare await the inhabitants of the earth; there is no escape from God’s judgment, and the earth staggers like a drunkard under its transgression. The Lord will punish the powers of heaven and the kings of the earth, and the sun and moon will be ashamed, for the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion. Now is the time to flee to Christ.

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Sermon transcript

Friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s holy word. We continue our consideration of Isaiah chapter 24, and this morning we’re going to focus on verses 14 through 23, although I’m going to begin reading at verse 13, because verse 13 is sort of a transitional verse that leads us to the subject that is covered in verse 14. So let us hear God’s holy word. You’ll find this on page 695 in your pew Bible, Isaiah 24, and I’ll read verses 13 through 23. For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth, among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done. They lift up their voices, and they sing for joy over the majesty of the Lord, they shout from the west. Therefore in the east, give glory to the Lord.

In the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the righteous one. But I say, I waste away, I waste away, woe is me! For the traders have betrayed, with betrayal the traders have betrayed. Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble. The earth is utterly broken. The earth is split apart. The earth is violently shaken. The earth staggers like a drunken man. It sways like a hut.

Its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls and will not rise again. On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven, and the kings of the earth on the earth. They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit. They will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished. Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed. For the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and his glory will be before his elders. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let s pray for the Lord to bless the proclamation of his word. Heavenly Father, we would ask that by your spirit you would open our minds and our hearts, that we might behold wondrous things from your word.

We pray, O God, that the soil of our hearts would be broken up, that it might receive the seed of your word, and that by your spirit s blessing your word would bear much spiritual fruit in our lives. spiritual fruit unto conversion and sanctification and for your glory. Lord, once again we ask that you would set a guard over my lips, that I might speak only that which is faithful to your word. We pray these things in Jesus name and all of God s people said, Amen. You may be seated. Once again, there are sermon outlines available for you in the foyer. If you haven t grabbed one, you re welcome to grab one. And you ll notice if you re following along in your sermon outline that there are five words that I would encourage especially the young people to be listening for in my sermon today, and those words are praise, remnant, terror, judgment, and reign.

Well, my God would never punish anyone for their And he certainly would never doom anyone to suffer everlasting punishment in hell, no matter how evil they might have been during their lifetime. After all, my God is a loving God. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, have you ever heard anyone say something like that in a conversation? Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with someone with whom you re trying to share the Gospel who has raised this type of objection to the Bible’s teaching about God s righteous judgment and holy wrath against human sin and rebellion? My suspicion is that many of us have probably heard this very objection, perhaps not in those exact words, but we ve heard these kinds of objections raised against God s sovereign holy wrath against sin, and thus our desperate need as sinners for Christ s saving atonement.

After all, the message of the cross is still an offense today to those who are perishing, just as it has always been an offense to those who are perishing in their sins. But let’s be honest, friends. When we think about what God is actually like in terms of his personal divine character qualities, what the theologians like to call his attributes, when we think about God s attributes, we all have a tendency to focus on those attributes of God and to gravitate towards those attributes of God with which we most resonate in our own souls. So as an example of this, imagine that you are a Christian who is suffering grave injustice and persecution to such believers, and there are many of them throughout the world today, to such believers, the attribute of God s justice and holiness and righteousness would be a great comfort in such circumstances, as those who suffer persecution are assured that one day God is going to right all wrong, all injustices will be done away with, and the Lord will vindicate his suffering people.

On the other hand, I would imagine many of us, myself included, tend to gravitate towards attributes of God such as his grace and his love and his mercy. One of the reasons I personally gravitate towards those attributes of God, not that I deny the other ones, but I know that in my heart of hearts I’m just a dirty rotten sinner, and my only hope of salvation is in the grace and mercy of God, that grace and mercy that sent Jesus to die for my sins and to rise again, that I might have the gift of eternal life. And so we all tend to gravitate towards those attributes of God that we resonate with the most, but the other, the opposite is also true. On the other hand, we likewise have a tendency to either ignore or downplay or sideline or even outright deny those attributes of God which we find to be uncomfortable or confusing.

Think, for example, of the attribute of God’s absolute sovereignty. Many Christians are willing, of course, to recognize God’s general sovereignty, but when it comes to God’s absolute sovereignty over everything, that’s confusing to many Christians. How do we fit that together with what the Bible teaches about human responsibility? And so there’s a tendency to kind of downplay such attributes. Now certainly the word of God is filled to the brim with comforting truths about our glorious triune God. But friends, the Bible also contains uncomfortable truths, truths that prick our consciences, truths that convict our hearts and souls, truths that drive us to the dust in humility before our infinitely holy creator and Lord, truths that drive us outside of ourselves to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ as our one and only hope of salvation. And that is why when it comes to thinking about the attributes of God, the scriptures require us to hold together two equally biblical truths.

Namely, on the one hand, the truth is indeed infinitely loving and merciful and gracious as he has supremely demonstrated in the person and saving work of his eternal son, our incarnate Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And on the other hand, he is infinitely superlatively holy and righteous and just as he supremely demonstrates by pouring out his righteous wrath against the unrepentant wicked who persist in their sin and rebellion against the Lord. Now at this point you may be wondering, you may be thinking to yourself, well pastor, what does all of this have to do with our passage for this Lord’s Day morning? Well I’m glad you asked. See dear ones, if you’re familiar with the writings of the biblical prophets, like the prophet Isaiah, if you’ve been through the prophets, one of the things that you probably have noticed is that the writings of the prophets often go back and forth between recording on the one hand oracles of divine judgment, we have many of those oracles in the book of Isaiah, and on the other hand, oracles of divine mercy and hope and restoration.

Both types of oracles, as important to understand, that both types of oracles are equally inspired by God the Holy Spirit. And we see in our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, we see an example of this kind of back and forth dynamic. Now this chapter, Isaiah chapter 24, as we learned on the last Lord’s Day, this particular chapter is indeed overall a judgment oracle. And it’s a judgment oracle that is universal, even cosmic in its scope. Indeed, this is an oracle that will ultimately be fulfilled in the second coming of Christ and in the final judgment. And yet, yet, it is a universal judgment oracle that is interspersed with a profound note of hope and even a note of joyful praise. A note of hope and praise that anticipates worldwide praise on the part of an elect, godly remnant.

A remnant gathered not merely from amongst the exiles of Israel, but a remnant gathered from all the nations. A remnant who are saved by God’s sovereign grace and grace alone. So here in our passage for today, dear ones, we have the theme of worldwide praise and cosmic judgment. And to our natural minds, these two themes may seem to be in opposition to each other, in contradiction to each other, but as we will see, I hope, these two themes blend well together. They hold hands and walk together in perfect harmony. So as we turn our attention to our text for today, let’s first of all focus on verses 14 through 16 as we consider the praise of the godly remnant. We read these words beginning in verse 14. They lift up their voices, they sing for joy.

And what do they lift up their voices and sing for joy about? Over the majesty of the Lord they shout from the west. Now, as you read that verse, if you were to read it just by itself, what kind of a question should come to your mind first of all? The first question that should come to your mind is, who are the they that is being referred to here? Who is the they referred to here by Isaiah? Well, given the context, given the cosmic universal context of this passage, this probably is referring to the godly remnant that is alluded to back in verse 13, since verse 13, and it’s connected with verse 14. What does it say in verse 13? Well, it gives sort of an agricultural picture. It says, for thus the earth, thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations, there’s the worldwide focus, as when an olive tree is beaten and as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.

After the grape harvest is done being gleaned, there are still a few grapes here and there that haven’t been picked, and the same thing with the olive tree that has been beaten. So this is a picture of a remnant, a godly remnant that is preserved by God’s mercy. Even through this judgment, there will be a remnant preserved in mercy. This also is this theme of the godly remnant, which is a common theme in the book of Isaiah, is also referenced back in verse 5. If you look back at verse 5, it says, the earth lies defiled under its inhabitants, for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant, and it speaks of in verse 6, I’m sorry, verse 6, therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt, therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left.

It doesn’t say nobody’s left, it says few men are left. Again, we have hints at this hope for a godly remnant. But this is not simply a reference to the godly remnant of faithful Jews who would return from the Babylonian exile, although that event would certainly be an initial fulfillment of passages like the one we are considering today. But since the scope of this passage is worldwide, even cosmic, this godly remnant is an elect faithful remnant from among all of the nations of humanity. So Isaiah, in his prophetic vision, he looks down the corridor of time, he looks at the long-term perspective, and he sees in the Messianic age that there will be an ingathering of Gentiles into the kingdom and covenant people of God. And it is from amongst the nations that this godly remnant is called into the kingdom, and it is from this godly remnant that the praise is lifted up before the Lord.

And so therefore, friends, in these verses Isaiah, by the Spirit’s inspiration, he has a prophetic vision of the ingathering of the Gentiles, which the Old Testament scriptures anticipated would occur when? When the promised Messiah would come to this earth. And we know that the promised Messiah has come. His name is Jesus of Nazareth, and He is Son of God, Son of Man. He is the true and living God incarnate. He is the Savior of sinners. He is the promised Messiah. And so, friends, this prophecy is initially fulfilled, at least, with the coming of Christ in His incarnation, with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and the Gentile mission of the church as it fulfills the Lord’s great commission, which is to make disciples not just from among the Jews, but disciples from all of the nations of humanity.

And so it is from this godly remnant called into the kingdom through the spread of the gospel in the Messianic age. It is these who are the they who lift up their voices and sing for joy over the majesty of the Lord. And the fact that this is referring to the Gentiles is found in the use of language that Isaiah uses here. He says, over the majesty of the Lord, verse 14, they shout from the west, from the west beyond the boundaries of Israel. Therefore in the east, where the sun rises, therefore in the east give glory to the Lord. In the coastlands of the sea give glory to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. Here’s an imperative. Here Isaiah is calling upon the nations, including the nations of the coastlands, to praise the Lord, to give praise and thanks to the Lord.

And this language of in the east and in the coastlands of the sea, again, this shows the worldwide scope of this praise. Yahweh, the Lord, the covenant redeemer Lord of Israel, He would be praised by a godly remnant, which would include converts from outside the boundaries of Israel. Here the spirit through Isaiah summons the ends of the earth to praise the Lord, who has graciously delivered them from the judgment to come. And then in verse 16 it goes on to say, this theme of praise continues, from the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the righteous one. Now let me pause there. In some of your translations, if you’re following the King James or New King James version, for example, instead of saying the righteous one referring to God, it’s translated as the righteous, meaning believers who are in the right with God, believers who are righteous, not by their works, of course, but by God’s grace.

And John Calvin holds this latter view. And so translators and commentators differ over whether this is a reference to God or to those who are in union with God, true believers who are described here as the righteous. After all, the Lord Himself, He is indeed the righteous one. And we believers are righteous again, not in ourselves or by our own merits, but because of our spiritual and saving union with the Lord, which is given to us as a gift and which leads to our ultimate glorification. So there’s not, whatever way it’s translated, it doesn’t impact the foundational essential thrust and truth that is communicated in this passage. So the ends of the earth are called to sing praises to God, and yet there’s a sudden shift. It’s almost like Isaiah reaches out from the text and gives you a slap in the face, as all of a sudden he turns from a note of praise to one of woe and lamentation.

Right after he says in verse 16a, from the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise of glory to the righteous or to the righteous one. But I say, I waste away. The picture is wasting away as one who has a disease. I waste away. I waste away. He repeats himself for emphasis. Then he says, woe is me. How does he do that? How does he go from this note of exuberant praise? All of a sudden he shifts gears and he’s back to a note of lamentation. He says, for the traitors have betrayed. With betrayal, the traitors have betrayed. While Isaiah is given this prophetic vision of the future worldwide praise of the godly remnants, worldwide praise that would arrive with the promised Messiah and as a result of the worldwide missionary and evangelistic endeavors of the church in this new covenant messianic era, this era of redemptive history in which we now live.

Though that is the case at the same time, this glorious prophetic vision of future worldwide praise, this glorious vision does not alter the present reality that Isaiah and his contemporaries faced. He sees prophetically the long term horizon, which is worldwide praise and ultimately the sovereign reign of Yahweh over all of the nations. But then he also sees the near term horizon. In the near term horizon, he sees treachery. Indeed, he sees a reality characterized by treachery or as some commentators translated by plunder. Dr. E.J. Young in his commentary suggests that this may be literally translated as follows. Plunderers plunder. Even with plunder do plunderers plunder. That kind of drives it home, doesn’t it? When we think of plunderers, what does a plunderer imply? It implies warfare. It implies invasion. It implies attack. And certainly the sinning people of God were to experience in their immediate horizon, they were to experience the plunder that would come as a result of the Babylonian exile.

In the distant horizon of his prophetic vision, Isaiah by the Spirit sees the worldwide praise of the redeemed. But in the near horizon, he sees the judgment that the Lord was sending upon the earth. And so we have a note of hope and restoration and joy, but we also have a note of judgment and lamentation. Now what are some of the takeaways, some of the things that we can learn from this passage, at least these opening verses here? Well, many things we can learn, but I would suggest to you, beloved, that in the midst of the distresses of this present evil age, the worship and praise of God give us a foretaste of the world to come. In the trials and tribulations and distresses of the present, take time to engage in the practice of praise.

As I was reflecting upon this passage and preparing my sermon for today, one passage from Paul’s writings came to mind, Philippians 4 verse 4. And that was written by Paul. Philippians was written from jail. Paul’s circumstances, his outward circumstances were not very comfortable for him at that particular time. And yet what does Paul exhort his readers to do? What does the Holy Spirit through Paul exhort us to do? Rejoice in the Lord when? You know the answer. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always, not because the present distresses aren’t real or aren’t serious. Indeed, often times these present distresses are very real, very pressing, very serious. But we rejoice in the Lord always, not because everything’s going our way. We rejoice in the Lord always because we can be confident that our Lord is with us through these distresses.

He walks with us. He journeys with us in this pilgrim journey to glory. And he promises in his word, brothers and sisters, that he will never leave you nor forsake you. No matter what you’re going through, no matter what sorrow you bear, whatever, no matter what distresses face you in your immediate horizon, you need to adopt Isaiah’s far horizon viewpoint and see the worldwide praise that is coming with the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells. We rejoice in the Lord always, not because God’s word calls us to put on a phony smile, to plaster a phony smile on our faces and pretend that things are better than in fact they are. No. That’s not what God’s word calls us to do. It’s okay for Christians to grieve too. Christians lament. Christians grieve too, just as Isaiah laments in this passage.

But we lament with hope because we know where we’re going. We know to whom we belong. We know that the Lord is with us through thick and thin. Do you know that about the Lord? Do you know the Lord as your savior, your redeemer, your everlasting hope? Another lesson I think we learn from this is that the practice of praise, it’s not meant to blind us to the realities of our present distresses. It certainly did not blind Isaiah to the immediate realities and distresses that he faced and that he predicted would come upon God’s people in their immediate future. But we live in this period that the theologians call the already and the not yet. We’re already saved but we’re not yet finally glorified. We’re saved in the ultimate sense. We’re already in Christ but we’re not yet in glory.

We’re already in but we’re not in as we will be when Christ returns for us. In the already not yet dynamic of this present age, both praise and lamentation blend together in perfect harmony and both are appropriate. Sometimes both lamentation and praise are appropriate at one and the same time. You might scratch your head and say, well, I can’t think of a time. When would praise and lamentation be appropriate at one and the same time? Well, let me give you an example and some of you have experienced this in your own lives. Let’s say that you are attending a funeral service for a beloved fellow believer, someone that was a great friend to you, that loved the Lord and let’s say this individual is suddenly taken from you. And there’s great sadness in that. There’s great grief and loss.

And again, it’s okay to grieve. The scriptures are filled with lamentation. The scriptures endorse and permit Christians and believers grieving but we do not grieve as those who have no hope. We grieve as those who know that there is hope and promise beyond the grave. At such events, such a funeral for example for a beloved friend who’s gone home to be with the Lord suddenly, indeed at such events lamentation and grief are present in a powerful and palpable way. And yet there is also joy and praise because we know that that one who has been taken from us is now rejoicing in the presence of the Lord Jesus. And so again, we also rejoice and praise God for his work of grace in the heart and life of this individual who’s been taken from us and we rejoice in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.

And so friends, again we see the praise of the godly remnant and we see that praise in the far horizon but we also see that we can praise the Lord even in our present distresses for he will bring us through. But on the other hand, in terms of the ungodly, in terms of those who persist in their impenitence and unbelief, we read next of inescapable terror for a godless world. As we consider verses 17-20 briefly, we consider next inescapable terror for a godless world. Isaiah writes this in verse 17, terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. And sometimes in this passage, Isaiah personifies the earth, meaning the inhabitants of the earth, but the earth itself is sometimes personified as experiencing the unstabilizing wrath of God. The terror and the pit and snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth.

And then he gives this kind of imagery of God as the divine hunter who hunts those who rebel against him in their wickedness. He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare for the windows of heaven are opened and the foundations of the earth tremble. In these verses, we see God’s judgment against earth’s wicked inhabitants. We see that that judgment is inescapable. Apart from repentance and faith in the gospel, that judgment is inescapable. There will be no ultimate escape for the wicked who continue on in their sin and unbelief. Now again, as I pointed out from verse 18, the language of this verse appears to portray God as a divine hunter whose judgment catches his prey, in other words, the unrepentant wicked.

And this language underscores the fact that the efforts of the wicked to avoid God’s judgment while continuing on in their sin, such efforts will ultimately prove to be futile. And as I was reflecting on this, I think what a contrast to the sheep of Christ. Christ is the good shepherd who goes after his lost and wandering sheep. And we’re all lost and wandering sheep to one extent or another. And praise God, beloved, in Christ that when we wander astray, we can be assured that Christ the good shepherd comes after us to bring us back safely to his fold. But in the case of the unrepentant wicked, the wicked reprobate, God is not a good shepherd but a divine hunter who hunts them down and who will bring them to justice in the end. The imagery, again, is of a divine hunter.

But later on in this verse, verse 18, we read of the windows of heaven being opened and the foundations of the earth trembling. Where have you seen this kind of imagery before? Well here, Isaiah is alluding to imagery that harkens back to the devastating flood judgment in the days of Noah. You see this same kind of language used, for example, in Genesis chapter 7 verse 11. Isaiah’s use of this language indicates that just as the flood judgment in Noah’s day was devastating and universal in its destruction of humanity, so by implication will be the final judgment. But even more so, as we will see, not only will wicked humanity be judged but even the wicked angels, the fallen angels, the hosts of heaven who rebelled against the Lord will be judged as well. Verse 19, it says the earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken.

What comes to mind when you hear this kind of language? Well, this is earthquake imagery. This is the language of an earthquake and I’ve never, you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in an area when a serious earthquake hits. I remember one time in college there was a mild earthquake and I remember sitting in the dining hall and the table felt like it was shaking and it felt kind of weird but it was very subtle. But those who’ve been through serious earthquakes, I mean, when the ground under you is giving way, that can be a terrifying experience. Well here’s, this is the kind of language that Isaiah employs here as he describes God’s judgment against the wicked inhabitants of the earth. There will be total destabilization taking place. The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken, the earth staggers like a drunken man.

What a picture. You’ve all seen either on TV or you’ve seen in real life the staggering of a drunken person. That’s how the earth is depicted here by Isaiah. He uses these powerful images and the earth we’re told sways like a hut. The idea is a hut that sways by the violent wind. This points to and pictures total instability, total upheaval. And then notice how in verse 20 the earth is described. It says its transgression lies heavy upon it and it falls and will not rise again. Its transgression lies heavy upon it like a heavy weight. Sin is like a heavy weight. It’s a ball and chain that entraps you, that imprisons you and it’s heavy. And only Christ can lift that weight. The transgressions of earth’s wicked inhabitants is pictured as lying heavy upon the earth.

And in the final judgment earth’s wicked inhabitants will fall, never again to rise up to a secure state. They will fall under God’s judgment. They will be raised at the resurrection of the last day but raised unto judgment, not raised unto life. In light of these verses, brothers and sisters, in light of these verses, dear listener, if you are here today, dear listener, and are apart from a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, if you do not know Christ as your Lord and Savior, understand that you’re in a very dangerous position. Understand that there will be no escape for the unrepentant wicked on the day of final judgment. Judgment is coming. But there’s good news. There’s hope. The Bible says today is the day of salvation. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time to flee from the wrath to come.

And you say, how do I flee from the wrath that is coming on the final judgment day? You flee by faith into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, the God man who was crucified for the forgiveness of sins, who paid the penalty for sin by his atoning death on the cross and who rose from the dead so that all who trust in him, all who believe in him might not perish but have everlasting life. Now is the time to flee into the arms of Jesus. And through the gospel, dear sinner, his arms are open wide to you and to me. Turn to him in faith and repentance today. And may God in his sovereign mercy effectually call you by sovereign grace out of your sin and into the arms of Jesus. Receive and rest upon Christ and Christ alone for your salvation this day.

And the word of God promises that you will be saved. But finally, beloved, in this final section of chapter 24 in verses 21 to 23, we see the darkness of cosmic judgment and the brightness of Yahweh’s reign, the darkness of cosmic judgment and the brightness of the Lord’s reign. Says in verse 21, on that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven and the kings of the earth on the earth. Now that’s kind of curious. What does he mean by the Lord will punish the host of heaven? Sometimes that terminology of the host of heaven, sometimes the host of heaven refers to the stars, to the heavenly bodies, what you see when you look out onto a dark night sky. But other times the host of heaven refers to the angelic realm, the angels.

And I believe that what Isaiah is referring to here when he talks about God’s judgment against the host of heaven, he’s talking about the Lord’s judgment that will be brought against Satan and his demonic hosts. This is talking about the fallen angels. The Lord will, on that final day, judge sinful mankind and will judge the fallen angels as well. And these fallen angels, Satan and his demonic hosts, we learn in the scriptures that these demonic hosts exercise great influence over the kings of the earth. And that’s why in these contrasts here, Isaiah contrasts the host of heaven, the angels, with the kings of the earth. Why doesn’t he say the inhabitants of the earth? Why does he mention in particular the kings of the earth? Well, you can make the point that kings would represent their people.

So this is essentially saying the inhabitants of the earth. But perhaps also the kings are mentioned because these demonic hosts often influence the kings of the earth. And we’ve seen that throughout the history of humanity as tyrants with satanic and demonic influence have wrought havoc upon the earth. And so on that day, the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven and the kings of the earth on the earth. And then verse 22, they will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit. They will be shut up in a prison. And after many days, they will be punished. What’s this pit that Isaiah is referring to here? Well, here’s where we need to compare scripture with scripture. I believe, friends, that ultimately this pit, this prison, ultimately points to the confinement of wicked men and fallen angels in hell to await the punishment of the final judgment when they will be judged by King Jesus and cast into the everlasting lake of fire.

This is implied in passages like, well, let’s just take a look at a few. 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 4. 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 4, we read these words. Speaking of these angels, it says, for if God did not spare angels when they sinned, it’s talking about the fallen angels, Satan and his demons, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. That’s an imprisonment there that is awaiting the final judgment. We also see this referenced in Jude verse 6. Jude is right before the book of Revelation. Jude verse 6, it says this, and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day and so forth.

So this is pretty gloomy, this passage here, but this shows the cosmic scope of this passage. But what’s the conclusion of the passage? Well, again, just as there were notes of hope in the midst of this judgment oracle, this judgment oracle ends with a note of hope as well. In verse 25, I’m sorry, verse 23, it says, then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed for the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and his glory will be before the elders. With the wicked judged and taken out of the way in the final judgment, Yahweh’s universal cosmic reign on the heavenly Mount Zion and in the New Jerusalem will be brightly displayed. Indeed, the moon and the sun, which God at creation had appointed as earth’s light bearers, the moon and the sun are here personified as being confounded, being ashamed when compared to the brightness of Yahweh’s reign in the ultimate Mount Zion and the New Jerusalem.

And that should renew hope within the heart, within the breast of the believer because we know that that everlasting worldwide cosmic praise that is coming and it’s coming soon in God’s timetable. And so, friends, as we close our time in the word today, this passage reminds us of what is written in the book of Revelation. I would close by reading Revelation 21, verses 22 through 27. Revelation 21, beginning at verse 22, it says this, and here the Apostle John has this vision of heavenly glory. It says, The kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Beloved believer in Christ, during the dark days of this present evil age, let us be comforted by the bright future that lies ahead of us, the future that Isaiah speaks of in verse 23 of this passage, the future that is spoken of in the book of Revelation. For Jesus, the light of the world, will be the light in the city of God, and we will walk in his light forever. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, sovereign and eternal God, we praise you and thank you that you have delivered us from the judgment to come through Christ, our Savior, who died for our sins and rose again to secure for us the gift of everlasting life. We thank you that in Christ we are justified and adopted. We thank you that in him we are being sanctified and conformed more and more into his image as we grow in the knowledge and love of Jesus.

We thank you that in Christ one day we will be glorified, never to sin ever again. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would help us as we journey in the midst of this present distress, give us grace to know that you are with us and that you are leading us as pilgrims to the eternal city. We ask all these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said. Amen. As we close our time today, let’s rise and we’ll sing as our closing hymn, Jerusalem the Golden, number 468.

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.

June 29, 2025
The Broken Covenant, the Desolate Earth

About this sermon

Isaiah 24 pictures the Lord emptying the earth and making it desolate, sparing neither priest nor people, master nor slave. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants because they have transgressed the laws and broken the everlasting covenant; a curse devours the earth. The wine mourns, the mirth of the tambourines falls silent, and the Lord breaks down the city of chaos. This dark picture of cosmic judgment is the backdrop for the good news: Christ will renew the desolate earth when he brings the new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells.

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Sermon transcript

Well, friends, as we hear the Word of God this morning, we continue our study and consideration of the book of the prophet Isaiah, and my sermon text this morning is we’re skipping ahead to Isaiah chapter 24, verses 1 through 13, and you’ll find that passage beginning on page 694 in your pew Bibles. That’s Isaiah 24, verses 1 through 13. This is God’s Word, let us hear it with reverence and awe. Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate, and He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest, as with the slave, so with his master, as with the maid, so with her mistress, as with the buyer, so with the seller, as with the lender, so with the borrower, as with the creditor, so with the debtor.

The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered, for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and withers, the world languishes and withers. The highest people of the earth languish. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants, for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left. The wine mourns, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh. The mirth of the tambourines is stilled. The noise of the jubilant has ceased. The mirth of the liar is stilled. No more do they drink wine with singing. Strong drink is bitter to those who drink it. The wasted city is broken down. Every house is shut up so that none can enter.

There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine. All joy has grown dark. The gladness of the earth is banished. Desolation is left in the city. The gates are battered into ruins, for thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done. Dear ones, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of his word. Sovereign Lord, gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have revealed yourself in the Holy Scriptures. We thank you for your word, for it is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. We pray that by your spirit you would guide us this morning as we consider this portion of your word.

We pray that by your spirit your word would find a lodging place in our souls and would bear much spiritual fruit in our lives. And once again, Lord, we ask that you would set a guard over my lips, that I might speak only that which is faithful in your sight. We pray these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this morning is The Broken Covenant, The Desolate Earth. And if you’re following along in your sermon outlines, and there are copies of the sermon outline on the foyer, there’s five key words to be listening for today. I’d encourage the children to keep track of the number of times I say these words. And the words are judgment, earth, covenant, curse, and remnant.

Well, dear friends, let me ask you a question. Do you enjoy stargazing? Do you enjoy going out in the dark night sky and seeing the multitudes of stars that our awesome creator has placed in the sky? Well, if you enjoy that activity, then you know that it is against the backdrop of a dark, clear night sky that the stars of heaven appear to shine the brightest. And of course, few things can ruin a night of stargazing more than a canopy of thick clouds or the light pollution of bright city lights. Speaking of stargazing, one of the most memorable experiences from my youth was when my grandparents took me and my brother on a summer trip out west to visit some distant relatives, but also to see the Rocky Mountains. My grandparents loved to travel. They traveled internationally to many nations, and my grandfather meticulously documented those trips and oftentimes would show us slideshows from their trips around the world.

They also enjoyed traveling around the country, and so they wanted to share that joy of travel with my brother and me as they took us out west to see the Rocky Mountains. And this was a trip that was filled to the brim with memorable moments, like the time when we stopped along the side of the road to see some bison in the wild, and from a safe distance, of course. But probably one of the most memorable moments of this most memorable trip was one evening when we were outside on a clear, windy night. It was a bit cool outside, and I believe we were in Montana, but we were gathered around the fire on a high elevation. And while I did not know the Lord Jesus as my Savior at that time, the beautiful scenery, the howling wind, and especially the starry night sky filled me with a powerful sense of awe at this amazing display of our Creator’s power, majesty, and greatness.

As a young person, it was as if this awesome sight, the beauty of God’s creation, especially the beauty of the heavens. I can resonate with that passage that says, the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows forth His handiwork. It was as if God was saying, Jeff, you can’t escape me. I’m here. You better deal with that reality. Well, beloved, again, the stars shine brightly against the backdrop of the dark night sky. Similarly, on a spiritual level, the amazing grace that is revealed in the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, shines the brightest against the dark backdrop of God’s righteous and holy wrath against our sin. And what is so amazing about God’s amazing grace in Jesus, His Son, is that God, our loving Father, gives His grace freely to rebel sinners, rebel sinners like me and like you.

Sinners who deserve not the bright light of God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness, but who deserve the outer darkness of God’s righteous and holy judgment and wrath against their sin. And yet many today don’t seem to grasp that or understand that. Beloved, I am convinced that one of the reasons why so many today do not understand or accept or appreciate the glorious light and truth of Christ’s gospel is that they have not understood or they have not come to grips with the darkness of their own sinful hearts and the dark truth that they deserve God’s righteous judgment and wrath because of their sin and rebellion against the Lord. Only against the backdrop of the bad news of our sin and of God’s holy judgment against our sin will the good news of Christ’s saving work to redeem sinners be seen as the glorious, bright, hope-filled message that it in fact is.

This is why passages like the one that we are considering today are so important in setting the foundation for understanding and appreciating the dazzling glory of the good news of Jesus. We read passages like this and we think this is kind of depressing. These judgment oracles seem so depressing, so dark, and yet the Holy Spirit inspired Isaiah, carried him along to record this judgment oracle ultimately for the purpose of laying the foundation for the gracious good news that would be revealed in the promised Messiah Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord and Savior. Now our passage for this morning begins a section of Isaiah that goes through the end of chapter 27 and Bible scholars typically called Isaiah chapter 24 through 27. They often refer to it as the Isaiah apocalypse and the reason that they use that terminology is because the language here and the imagery in this section of Isaiah resemble apocalyptic literature, the literary genre of apocalyptic, which you’ll find that kind of apocalyptic language for example in the book of Daniel, Ezekiel, and especially in the New Testament in the book of Revelation.

And so thus begins in this chapter, in this passage, the Isaiah apocalypse. This section of Isaiah is cosmic and universal in its scope. You see in the previous chapters of Isaiah, in chapters 13 through 23, if you read through those chapters you will notice that in those chapters what Isaiah records are judgment oracles that predicted local historical judgments that Yahweh the Lord would bring against particular nations and particular peoples at a particular time. These were nations and peoples that existed in Isaiah’s time and the prophecies in view are of a more immediate fulfillment, a more immediate fulfillment is in view. But in contrast to these previous chapters, in chapters 13 through 23, in this apocalypse section which begins here in chapter 24, the prophet turns from the local to the universal and cosmic. He turns from historical near-term judgments of God to the eschatological final judgment that is yet to come in these last days.

In our passage for this morning, the prophet paints for us a dark picture, a picture of utter desolation and joyless gloom for the inhabitants of the earth who have broken what is described in verse 5 as the everlasting covenant. But even in this dark judgment oracle, there’s some bright light that shines through. You see this passage, which is so dark in its judgment theme, records the fact that a remnant will be preserved just as a few olives are left on the olive tree that is beaten and just as a few grapes remain when the grape harvest is done as it says in verse 13, for thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations as when an olive tree is beaten as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.

So as we draw our attention to the opening verses of this chapter, we first are confronted with a picture of universal cosmic judgment. This is the first point in your sermon outline. We have here a picture of universal cosmic judgment. And this passage begins with the word behold. Children, what does the word behold mean? The word behold is basically, if we were to translate that into contemporary lingo, that would be like saying, listen up, pay attention, take heed. This is really important, so you need to pay attention. And what does Isaiah say, or what does the Holy Spirit through Isaiah say? Behold the Lord, notice the word Lord, it’s in all capital letters, that’s English translators there are indicating that this is a translation of the Hebrew word Yahweh, which is God’s covenantal name, that name which views the Lord as the covenant redeemer of his people.

Behold Yahweh the Lord, what will he do? He will empty the earth and make it desolate and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. This is a judgment against what is described as the earth. Now I would point out to you brothers and sisters that the word earth here, the Hebrew word that is translated here in the English standard version as earth, it’s the word erets. And this is a word that can be translated either as earth or as land, depending upon the context in which it is used. So that raises the question, is Isaiah here referring to some local particular land, like the land of Israel, when he uses this term erets, or is he referring to erets in the sense of the whole earth, earth in general, earth as a whole?

In order to answer that question, we have to look at the wider context of this passage. And given the wider context of this passage, it would seem clearly to indicate that Isaiah is depicting the earth and its inhabitants as a whole. He’s not merely speaking of the land of Israel or some other local limited location. And just as an example of the broader context, if you skip down, for example, to verses 14 through 16, notice what he says there, it says, they lift up their voices, they sing for joy over the majesty of the Lord, they shout from the west who are the they. Well, then it goes on to say, therefore, in the east, give glory to the Lord in the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, the coastlands of the sea, that is probably a reference to peoples who live beyond the borders of Israel.

So again, we have more of a universal scope in view. And then verse 16, from the ends of the earth, we hear songs of praise to the glory of the righteous one and so forth. And then if you skip down to verse 21, it says, on that day, the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven and the kings, plural, the kings of the earth on the earth. We have this contrast between the heavens and the earth. And usually in the scriptures, when you have this contrast between the heavens and the earth, the earth that is being referred to is the earth as a whole and not just the land of Israel. So again, this is a passage that is clearly universal and cosmic in its scope. And what is the Lord going to do to the earth?

It says he’s going to empty it and make it desolate. He will twist its surface. One Bible translation uses the word buckle. The surface of the earth will buckle and scatter its inhabitants. What is the Lord going to do? He’s going to desolate the land and scatter, desolate the earth rather, and scatter its inhabitants. Now, the Hebrew word used here for scatter is the same term that is translated as dispersed in Genesis 11 verses 4, 8, and 9. Do you remember what Genesis 11 speaks to? What it’s talking about? It’s talking about God’s judgment at the Tower of Babel when he dispersed the inhabitants of the earth in judgment because they were uniting together in their rebellion against the Lord, in their autonomous rebellion against God. And the Lord comes down and he confuses their language and in judgment scatters them over the face of the earth.

This points to the fact that in the final judgment, Yahweh the Lord will send a greater judgment, a judgment that involves a greater scattering of earth’s inhabitants than he had sent upon the world in the days of the Tower of Babel. And furthermore, the language and imagery of verse 1 of God twisting the surface of the earth and also comparing that to verse 3 which speaks of the earth being utterly empty and utterly plundered, this kind of language may suggest a reversal of God’s original work of creation as recorded in Genesis chapter 1 verse 2. You Bible scholars, what does that speak of in Genesis chapter 1 verse 2, remember? It says the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters and brought order out of the original chaos of creation. And so in the original work of creation as recorded in Genesis 1 verse 2, God’s spirit sovereignly brought order over the original form and void and darkness of creation.

And if this is the imagery that is in Isaiah’s thinking as he records this, if this is what’s in the backdrop here of what Isaiah is saying, then what that means is that the final judgment will mean a decreation, a descent into disordered chaos in the case of the unrepentant wicked. In brief, my friends, we learn here in verse 1 that the surface of the earth is pictured as being twisted and left desolate and the inhabitants are scattered and judged. Yahweh will unsettle the earth, he will uproot and scatter the wicked and he will leave behind a desolated earth, a desolated earth that will only be renewed when Christ ushers in the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells. So that’s a pretty dark picture. And then it goes on in verse 2 to say this, and it shall be as with the people, so with the priest, as with the slave, so with the master, as with the maid, so with her mistress, as with the buyer, so with the seller, as with the lender, so with the borrower, as with the creditor, so with the debtor.

We have these contrasts being made here between different social classes, different levels of society. And the point of this verse is that the judgment, the final judgment will impact all levels and all social classes within society. The rich and the poor, the free and the slave, the creditor and the debtor, all will be judged and none will escape. Indeed, social status and high standing in society will not be able to protect anyone from the Lord’s wrath and judgment on that final day. The only thing that can protect us from the final judgment is the blood and righteousness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And then in verse 3, it says, the earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered. And how do we know this to be the case? Well, it says, for the Lord has spoken this word.

In other words, this is not Isaiah’s fevered imagination speaking here. This is not the word of man. This is the word of the Lord. And so it is trustworthy, it is reliable, it is certain to happen. Verse 3 reinforces the point that was made in verse 1. And the certainty of this worldwide final judgment is reinforced and confirmed by the words, for the Lord has spoken his word. Children, does God keep his word? Sometimes people break their word, they break their promises, and they don’t carry through on their threats. But does the Lord keep his word? Absolutely. When he makes promises, he doesn’t make a promise with his fingers crossed behind his back. He’s not deceitful. He keeps his word. He is reliable. He is trustworthy. So the word of the Lord is confirmed here in this passage.

Friends, this passage does indeed paint a very dark picture for those who do not know the Lord. It is a picture of inescapable and desolating judgment. In a time when many simply do not take seriously the holiness and the righteous judgment of our great and awesome God against sin, may we take these truths to heart. And may the Lord be pleased to work within us a heart of true faith and true repentance. But then after these introductory verses, we move on to the next section of this passage. In verses 4 through 9, we notice in this passage, earth defiled, the everlasting covenant broken, and the peoples consumed by the curse. Earth defiled, the everlasting covenant broken, and the peoples consumed by the curse. In verse 4, it says this, the earth mourns and withers. The world languishes and withers.

The highest people of the earth languish. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants and so forth. The highest of the earth languish. The proud are humbled and brought down. This reminds us of what our Savior taught about the nature and character of God’s kingdom. God’s kingdom, His kingdom of grace and salvation as proclaimed by the Lord Jesus Christ is sometimes described as the upside down kingdom. It is the kingdom where the first shall be last, where the proud shall be humbled and the humbled shall be exalted. We are reminded of this kingdom dynamic here in verse 4, where it talks about the world languishing and withering and the highest people of the earth languishing by implication being humbled. And then we come to what is probably the central thrust of this passage in verses 5 through 6.

It says this, the earth lies defiled. Why is the earth defiled? Why is the world defiled, morally defiled before in the eyes of the Lord? The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants. Why? For they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt and so forth. Now this raises the question. Isaiah speaks of the breaking of the everlasting covenant. What covenant is he referring to in verse 5? What is the identity of this everlasting covenant? And here the biblical scholars have some differing views on how to understand this covenant. Many scholars believe that this everlasting covenant is a reference to the Noahic covenant. In other words, God’s covenant with the earth after the judgment flood in Noah’s time. You remember children what the sign of that covenant was?

It’s the rainbow, right? Whenever you see a rainbow in the sky, what are you supposed to be reminded of? You’re supposed to be reminded of the fact that God promises never again to destroy the natural order, to flood the earth. While this present age remains in perpetuity, God will maintain the different seasons and will keep the earth stable so that life can continue on until Jesus returns in glory. And so some scholars view this everlasting covenant as the Noahic covenant since in that covenant God promised never again to flood the earth and he promised to maintain the natural order in perpetuity. However, there’s a problem with this view in my opinion. The problem with this view is that the Noahic covenant was an unconditional covenant of common grace, meaning that it was a covenant that had no conditions attached to it.

If there are no conditions to the covenant, how can you break the covenant? Indeed it was a covenant that God made not only with human beings, but with the animal kingdom as well. Let’s go back and look at the stipulations or rather the description of this covenant back in Genesis 9 verses 9 through 16. It says this, Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring spring after you. And then notice verse 10. And with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth, I establish my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

Those who hold to the Noahic covenant understanding of the everlasting covenant of our passage for today would point to this and say, see, it’s everlasting. Never again will God do it. Verse 12. And God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you. For all future generations, I have set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh and the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh and so forth. So you see, this covenant was made, this covenant of Noah was made with mankind and with all the creatures of the earth.

So here’s the question. If it’s possible for human beings to break this covenant of Noah, well then obviously isn’t it also possible for lizards and porcupines to break the covenant and sharks to break the covenant? No, my friends. So I think that we can dismiss the Noahic covenant view of this everlasting covenant. So if it’s not referring to the Noahic covenant, what covenant is Isaiah referring to? Now he uses language that is typically used of the Mosaic covenant. He uses the language of laws, of statutes and the language of covenant and oftentimes in the Mosaic covenant, in the Torah, that’s the kind of language that is used to describe the Mosaic covenant. But since this is a prophecy that is universal in its scope, it is probably not referring to the Sinai covenant. What then is it referring to?

Well beloved, here the spirit of God through Isaiah seems to be referring to what we in Reformed theology would call the covenant of life or the covenant of works. That is to say, the original covenantal arrangement that God made with humanity in Adam. All mankind, not just Gentiles but Jews as well, all mankind has broken this everlasting covenant in Adam. So this is in what sense all human beings have broken the covenant. We see Paul reflecting upon this, for example, in Romans chapter 2. Let me just read Romans 2 verses 12 through 16 where he’s addressing the Jews in particular after speaking of the Gentiles back in chapter 1 who suppressed the truth and unrighteousness, Gentile pagans. He then addresses the Jews who have access to the oracles of God and he brings up the matter of what about the Gentiles who don’t have the law, the Torah.

It says this, Romans 2 beginning of verse 12, for all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified. In the covenant of works, in the covenant of life, it is do this and you shall live. For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when according to my gospel God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

The covenant of works in Adam is well described by our Shorter Catechism. If you want to follow along in your Trinity Salter hymnal I invite you to turn to Shorter Catechism number 16, Shorter Catechism number 16 which is found on page 969 back of your Salter hymnal. It asks this question, did all mankind fall in Adam’s first transgression? The covenant being made with Adam not only for himself but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generations sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression. And so this is, if this is the covenant that is being referred to in this passage from Isaiah, this is the everlasting covenant, this covenant in Adam which we have broken. And then if you skip down to question 18 it asks wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate where into man fell?

The sinfulness of that estate where into man fell consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want or lack of original righteousness and the corruption of his whole nature which is commonly called original sin together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. All mankind outside of Christ, all human beings outside of Christ are guilty. We receive a sin nature from Adam, we are accounted guilty and we choose to live in accordance with that sin nature barring the intervention of God’s grace. And what does that lead to? Question 19 says what is the misery of that estate where into man fell? The Bible based answer is all mankind by their fall lost communion with God or under his wrath and curse and so made liable to all the miseries of this life to death itself and to the pains of hell forever.

So again while Isaiah uses the language of the mosaic covenant, laws, statutes, covenant and so forth, this covenantal language is being used to implicate all of humanity, not just the Jews. For in Adam all people apart from Christ, all people except for Christ I should say, have broken the creation covenant of life. That’s the dark backdrop that we need to understand if we’re going to appreciate the glorious truth of the good news of Jesus. And then it goes on to say this in verses 7 and following. It says the wine mourns, the vine languishes, all the merry hearted sigh, the mirth of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the jubilant has ceased, the mirth of the liar is stilled. No more do they drink wine with singing. Strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.

When the final judgment comes in other words and when God comes in judgment against all of humanity, all festivities and merriment among the unsaved will cease and universal mourning will commence. After all, God’s inescapable judgment will have come. What reason then could there be to rejoice? Beloved, the dark message of this passage is the bad news that in Adam, our covenant head and representative and by our own free choice, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And as Romans 6.23 tells us, what is the wages of sin? The wages of sin is death, not just physical death, but spiritual death and ultimately eternal death and the everlasting punishment of hell for those who die apart from Christ. But the bright light of the good news is that Christ has kept the everlasting covenant.

He has kept the covenant of works for all who would trust in him and him alone for salvation. So my friend, are you trusting in Christ as your covenant keeper? We’re all covenant breakers, not one of us is a covenant keeper. We have all broken the covenant in Adam and apart from grace, we continue to break that covenant. But Christ is our covenant keeper. He not only died to pay the penalty on the cross, not only did he die to atone for the sins of those of us who are covenant breakers, he also earned a perfect righteousness for us. And when you put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation, not only are your sins forgiven, not only is your record of sin washed clean by the blood of Christ who atoned for your sin on the cross of Calvary, but his perfect everlasting righteousness is credited to you, imputed to you as you receive him by faith and faith alone.

Have you trusted him? Have you received and rested upon Christ and Christ alone for your righteousness, for your salvation? But finally, as we wrap up our time in the Word today and consider this closing section of our passage, we see the city of man wasted, but a remnant preserved. The city of man wasted, but a remnant preserved. Verse 10, we read this, the wasted city, some translations say the desolated city, the desolate city is broken down. Every house is shut up so that none can enter. There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine. All joy has grown dark. The gladness of the earth is banished. Desolation is left in the city. The gates are battered into ruins. For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations. This is not just a local city.

This is a city that encompasses the nations as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done. So which city is Isaiah referring to when he speaks of this wasted city? In previous chapters, he has spoken of specific nations and specific cities, including the city of Jerusalem, which also deserved God’s righteous judgment. But what particular city is he speaking of here? Is he speaking of Jerusalem or Babylon? Well the answer is he’s probably not speaking of any particular city, either ancient or modern, but rather he is referring to what the theologians would call the city of man. In other words, that universal meta-city that represents humanity is consolidated together in its rebellion against the creator God and against his chosen anointed king, the Messiah, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In the words of one commentator, it is probably a composite of all the cities opposed to God, such as Babylon, Tyre, Jerusalem, and Rome. This rebellious city of man will ultimately be defeated fully and finally when our Lord Jesus returns in glory at the end of this age and when he presides over the final judgment to which this passage points. But notice again that as a conclusion to this dark judgment oracle, a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of hope that gets brighter as we move on in Isaiah. This glimmer of hope is given, the indication that God in his grace would preserve a remnant. And God always does preserve an elect remnant in his sovereign grace as it says in verse 13, for thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations as when an olive tree is beaten, as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.

In his wrath, he remembers mercy and by his sovereign grace, he preserves for himself an elect believing remnant. Dear listener, let me close by asking you this question. Which city do you belong to? Do you belong to the city of man, the city that seeks to be autonomous from the true and living God, the city that rejects the lordship of Christ? Do you belong to the city of man, man in rebellion against God, or do you belong to the city of God? Which meta city, if you will, do you belong to? The pseudo meta city of the city of man or the true meta city, the city of God, consisting of all those who are redeemed by the blood of the lamb and who place their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

May God in his mercy grant that we be part of that heavenly Zion, the true city of God. May we forsake the city of man which is under God’s judgment and may we join ranks with the city of God through faith in Christ and repentance unto life. Amen. Let us pray. Father, we thank you that you speak truth, sometimes in blunt tones in the scriptures. You give us these difficult and challenging and dark oracles of judgment, but you do so out of love and mercy. For Lord, it is only against the dark backdrop of our sin and your wrath against our sin that we see our need for Christ, the light of the world, and it is only against that backdrop that we can see the hope, the brightness of the hope of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

And so, heavenly Father, help us, Lord, to take these truths to heart and help us, Lord, to walk in the light of Christ, our Savior, for it is in his name that we pray. And all of God’s people said, amen. Let’s close our time today by rising and we’ll sing together number 459. My hope is built on nothing less, 459.

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.

June 22, 2025
Speaking the Language of Canaan

About this sermon

Isaiah 19 foretells that the Lord will strike Egypt in judgment and then heal it, so that the Egyptians return to him. Five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord of hosts; there will be an altar to the Lord in Egypt, and he will send them a savior. The prophecy points to the spread of the gospel to the nations. Alexandria became a center of early Christianity, and Athanasius saw the passage fulfilled in his own day. Egypt, Assyria, and Israel will be one people: “Blessed be Egypt my people.”

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Sermon transcript

In that day, the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand that the Lord of Hosts shakes over them. And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose that the Lord of Hosts has purposed against them. In that day, there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord of Hosts. One of these will be called the City of Destruction. In that day, there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar to the Lord at its border. It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of Hosts in the land of Egypt.

When they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, He will send them a Savior and Defender and deliver them. And the Lord will make Himself known to the Egyptians. And the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering. And they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. And the Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing. And they will return to the Lord and He will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them. In that day, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. And Assyria will come into Egypt and Egypt into Assyria. And the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria. A blessing in the midst of the earth whom the Lord of Hosts has blessed saying, Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, my inheritance.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Friends, let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of His Word this morning. Our Lord and our God, Your Word is powerful. Your Word is deep. Your Word is rich. Your Word is food to our souls. We pray, Lord, that this morning as we consider this portion of Holy Scripture, that Your Holy Spirit would take this portion of Scripture, take the truths that we consider this day and cause these truths to find a lodging place in our souls. We pray, Heavenly Father, that what we consider today from the Word of God would indeed be spiritual milk to those who need the milk of the Word. May it be meat to those who need the meat of the Word. And for all of us in Christ, may it be manna from above.

We pray these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. This morning, the title of my sermon is Speaking the Language of Canaan. And I’d encourage you to follow along in your sermon outline and to keep your eyes or keep your ears open for the following words, the words judgment, mercy, allegiance, unity, covenant, and citizenship. Well, dear ones, as many of you probably know if you follow the news, the issue of immigration is a hot button triggering issue in our nation’s current political climate. Now, don’t worry. I’m not going to preach a political sermon on the topic of immigration. You’ll be relieved to know. Not only do I lack the necessary expertise to address that topic competently, but it’s my job as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to preach God’s Word, not to share or promote my ideas and opinions on political ideology or public policy.

But the reason I bring up the subject of immigration this morning is because I found myself curious about whether various nations around the world, including our own nation, have language requirements in the case of immigrants who wish to apply to become legal, naturalized citizens. And so I did some quick research online, nothing exhaustive, of course, but I did some quick research online and I found that numerous nations throughout the world require you to learn the official language of their nation or at least they require you to demonstrate some degree, some level of language proficiency in their official language in order to become approved as a naturalized citizen of the nation. This is not just true in the case of legal immigrants wishing to become naturalized citizens of the United States, but it is also true in the case of many nations, probably the majority of nations throughout the world, including, for example, France, France has language requirements, Mexico, Germany, Egypt, Brazil, Japan, and probably many, many others as well.

Now, when you think about it, that makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, a case can be made that a willingness to learn the language of a nation can indicate and demonstrate a willingness to adopt and assimilate into the culture and values and national identity of the nation where one is seeking the privilege of citizenship. So, again, what’s the point of all of this? You may be wondering, Pastor Jeff, what does this have to do with our passage for this morning? Well, dear ones, what is true when it comes to immigrants seeking to become naturalized citizens of their host nations is also true in a higher and spiritual sense when it comes to citizenship in the heavenly kingdom. Citizenship in the kingdom of God, the Church of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You see, in order to become a citizen of God’s kingdom, meaning God’s reign of grace and salvation in union with the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to become a citizen of God’s heavenly kingdom, by the grace of God, one must first learn to speak the language of faith.

In a manner of speaking, you must first become proficient in speaking the language of Canaan, the language of the promised land, before you can be assimilated into the covenant people of God and become a citizen of the heavenly kingdom. Well, pastors, does that mean that we have to learn Hebrew as a condition for entering the kingdom of God? Well, of course not. That’s not what Isaiah is saying. That’s not what I’m saying. But you do, in a sense, need to learn gospel-ese, if I could call it that. You need to learn. We need to learn and have a basic understanding of who Jesus is and what he’s done for us. A basic understanding of our sin and our need for Christ and how the gospel of Jesus Christ provides for our spiritual need for salvation.

The amazing thing about this prophetic passage from Isaiah is that it is a passage that envisions and predicts a time when even Israel’s historic oppressors and enemies, the Egyptians, would, as it says in verse 18, they would speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord of hosts, to Yahweh of hosts. This passage envisions and predicts a time when both Israel’s ancient enemies, namely the Egyptians, and Israel’s more contemporary enemies in the days of Isaiah, namely the Assyrians, when those nations would pledge their allegiance to Yahweh, the true and living God, and thus would become full, equal members with the Israelites in the one covenant people of God. So this is a very significant and important portion of the book of the prophet Isaiah for us to consider. Now, dear ones, this passage follows on the heels of a series of judgment oracles, a lengthy series of judgment oracles, against various idolatrous gentile nations that either bordered Israel or at the very least often proved to be hostile towards God’s covenant nation.

And so, for example, as we saw in the Last Lord’s Day back in chapter 14, verses 3 through 23, we have a judgment oracle against Babylon. In chapter 14, verses 24 to 32, we have a judgment oracle against Assyria. In chapters 15 and 16, we have a judgment oracle against Moab. In chapter 17, we have a judgment oracle against Damascus. In chapter 18, there is a judgment oracle against Cush. And at the beginning here of chapter 19, we have a judgment oracle against Egypt. And in the section of chapter 19 that immediately precedes our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, we have, as I mentioned, we have a judgment oracle against Egypt. Yet here, what’s amazing about this passage here, in the midst of this judgment section of Isaiah, we have a passage that predicts a future time in redemptive history when even Israel’s historic enemies, Egypt and Assyria, would unite with Israel, not against Israel, but would unite with Israel in the worship and service of Israel’s God, Yahweh, the one true and living God.

This passage, beloved, uses old covenant language and concepts to point God’s people forward to the Messianic New Covenant Age, the age in which we now live. This age of redemptive history when both believing Gentiles and believing Jews unite together in the worship and service of the true and living Triune God and swear allegiance to Yahweh. And we swear allegiance to Yahweh. How do we do that today? How do we swear allegiance to the Lord in this New Covenant Age? We do so by confessing that Jesus Christ is Messiah and Lord. And so let’s dive into our passage for this morning. And the first thing that we need to consider from this passage is a section of this passage showing judgment giving way to mercy. Judgment giving way to mercy. Look at verses 16 and 17.

Again, the opening section of this chapter, the first 15 verses, are a judgment oracle against Egypt. But then begins this bridge passage, this transitional passage. Verses 16 and 17, it says, in that day the Egyptians will be like women. Speaking of the Egyptian army, ancient Egypt being known for its military might and power. But there will come a time when the Egyptian army will be like women, which is a depiction here. This is not meant as an insult to women, but this is meant to depict the weakness of the Egyptian army. And will tremble with fear before the hand of the Lord of Hosts shakes over them. And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians, just as the Lord had put the fear of his people upon their enemies in the Exodus event and also in the conquest.

So the hand of the Lord would again bring fear upon the Egyptians. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose that the Lord of Hosts has purposed against them. But here’s something different. See, when God judged Egypt during the time of the Exodus, it was a judgment unto destruction, a judgment unto wrath. The people feared the hand of the Lord, but the fear was the fear of his wrath. But here there’s going to be a change. If you skip down to verse 22, it says this. And the Lord, Yahweh, will strike Egypt, but he will not strike Egypt to crush it or destroy it. There will be judgment, temporal judgments against Egypt, but those judgments will pave the way for healing. As it says, the Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing.

And they will return to the Lord, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them. When the Lord struck the Egyptians with the plagues and poured out his plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians, what was the result? The result was terror on the part of the Egyptians, but that terror led to them hardening their hearts. But now it is envisioned that the Lord’s judgments against Egypt will soften their hearts and lead to their conversion, their returning to the Lord. And it says that the Lord will hear their pleas for mercy and heal them. Again, as I mentioned, verses 16 and 17, these verses act as a bridge between the judgment oracle of verses 1 through 15 and the glorious announcement of God’s grace to Egypt that follows. This passage serves to underscore, beloved, the glorious truth that sometimes God’s temporal acts of judgment and chastisement serve to pave the way for God to manifest his grace and mercy to a humbled, repentant people.

The ancient Egyptians were a proud, mighty people, and the Lord had to humble them. But having humbled them, they would be humbled to the point where they are ready for him to work in sovereign grace and mercy in their hearts and lives. Here, again, we see an example of judgment not leading to ultimate destruction as it does in the case of the unrepentant wicked, in the case of the wicked reprobate. But here we have judgment giving way and leading to mercy. Now, if you were listening carefully when I read through this passage, there is a phrase that gets repeated over and over and over again that you probably were clued in on. And that is the phrase that opens verse 16, the phrase in that day, which should lead you to ask a question, in what day is Isaiah talking about here?

We see this term in that day hits here in verse 16, but it’s also in verse 18, in that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt. And then again, verse 19, in that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt. And then skip down to verse 23, in that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. And then finally, in verse 24, in that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria. In that day, in that day, in that day, what day is he talking about? Well, this is the day of the Lord. This is a day that is, from Isaiah’s vantage point, still in the future. It is a day that will unfold further, God’s redemptive purposes.

It is a day that anticipates the New Covenant. Ultimately, this day that is being referred to throughout this passage is the New Covenant Day. The day when the good news about the true Messiah, the promised Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah and Savior, when that good news would spread beyond the borders of Israel and go out into the nations of the world. Beloved, one of the glorious truths that this passage highlights is the truth that God’s amazing grace has the power to turn even the most hostile former enemies of God and his people into friends. God’s sovereign grace in the Lord Jesus Christ has the power to convert the hearts of even his most hardened enemies. He has the power to convert the hearts even of the proud ancient Egyptians and Assyrians. And here in this passage, the Egyptians and the Assyrians, I believe, these nations are being used representatively.

They represent the idolatrous Gentile peoples who had historically resisted the true and living God and resisted and been hostile towards God’s people. But here we see Gentiles coming into the covenant people and kingdom of God, becoming citizens of God’s kingdom through faith in the promised Messiah. However, sometimes the Lord will humble his enemies to the dust in holy judgment before raising them up in grace to be his friends. And that’s sometimes the way that he deals with us as individual sinners as well. Dear listener, has the Lord humbled you through the terrors of his law? He humbled the Egyptians. Look again at verse 22. And the Lord, Yahweh, will strike Egypt, striking, striking in judgment, at least in temporal judgments, but then striking and healing with the result that they will return to the Lord and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.

If you know the law of God, if you know what the holy law of God requires of us, that we love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, that we love our neighbor even as we love ourselves, if we understand that the law of God doesn’t merely speak to our outward behavior, you know, you can outwardly conform to the law of God, but in your heart be far from him. That means you’re a good Pharisee. That doesn’t make you a Christian. Conforming outwardly to the law of God while inwardly being in rebellion to God, Jesus says, no, if you even look at a woman to lust for her, you’ve in a sense already committed adultery with her in your heart. If you have sinful anger in your heart and you wish that annoying person were dead or what have you, that’s equivalent to murder in the heart.

The law of God speaks to the state of our heart, and if we’re honest, the law of God condemns us. The law of God should terrify you if you are outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what it’s intended to do. The Lord strikes sinners through his law. He strikes them. He brings them down to the dust. But in the case of those whom he is graciously planning to save, he doesn’t leave us in the dust. He humbles us through his law that he might raise us up through his gospel. And as a result of being raised up through the gospel, what do we do? Well, we return to the Lord in repentance and faith, and we have the promise that he will listen to our pleas for mercy and bring us healing, spiritual healing.

Maybe the Lord through his law has struck you and brought you down and humbled you. I hope he has. But don’t lose hope. He has you right where he wants you, because it is to sinners that Christ shows mercy. Christ did not die on the cross for good people, for worthy people, for people who can merit his grace. No one can, by the way. Christ died on the cross to save rebel sinners. Have you recognized, as the Lord struck you with his law, making you recognize yourself as a rebel sinner? Recognizing that your only hope of salvation is in this promised Messiah that our passage speaks of. Well, dear friend, if the Lord has struck you, it may be so that he might heal you ultimately with the balm of his saving grace. And if he has struck you with his law, what do you do?

Plead for mercy, cry out to him for mercy, and he will have mercy upon you as you come to Christ and rest in him. Praise be to God. And so we see here in this passage an instance of judgment giving way to mercy. But we next see international gospel allegiance foretold. This is the second point in your sermon outline. And this is the center of this passage, verses 18 through 21. Here we have international gospel allegiance foretold. It says this in verse 18. In that day, in that eschatological new covenant day that is being spoken of here, he says there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord of hosts. One of these will be called the City of Destruction. Now, if you read this passage, you might react by scratching your head and saying, what’s he talking about?

Five cities in Egypt, where are these cities? What’s he talking about? Well, it’s quite possible that these cities are not to be understood in a literal sense. These cities are not identified, and it’s quite possible that the number five here is given as a symbolic number. It’s symbolic of significant conversion among Israel’s ancient enemies, namely the Egyptians. And so this foretells a time when there will be a significant ingathering of the former persecutors, former gentile persecutors and enemies of God’s people. But then there is this mention of the City of Destruction. One of these five cities will be called the City of Destruction. Some of your versions may translate it, and I think this is probably more accurate, as City of the Sun. You see, the Hebrew words for destruction and sun are almost identical.

And so I agree with one commentator who writes that this is probably a reference to the City of On, O-N, a famous center of sun worship near Cairo, which the Greeks called Heliopolis. The Hebrew words for sun and destruction are almost identical, as I said. This commentator says, a wordplay may be intended so that when the citizens swore allegiance to the creator of heaven and earth, veneration of the sun was abolished, was destroyed, if you will. For this reason, it received special mention. Think about that. If the peoples of a city that had once been known for its entrenched worship of the sun, not the son of God, S-O-N, but the sun, S-U-N, the orb in the sky that we observe, if those folks are brought to faith in the true and living God, what an amazing conquest of grace we have displayed before us.

And then Isaiah goes on in verses 19 and following to say the following. It says in verse 19, In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar to the Lord at its border. If you know your Old Testament, these references to altar and pillar will be bringing to mind altars and pillars given to the Lord in the land of promise, the promised land. Such altars and pillars are pictured as being set up even in the land of Egypt, even as they were set up in the promised land. It will be a sign. Verse 20 explains the significance of these altars and this altar and pillar. It says it will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt.

When they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering. And they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. Now, what is the significance again of altar and pillar here mentioned in verse 19? Well, altars were obviously witnesses to the true and living God. When an altar to the Lord was set up, it was intended not only as a witness to the true and living God, but they also represented a meeting place between the deity and the worshiper. It was a place where a worshiper could commune through sacrifice and offerings and prayer with the deity. And in Scripture, altars represent the intersection of the heavenly spiritual realm and the earthly temporal realm.

Altars were a place where heaven and earth meet and God comes to dwell in his gracious presence among his people. One commentator explains the significance of the pillar this way. He writes, the pillar monument here, situated on the border of Egypt, probably symbolizes the claiming of the land for the true and living God, the Lord Almighty. Now, in other words, God would dwell among Gentile Egyptians who believe, and he will dwell with them in their own land just as he dwelt among the Israelites in the promised land. Now think about how this passage would have struck you if you were an ancient Israelite living in the days of Isaiah who hears this or who reads this. This would have been mind-blowing, the idea that Israel’s ancient enemies and oppressors, the Egyptians, that their land would be like the promised land where God’s presence dwelt in a special way.

Again, this points forward to a time in redemptive history when Gentiles and Jews who believe in the true and living God and his promised Messiah would be on equal covenantal footing before the Lord. And in verse 20, it mentions this, it says, when they cry to the Lord because of their oppressors. Now think about this, the Egyptians were the ancient oppressors of God’s people, the Israelites, but now Isaiah envisions a time where the ancient oppressors would themselves be oppressed. They’ll be oppressed. He will send them, we are told, a savior and defender and deliver them. This is, I hear Isaiah is using language that reflects the book of Judges. What happened to God’s people in the book of Judges? Well, God’s people would often, they would go astray from the Lord and the Lord would raise up oppressors, allow oppressors to come in and conquer his people and oppress them, and then the people would finally come to their senses and cry to the Lord, and the Lord would raise up to deliver his people, he would raise up what?

He would raise up saviors, judges, to deliver his people. And that’s the kind of language that’s being used here of the Egyptians in verse 20. And then verse 21 is so amazing, it says, and the Lord will do what? He will make himself known to the Egyptians. Now, in the days of Pharaoh, in the days of the Israelites’ enslavement by Egypt, the Lord made himself known to the Egyptians in wrath, in judgment. But the implication here is that now the Lord is going to make himself known not in wrath and judgment, he’s going to make himself known in mercy. And that’s seen, as you continue to read on in this verse, the Egyptians will know the Lord. They’ll know him not just in wrath and judgment, but they’ll know him in mercy and grace. Why?

Because they will worship with sacrifice and offering, which is an evidence of their faith in him. And they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. The making of a vow before the Lord is a swearing of ultimate allegiance to the Lord as your God. The Lord in his grace would reveal himself to the Egyptians, and they would know and worship him just as was the case with believing Israelites. Again, do you see how this points forward to this new covenant age in which we now live? What about the fulfillment of this passage, though? It mentions five cities, it talks about the Egyptians turning to the Lord, and we know that the land of Egypt today is a majority Muslim nation. But how then was this passage fulfilled, or how is it being fulfilled?

Well, as I mentioned again, here I believe that the Egyptians and the Assyrians are representative of Gentile nations that turn to the Lord in the age of the New Covenant. So in the sense that the Egyptians represent Gentiles in general who come to faith in the Lord, this is fulfilled in the New Covenant through the Great Commission. As disciples of Jesus are made among all of the nations of humanity. However, I also believe that to an extent, this prophecy was indeed fulfilled in a literal sense within the history of early Christianity. You see, friends, in the early church, there was a flourishing Christian community. And guess where that flourishing Christian community was? Well, friends, in the early church, there was a flourishing Christian community in North Africa in general, and in Egypt in particular. In fact, the city of Alexandria in Egypt was one of the major centers of early Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire.

And one of the greatest orthodox theologians in the early church, known to us today as Saint Athanasius, guess where he was from? He was from the city of Alexandria in Egypt. Athanasius loved this passage because he believed that this passage was fulfilled in his own time, in his own city, in his own context. And of course, Athanasius, you may recall, he was the great defender of the deity of Christ against the heresy of Arianism, which was a heresy that had denied the full co-equal deity of Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit. So Athanasius defended the gospel truth that Jesus is divine, fully, 100% God. So praise be to God that his word in this passage has been and continues to be fulfilled, for God always keeps his word. Praise God that his promises to bless all of the nations through Abraham, that promise given all the way back in Genesis chapter 12, that promise is being fulfilled in Christ.

Let me ask you, have you sworn your allegiance to the true and living God, as the Egyptians are here depicted as doing? Have you done so by trusting Christ as he has offered to you in the gospel? As the Bible says, that if you confess with your lips Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. But finally, as we wrap up our time in the Word today, we notice, we consider in verses 23 through 25, we see here in this passage Jewish and Gentile unity among God’s covenant people. Jewish and Gentile unity among God’s covenant people. It says this in verse 23. In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. This depicts a highway, a trade route, if you will.

There will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt and Egypt into Assyria, and why are they traveling to each other? Is it just to conduct international trade? Is it just to engage in political dialogue or what have you, diplomacy? No. It says they will travel to do what? It says the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. Now the Egyptians and the Assyrians were arch enemies. They were hostile toward each other in Isaiah’s time, but there will come a time when they will be at peace with one another. And how will they be at peace with one another? They will be at peace with one another because of their common allegiance to and worship of Yahweh, the true and living God. Again, one commentator says of this passage that it is an unsurpassed vision of the Gentiles’ full inclusion in the kingdom.

Israel will have only an equal part, and her distinctive titles, as we will see, will be shared out with her cruelest enemies. In verse 23, as I mentioned, this passage depicts a highway that runs from Egypt to Assyria. That would be a very lengthy highway. But such a highway would certainly encourage international trade and communication and peace between those nations. But the focus of this passage appears clearly to be a higher focus. It appears to be spiritual. This is a highway that brings about spiritual unity between these former rivals and these once hostile nations as they join together in worshiping the true God in unity as full and equal citizens of God’s kingdom along with believing Israelites. And so it closes off, this passage closes off in verse 24, and following it by saying this.

In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria. Israel will only be the third. There won’t be a special place, an exalted place for Israel or for the Jews as Jews. No, there will be a high, in that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria. A blessing in the midst of the earth. Gentiles and Jews who believe in Jesus the Messiah will be on full covenantal equal status. They will be one in Christ. And then verse 25 it says, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed saying, notice the language here. Blessed be Egypt, my people. And Assyria, the work of my hands. And Israel, my inheritance. My people, the work of my hands, my inheritance. That’s language that is used elsewhere in scripture to describe Israel, the covenant people of God.

But here this language is applied to Egypt and Assyria. The same language that is used to describe Israel as God’s covenant people is used to describe Egypt and Assyria. And what is the implication? Well the implication is clear. When this prophecy is fulfilled, and again from the vantage point of Isaiah’s time it was not yet fulfilled, but when this prophecy is fulfilled as it is being fulfilled in this new covenant era, both Jews and Gentiles who believe in the promised Messiah will share equal standing as citizens of God’s kingdom and church. Not just believing Jews, but believing Gentiles as well will all speak the language of Canaan. They will all speak the language of faith. They will all speak gospelese, for they will all confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And thus they will all be full and equal citizens of the heavenly kingdom. In closing, the Apostle Paul provides language that shows the fulfillment of this in the new covenant era. In Galatians 3 verses 23 to 29, and I’ll close my sermon with this passage. In Galatians chapter 3 we read these words, beginning at verse 23, And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. And that would apply even to Egyptians who believe in Christ and to the descendants of the Assyrians who believe in Christ. If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. Are you Christ’s? Are you a child of Abraham through faith in Christ? Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gospel. We thank you for this new covenant era in which we are privileged to live.

We pray, Lord, that you would help us to see the glorious unfolding of the truth of your word throughout the scriptures. Help us to see how Jesus is revealed in all of scripture. And help us, Lord, to see the great unity of the scriptures. That we might see our unity together as brothers and sisters in Christ, whatever our backgrounds or heritage may be. We pray that you would bless us now and cause your word to find a lodging place in our soul. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, 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.

June 15, 2025
Jacob’s Restoration and the New Exodus

About this sermon

After the oracle against Babylon, Isaiah 14 announces that the Lord will have compassion on Jacob, choose Israel again, and settle them in their own land, and sojourners will join them. Isaiah echoes the exodus, when God saw his people’s affliction in Egypt and came down to deliver them. This new exodus brings the compassion of God and the expansion of his kingdom, as God gathers the nations into his people. God fulfills it as the gospel goes out, and the church takes part by praying for missionaries and supporting the spread of the good news.

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Sermon transcript

Well, friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We return to our consideration of the book of the prophet Isaiah, and we find ourselves this Lord’s Day morning in Isaiah chapter 14, verses 1 through 4. And to kind of fill out the context a little bit, I’m going to begin reading in chapter 13, verse 17. We need to remember that the text of Scripture is inspired. The chapter and verse divisions are given by men to help us navigate our way through the Scriptures. And so to fill out the context a little bit, I begin reading in chapter 13, verse 17, and I’ll read through chapter 14, verse 4. And here begins a passage where we have the tail end of a judgment oracle against Babylon. So hear God’s holy word, Isaiah 13, beginning of verse 17.

Behold, I am stirring up the meads against them, who have no regard for silver, and do not delight in gold. Their bows will slaughter the young men. They will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb. Their eyes will not pity children. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. It will never be inhabited or lived in for all generations. No Arab will pitch his tent there. No shepherds will make their flocks lie down there. But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures. Their ostriches will dwell, and their wild goats will dance. Hyenas will cry in its towers and jackals in the pleasant palaces. Its time is close at hand, and its days will not be prolonged.

For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob, and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land. And sojourners will join them, and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place. And the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord’s land as male and female slaves. They will take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppress them. When the Lord has given you rest from your pain and turmoil, and the hard service with which you were made to serve, you will take up this taunt against the King of Babylon. How the oppressor has ceased, the insolent fury ceased. Dear ones, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the proclamation of his word. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you that you have not left us without a sure and certain word. You have given us a sure and certain word in the Holy Scriptures, for they are your inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. We pray, Lord, that by your Spirit you would illuminate our minds and our hearts, help us to understand that which the Spirit speaks to us in this portion of your God-breathed Scriptures. And once again, Lord, we ask that you would grant unto me your unworthy servant the grace to declare and speak forth your word with clarity, with power, with the assistance and unction of your Spirit. We pray that Jesus would be present and exalted in the proclamation of your word, and that we would be built up in our most holy faith.

In Jesus’ name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. Title of my sermon this morning is Jacob’s Restoration and the New Exodus. And if you are following along in your sermon outline, I especially would want to encourage the children. I would point you to the key words that you can be listening for in my sermon this morning, and those are the words Restoration, Kingdom, Expansion, Exodus, Rest, and Relief. Well, my dear friends in Christ, one of the most comforting truths of Scripture is the truth that God always keeps His promises. God always keeps His promises even though we often break ours. Now with that broad concept in mind, let’s reflect for a few moments upon the importance and significance of promises. You know, when you think about it, keeping our lawful promises is in many ways the glue that holds life together.

Keeping our promises is key to a happy life, a happy home, and indeed a stable society. Lawful promises that are kept and carried out, of course, they require the virtues of faithfulness, loyalty, and consistency. But on the other hand, broken promises are often the result of unfaithfulness, disloyalty, or carelessness, forgetfulness, and what have you. And so for example, the faithfulness and loyalty that are required for keeping our promises, those qualities are essential ingredients to a healthy, stable marriage, to good friendships, to ethical and reliable business practices, to a stable and just civil order, and to a healthy church life. After all, we are a covenant community and when we join the church we make promises to God and to our brothers and sisters in Christ. But on the other hand, the unfaithfulness, carelessness, and disloyalty that lead to broken promises can destroy marriages, can damage friendships, can destabilize businesses, can erode trust in our public institutions, can destabilize the civil order, and can even split churches.

Dear ones, if you crack open the history book and you study the history of humanity, what are you going to find? Are you going to find a history of promises kept, commitments honored, and so forth? No. The history of fallen humanity is, to a large extent, a history of disloyalty, faithlessness, broken promises, and downright cruelty. But what about the history of God’s people? That certainly would be different, wouldn’t it? One would hope, of course, that the history of God’s people as recorded in the Scriptures would be different. But if you’re familiar with the Scriptures, especially if you’re familiar with the history of God’s old covenant people, Israel, if you’re familiar with that, you will know that, sadly, even the history of God’s covenant people, described here in our passage today as the house of Jacob, is likewise, overwhelmingly, a history of faithlessness and disloyalty toward Yahweh, their God.

Yahweh, by the way, when you read in your English Bibles the word Lord, and it’s all in capital letters, that’s the translator signaling to the English reader that they are translating the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, and Yahweh is God’s covenant name. It has in view God as our faithful covenant-making, covenant-keeping, Redeemer God. But the people throughout their history were faithless. They broke covenant with Yahweh, their God. Because of their persistent covenant-breaking and unfaithfulness, the professed people of God would ultimately be expelled from the promised land and sent by the Lord into exile. Just as Adam and Eve, for their faithlessness, were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, sent away to the east of Eden into exile. Now, that raises the question, does this predicted exile of God’s people into Babylon, does that mean that God is through with his people?

When God sends his people into exile, is it in essence God saying, you know, I’ve had it with you people. You are gone forever. I don’t want to ever see you again. Is that what it means? Does it mean that they are cast off forever with no hope of restoration? Well, praise God. The answer to that question is a resounding, loud no. For even though his people were faithless, even though they broke their promises, Yahweh remains faithful and loyal to his gracious covenant commitments and promises to his people in Christ. And, friends, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning serves to underscore the blessed truth that our sovereign triune God is a promise-keeping God. He is a gracious God who will restore his humbled exiled people. And he will do so through a new deliverance, a new deliverance that will mark a new stage of redemptive history, a new exodus, if you will, that will ultimately be accomplished by the promised Messiah, namely our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

So friends, with these truths in mind, let us turn our attention to our passage for today as we focus first of all on verse 1, as we consider first the restoration of God’s kingdom in the new exodus, the restoration of God’s kingdom in the new exodus. It says this, for the Lord, that’s Yahweh, Israel’s faithful Redeemer God, the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel and will set them in their own land. And sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. Now friends, this is obviously a prophecy about God’s people who are identified here by various terms in verse 1. They are identified as Jacob, as Israel, and as the house of Jacob. All of those terms refer to the same group of people, namely God’s covenant people.

Now this chapter, chapter 14, follows on the heels of chapter 13, of course, which contains an oracle of judgment against ancient Babylon, Babylon which had been used by the Lord as an instrument of judgment and chastisement against the Lord’s faithless people. This prophecy of Isaiah that we are considering this morning predicts the restoration of God’s people to the promised land following the Babylonian exile. And it is a passage, if you are a sensitive and careful Bible reader, this is a passage where themes of the Exodus are interwoven into it. It is interwoven with themes and allusions taken from the Exodus event. You remember the Exodus when God supernaturally delivered his people from their slavery to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. He did so by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm. He did so by pouring mighty supernatural plagues upon the Egyptians, by splitting the Red Sea and bringing his people through the Red Sea on dry land.

And he led his people through that howling wilderness, giving them manna from heaven, feeding them with manna from heaven and providing, quenching their thirst through giving them water from the rock and so forth and ultimately bringing them into and establishing them in the land of promise, the holy land. These Exodus themes and allusions are significant because what this passage does is it points us to a new Exodus, a new deliverance for God’s people. Friends in passages like this one, God is revealing to his people that he’s going to do something new. He’s going to do something amazing. He’s going to do something more amazing even than the Exodus, more amazing than delivering his people from their slavery in Egypt and even more amazing than God’s restoration of his people from their exile. You see, when God delivered Israel from their slavery in Egypt, he delivered them from physical bondage.

When God restored the post-exilic community from their Babylonian exile into the land, he restored them from exile. But ultimately, the promises of the covenant of grace are that God will save his people not merely from physical bondage or geographical exile. He will save his people from their bondage to sin. Jesus is called Yeshua Jesus, why? Because he will save his people from their sins and he will do so through the one who has been revealed in Isaiah as the righteous branch, as the one who is the child to be born to us, the son to be given, Immanuel, the one who upon whose shoulders is the government of the peoples, the one who will later on be revealed in Isaiah as the suffering servant of the Lord, namely Jesus, the promised Messiah. Now let’s look at some of the details of this verse.

It says, for the Lord, and again that word Lord is Yahweh, the covenant name of God, and the Lord is the Lord over his kingdom, and of course, God’s kingdom in its ultimate sense, the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed is not simply his reign over the nations in a providential sense, certainly Christ reigns over all in his providential kingdom. He is the King of all creation. All authority in heaven and earth has been given unto Christ, but the kingdom that is proclaimed by Jesus is God’s reign of grace and salvation that have drawn near in the person of King Jesus, the Messiah. And here the Lord will have compassion on who? On Jacob and will again choose Israel. Jacob and Israel are referring to the same group of people. And then it talks about how sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob.

Now why this language to describe God’s people? Well this language hearkens back to God’s covenant promises to the patriarchs, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the Old Testament, God often identifies himself as what? He says, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God made a covenant with Abraham and reaffirmed it with Isaac and Jacob, and that covenant of grace that he made with them ultimately comes to fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. So this language describing the people of God as the house of Jacob highlights the covenant faithfulness of God, that God is always faithful in his covenant commitments to his people. And what does it say of the Lord? It says, for the Lord will have what? Compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel. To the people of God in exile who had experienced the heavy chastisement of the Lord, this would be good news, that the Lord has not abandoned his compassion towards us, but he has renewed his mercies, his compassions to us.

It has been said that God’s grace is his unmerited favor, his undeserved favor that deals with the guilt of our sin. Grace has in view, in particular, God’s legal satisfying of his own holy wrath against our sin. So it deals with the guilt of our sin. And of course, grace and mercy or compassion are closely connected, but in his compassion, God deals with us in the misery of our sin. Sin results in misery, and God is compassionate towards those who are in the misery of their sin. He is compassionate toward his people who are suffering misery because of their own sin. So again, we learn here that God’s covenant of grace is grounded in his mercy, his compassion, as well as in his gracious choice. Now notice in this language, again, notice the allusions to the Exodus.

Yahweh will have compassion on his oppressed, exiled people, just as he had had compassion in the past on his people when they were enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt. And we see this compassion and this Exodus theme as we reflect on the words of Exodus 3, verses 7 through 10. I’d invite you to turn there, Exodus chapter 3, verses 7 through 10, and consider the similarity of the language here describing God taking notice of his people and having compassion on his people and how this might be in the background of Isaiah’s mind as he writes under the inspiration of the Spirit, the passage that we are considering today. Exodus 3, beginning at verse 7, and this is the scene is the burning bush. Moses is being called to his prophetic service as he is before the burning bush, and it says this, Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters.

I know their sufferings. Let me pause there. This is so comforting because God takes note of our sufferings. He hears the cries of his children. Sometimes God seems distant. Sometimes he seems uncaring and uninvolved, but this helps us to see that our God is a compassionate God. And he goes on to say, And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come up to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

The Lord is going to act motivated by his mercy, his compassion. What about election? What about where it says in our passage for today that the Lord not only will have compassion on Jacob, but will again choose Israel. He will again choose Israel. Versions like the New King James Version translated it as, He will still choose Israel. Now, there are some illegitimate inferences that could be made from this kind of language. This might give you the impression that God’s election, God’s choice, is something that we could lose. That God may choose you and elect you one day, and then say, you know, I think I’ve changed my mind the next day. But again, this language does not mean that Israel as God’s people, at least the true Israel of God, ever lost their election. That’s not what it means.

After all, as we are reminded in Romans chapter 11 verse 29, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Instead, friends, I believe what this language amounts to is God reaffirming his electing grace toward the true Israel of God. And again, this too is an Exodus theme. We see it reflected, for example, back in Deuteronomy 7 verses 6 through 11, if you’d like to turn there, Deuteronomy chapter 7 verses 6 through 11. Now, Deuteronomy was written by Moses and delivered to the people after their wilderness wanderings as they were preparing to go in and conquer the promised land. And the Lord through Moses reminds his people of their identity of who they are. And he says this beginning at verse 6, Deuteronomy 7 beginning at verse 6, it says, for you are a people holy, that is set apart to the Lord your God.

The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you. Now pause there. Why does the Lord choose his people? Because he loves them, simply because he loves them in sovereign grace. It is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations and repays to their face those who hate him by destroying them.

He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today. And I read on in this passage to show that God’s electing grace does not negate our responsibility of faithful obedience. But in other words, friends, God has not rejected his people. He’s renewing his electing grace and he’s going to show it by bringing them back from exile. And what does it say next? It says that he will set them in their own land. Now this reminds us of how God settled his people into the promised land. And since the promised land is but a picture, a type, a pointer to the ultimate promised land of the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth where in righteousness dwells, this ultimately points us, beloved, to our salvation and eternal life in Christ.

When it says that the Lord will have compassion and choose Israel again and will set them in their own land, this is ultimately saying the Lord will save his people by his grace, alone. Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us stand in awe of our promise-making, promise-keeping God. Let us praise God that because of his covenant faithfulness, his grace given to us in Christ is unconquerable. Believer, God’s grace to you and to me is an unconquerable grace. It is a grace that you can stake your claim on. It is a grace that will not let you go. Praise God that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable and that when we are faithless, he still remains faithful. That’s not an excuse to be faithless or to be loosey-goosey in our walk with the Lord, but it is to say that when we fail, and we will fail, the Lord’s mercies are new every morning and God will renew his compassion to us.

So we see, my friends, we see God’s grace toward his people, but next consider what we learn here about the expansion of God’s kingdom in the New Exodus, the expansion of God’s kingdom in the New Exodus. It says in verse 1 through verse 2, it says, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob and the peoples will take them and bring them to their place and the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord’s land as male and female slaves and so forth. Now this section of our passage predicts the engrafting and inclusion of Gentiles, of sojourners, those who are outsiders to ethnic Israel, into the peoples and kingdom of God. In the New Exodus, in Christ, sojourners from among the Gentile nations will join themselves to the covenant people of God.

And joining yourself to the covenant people of God, what does that imply? That implies that you’ve joined yourself by grace through faith to the God of the covenant. You’ve put your faith in him, you’ve attached yourself to him, the true and living God. This language is also an allusion to the original Exodus event. So remember friends that in the original Exodus we read of a mixed multitude of foreigners joining themselves to the Israelites as they make their way out of Egypt and begin their journey toward the promised land. Again we’re going to do a little flipping around, but let’s go back to Exodus 12 and look at verse 38, Exodus chapter 12, verse 38, it says this. This is after the people of, after the final plague, and the people are getting ready to leave Egypt and cross the Red Sea.

It says this, a mixed multitude also went up with them and very much livestocked both flocks and herds. And the presence of a mixed multitude, in other words Gentiles, joining with the Israelites in their Exodus raises the question, well can they become part of God’s covenant community? Look down at verses 48 and 49, it says in verse 48 with regards to the Passover. If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, then he may come near and keep it. He shall be as a native of the land, but no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you. Even under the old covenant, outsiders were welcomed in, how much more so under the new covenant in Christ.

And just as in the original Exodus, a mixed multitude of foreigners joined themselves to Israel and Israel’s God, so in the new Exodus of the new covenant, sojourners from the Gentile nations will join themselves to the kingdom and people of God. And of course, friends, this too is ultimately fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the church in its new covenant expression. Through faith in Christ, beloved, we are delivered, we are saved from bondage to the world, the flesh and the devil, and in him we are joined to the true Israel of God, the church of Jesus Christ. This is true of us whether we happen to be Jewish or Gentile in terms of our ethnic or racial background. And this is a truth that the Apostle Paul, as an apostle to the Gentiles, reveled in.

One of the things that struck the early church so palpably was the truth that now Gentiles are welcomed in on equal terms with Jews, and it is simply by faith in Christ. It’s not that Gentiles had to be circumcised and become Jews first before they could become Christians. No. Gentiles are welcomed in. The uncircumcised are welcomed in too on equal terms with the circumcised. But one of the aspects of this passage, verse 2, that troubles some Bible readers is this reference to these foreigners being made slaves. It says in verse 2, and the peoples will take them and bring them to their place. The peoples of the nations will bring the people of God back to their land. And the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord’s land as male and female slaves.

They will take captive those who were their captors and rule over those who oppress them. Now the language of verse 3 shows that a great reversal is going to happen. But what do we make of this language of male and female slaves here? Well friends, I agree with Dr. E.J. Young that we are to understand this language to be speaking of Gentiles being spiritually subdued in the sense of being converted, being brought into submission to Christ’s Lordship and being made willing servants in Christ’s Kingdom. Dr. Young writes, this promise is being fulfilled when the Gentiles who oppose God are conquered through the house of Israel, the Israel of God, the church, and are subdued by the Holy Spirit and made heirs of the promises. Through Christ the heathen are being spiritually subdued. That is to say, through Christ working by means of his ministers and missionaries, they are being subdued.

Only in the last great day will everything be fully subject to him. Beloved, let us as a church, let us urge the nations and peoples of humanity to do what verse 1 says, to attach themselves to the house of Jacob. In other words, brothers and sisters, let us do our part in supporting the church’s mission to call all peoples everywhere to repent and to believe the good news of Jesus Christ. You see, how do we do that? One of the ways we do that is by supporting our missionaries. We do so by praying, praying for God to bless our missionaries and to bless the spread of the gospel and to bring the gospel to places that are still unreached. We do so by praying. We give so by giving. We do so by giving to support missions.

And when called, we do so by going. Let me ask you, dear listener, at this point, have you attached yourself to the house of Jacob? Have you attached yourself to the house of Jacob? What do you mean, Pastor? Well, have you attached yourself to Christ? Jesus Christ, true God and true man, the Word made flesh, Emmanuel, the child born unto us, the Son given unto us, Jesus Christ is the only Savior of sinners. He is the all-sufficient Savior of sinners. The Father sent his Son to be the Savior of sinners like me and like you, and he died upon the cross to pay the penalty for sin, and he rose from the dead so that whoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life. Do you believe in him? Do you trust in him for your salvation?

If you do, you have attached yourself to the God of Jacob, the true and living God, and you have thus also attached yourself to the house of Jacob. May God give you the grace to receive and rest upon Christ and Christ alone for your salvation even this day. And that leads me to my final point. Consider finally, beloved, the rest and relief resulting from the New Exodus, the rest and relief resulting from the New Exodus. In verse 3, it says, You will take up this taunt against the King of Babylon, and then begins a lengthy taunt song in the form of a lament, how the oppressor has ceased, the insolent fury ceased. Babylon represents worldly power. Ultimately, Babylon represents and is a type of the Antichrist. Babylon must be judged before the Redeemer would come.

As Dr. Young writes, when Isaiah wrote, the great might of Babylon had not made itself fully manifest. Assyria was at that day in the ascendancy, but Babylon would come, the agent of God in bringing about the overthrow of the theocracy, the Israelite theocracy in other words. But Babylon had been a proudly exulting foe, far greater even than Assyria. She therefore must fall and fall completely. Babylon must fall and fall completely. Her overthrow would thus signalize that the way was fully open for the Redeemer to come and for the promises of God to be fulfilled. You see, the people would be exiled into Babylon. God would use Babylon to judge his faithless people. They would be refined and chastened through that exile experience. But Babylon, an instrument in God’s hand for judgment, they had not done their work as unto the Lord.

They had done it with cruelty. And so God was going to judge Babylon. And Babylon, ancient Babylon’s judgment was necessary before the Messiah could be sent. That’s the point that Dr. Young is making. And of course, God’s judgment and overthrow of Babylon would mean rest and relief for God’s exiled people, just as the Exodus event of old had meant rest and relief for God’s people from the yoke of Egyptian bondage. Now all of this again is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, for Christ alone can give rest to our souls and relieve us from the legalistic burdens of trying to earn our salvation. And so this ultimately points us not just to rest from exile and a return to the promised land, not merely rest from physical slavery, but salvation rest in the Lord Jesus Christ.

As Jesus says, if you turn to Matthew 11, verses 28 to 30, we read these words. The Lord Jesus says this, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden. Those of you who labor and are heavy laden by the weight of your sin, by your guilty conscience, come to me, Jesus says, and I will give you rest. And then he says, take my yoke upon you. The picturing a yoke that is put on an animal, a yoke of servitude, but it’s not a heavy yoke. It’s not a burdensome yoke. It’s not a crushing yoke. No, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Joshua was not the one who ultimately gave his people rest, though he brought them into the promised land.

Moses certainly doesn’t give his people rest. Christ gives us rest. Dear ones, let us find our salvation rest in Jesus Christ and Christ alone. In conclusion, my friends, our gracious God always keeps his promises. His gifts and calling are irrevocable. His word is truth. His gospel is sure. His faithfulness is steadfast. His mercies are new every morning. But in spite of the hostility and the raging of his enemies, his purposes will stand. By the grace of God, may we as a church be aligned with the purposes of God. May we pursue the mission of God. May we display the love of God. May we display the love of God both within our fellowship as we love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. And may we display the love of God to those outside of Christ, those who desperately need to know the love of Jesus.

And all of God’s people said, Amen. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that in Christ we have a greater deliverance than even the deliverance of the people from their enslavement to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. We have a greater deliverance even than the deliverance you granted to your people after the exile. We have deliverance from the world, the flesh, and the devil in Christ. We thank you, God, for delivering us, redeeming us, saving us, not because we deserve it, not because we are worthy, but by your grace and your grace alone. May we stand upon your grace. And as you are a God who always keeps your promises to us, grant us the grace to keep our promises to be faithful to you, to walk with you, and to be witnesses for Christ. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, Amen.

Let’s respond to what we’ve heard today by rising and we’ll sing as our closing Psalm, Psalm 72B, Hail to the Lord’s Anointed, 72B.

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.

May 25, 2025
Babylon’s Doom, and the Day of the LORD

About this sermon

Isaiah’s oracle against Babylon declares that the Lord is sovereign over all the nations, even those who do not know him. He musters an army from a distant land to execute his wrath. The day of the Lord comes as destruction from the Almighty; the stars will not give their light, and he will punish the world for its evil and the arrogant for their pride. Babylon’s fall foreshadows the final judgment of all who live by their own way instead of submitting to his lordship. Those who confess their sins have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous.

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Sermon transcript

Dear friends in Christ, we have confessed our sins to the Lord. Hear these words of comfort from 1 John to those who confess their sins. It says this in 1 John chapter 1, beginning at verse 8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Dear brother or sister in Christ, you who have confessed your sins and are trusting Jesus for forgiveness and salvation, God’s Word declares your sins are forgiven. Believe that good news and again live your life in the light of the good news. We are a good news people and we have much to rejoice in. Praise God. And all of God’s people said, Amen. Well brothers and sisters in Christ, as we rise to hear the Word of God read, let’s sing together and this is printed out in your bulletin, stanza four from hymn 173. Off does the precious seed is sown, Your quickening grace bestow. Of all whose souls the truth receive, Its saving power they know. Amen. Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We continue our consideration of the book of the prophet Isaiah and we begin this morning our study of a new section of the prophet Isaiah beginning at Isaiah chapter 13.

My sermon text is Isaiah 13 verses 1 through 16. You’ll find that beginning on page 684 in your pew Bible. Dear friends, this is the Word of God. Let us hear it with reverence and awe. The oracle concerning Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos saw on a bare hill, raise a signal, cry aloud to them, wave the hand for them to enter the gates of the nobles. I myself have commanded my consecrated ones and have summoned my mighty men to execute my anger, my proudly exalting ones. The sound of a tumult is on the mountains as of a great multitude. The sound of an uproar of kingdoms of nations gathering together. The Lord of hosts is mustering a host for battle. They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the Lord and the weapons of His indignation to destroy the whole land.

Wail for the day of the Lord is near, as destruction from the Almighty it will come. Therefore all hands will be feeble and every human heart will melt. They will be dismayed, pangs and agony will seize them. They will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another, their faces will be aflame. Behold the day of the Lord comes, cruel with wrath and fierce anger to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.

I will make people more rare than fine gold and mankind than the gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble and the earth will be shaken out of its place at the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of His fierce anger. And like a hunted gazelle or like sheep with none to gather them, each will turn to his own people and each will flee to his own land. Whoever is found will be thrust through and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes, their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished. The grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the proclamation of His word. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we thank You that You have spoken to us in the Holy Scriptures.

They are indeed Your God-breathed, inerrant, infallible Word, a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. Lord, we pray that as we come to approach this difficult and sobering portion of Holy Scripture, we pray that Your Spirit would indeed make us open and receptive to what the Spirit is speaking to us in this portion of Your Word. We ask that You would grant to me, Your unworthy servant, the grace to declare and speak forth Your Word with clarity and power and in a manner that connects with each and every one of us. And we ask, Lord, that Jesus would be exalted this day in the proclamation of His Word. We ask all these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said. Amen. Dear ones, you may be seated. The title of my sermon this morning is Babylon’s Doom and the Day of the Lord.

And I want to encourage the young people to listen for these five words in my sermon today. The words day, lordship, destruction, anger, and comfort. And I will tell you that if you have your sermon outlined before you, I may or may not be able to get through all of the points. There’s a lot in this passage, so we’ll see how much we can get through in the time allotted to us today. But my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as followers of Jesus Christ, we confess along with the historic Christian church that Jesus Christ our Lord shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. And we also confess of Christ that His kingdom shall have no end, to quote to you from that great ecumenical creed of the church known as the Nicene Creed.

Dear friends, the Bible, God’s Holy Word, teaches that the final day of the Lord will occur when our Lord Jesus returns in glory at the end of this age to judge humanity at the final judgment. And that will be followed by our Lord ushering in the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells. And so, friends, for those of us who through God’s sovereign grace have come to trust in Christ and Christ alone as our Savior from sin, for us believers, that final day of the Lord will be a day of inconceivable joy, a day of unimaginable light and glory. It will be a day for us when all gloom and darkness will depart, for it will be the day when the Lord openly vindicates us and takes us to be with Him forever in His Father’s heavenly home.

Remember, Jesus said, I go and prepare a place for you. That is our great comfort. That is our great hope, our blessed hope as we look forward to that day of the Lord. However, friends, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning reminds us of the sobering truth that the final day of the Lord will not be a day of light and joy and glory for everyone, sadly. For the rebellious, unbelieving nations of mankind as represented by the ancient pagan empire of Babylon, in other words, in the case of the unrepentant wicked, the day of the Lord will not be a day of light and glory and blessedness but will be a day of terror, a day of darkness, a day of cruelty and destruction, for it will be the day when the righteous and holy wrath of Yahweh, the Lord, the true and living God of Israel, will punish the wicked by thrusting them into the outer darkness of eternal gloom.

The historic judgment that the Lord Yahweh would bring against the proud and pagan ancient empire of Babylon, a judgment which is described in this passage as the day of the Lord, was but a type, a pointer, and a foretaste of that final day of the Lord, that day when our Lord Jesus will return to judge humanity. Now as I mentioned before reading this passage today, this chapter begins a new section of the prophet Isaiah. It begins a lengthy section that largely contains judgment oracles directed against the various Gentile nations and peoples that neighbored ancient Israel, and these neighbors of Israel often proved to be rather unneighborly, for they often proved to be hostile toward Israel and toward Israel’s God, Yahweh. Now in the first section of Isaiah, in the first twelve chapters, we’ve seen that the judgment oracles in that first section of Isaiah were mostly directed against God’s unfaithful people, in particular against the southern kingdom of Judah and her capital city of Jerusalem, but also against the northern kingdom of Israel, sometimes called Ephraim, and its capital city of Samaria.

In judging his faithless covenant-breaking people, Yahweh, the Lord, often chose to use foreign Gentile nations as his instruments of judgment and chastisement against his faithless people. But now Isaiah foresees that things will change. Isaiah predicts that Yahweh in sovereign mercy will someday restore his chastened, humbled people, and they will return from their exile, and instead the Lord will turn his wrath away from his faithless people and turn his wrath toward the nations that had persecuted his people and had run after idols. Even those nations that God had previously used as his instruments of judgment and chastisement against his people, nations such as the Assyrians and also later on the Babylonians, even those nations would themselves experience the judgment that they meted out against God’s people. They themselves would experience God’s judgment. And all of this serves to underscore a very important truth, a truth that is not very popular today, even in the Christian imagination, but it is a very important biblical truth, and that truth is Yahweh’s universal sovereign lordship over all the nations of humanity.

Let’s direct our attention, let me direct your attention I should say, to the first five verses of our passage for today as we consider Yahweh’s universal sovereign lordship over all the nations of humanity. Our passage begins as follows, the oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amos saw. Now obviously this oracle is directed against Babylon, what’s the significance of that? Well think about ancient Babylon and think about Israel’s other neighbors, their Gentile neighbors in the ancient Near East. What kind of deities did Israel’s neighbors worship? Well the gods and goddesses and deities worshiped by the Gentile nations surrounding Israel were gods and goddesses and deities who were limited, who were limited in their power and limited in their influence. They were in reality of course dead idols. But unlike the gods and deities worshiped by Israel’s pagan neighbors, Yahweh the god of Israel was unique among the nations.

For Yahweh the god of Israel was not a mere national or tribalistic deity, a deity who had no significant power outside of the confines of his own land or the confines of his own worshippers. On the contrary, unlike the lifeless idols of the Gentile nations, Yahweh the god of Israel was and is the one true and living god, the creator of the heavens and the earth, the god of heaven who is sovereign over all the nations of humanity. And the fact that Yahweh the lord can pronounce judgment oracles against foreign nations underscores this truth. In the pagan mindset of the ancient Near East, the gods that were worshiped by the pagans as I said, they were limited beings. They were powerful beings but they had to be fed with sacrifices, they had to be worshiped in order to gain their power and their influence was only limited within the confines of the lands where they were worshiped and among their people.

But Yahweh is sovereign everywhere for he created all things and he is lord over all of the nations. And so while the lord was the god of his covenant people Israel in a special way in the sense of covenant mercy and love, at the same time Yahweh the lord was and is and ever shall be the universal sovereign lord over all of the nations of humanity including even over those nations and peoples who do not worship him or recognize his sovereignty and which seek to live in opposition to his kingdom. And that should be a great comfort to us knowing that he is lord, he is god, he is sovereign even over the peoples and nations who refuse to worship him, indeed who do not know him, do not recognize him. He is indeed king of kings and lord of lords whether or not the nations and peoples of humanity recognize him and bow to his sovereign lordship.

Again verse one describes what we read in this passage as an oracle. That term oracle indicates a divine declaration. This indicates brothers and sisters that what we have here in this passage is not merely human prognostication but rather divine revelation. This is not just Isaiah doing the best guesswork that he can in predicting the future. This is divine revelation. This is an oracle from the lord about Babylon. It is a revelation concerning Babylon. Now Isaiah begins this judgment section of oracles against the nations with a judgment oracle against what was the greatest ancient threat against his people Israel. That is the threat of the Babylonian Empire. Now I will mention at this point that critical scholars of the Bible tend to reject Isaiah’s authorship of this particular oracle against Babylon. And the reason they do so is because at the time when Isaiah was ministering in the eighth century BC at that particular time it was not Babylon the empire of Babylon that was the greatest threat to God’s people but rather it was the empire of Assyria.

And so what the critical scholars will sometimes say or often say they will claim that well obviously Isaiah couldn’t have written this. This is referring to things that were after his time. And so a later editor wrote this passage and attributed it to Isaiah. This is an interpolation they would claim something that was added by a later editor. However if that is the case then what we have in this passage is a lie because what does it say in verse one to whom is this oracle attributed in terms of whom this oracle was shown to. The oracle concerning Babylon which who which Isaiah the son of Amos saw Isaiah the son of Amos saw this vision that is recorded for us in this oracle. And so friends this is speaking of the original eighth century BC Isaiah.

You see dear ones the critical view is based on an anti-supernatural bias a rejection of the possibility of predictive prophecy. And so it is based upon a low view of the authority and inspiration of the scriptures. But since we believe that God is a supernatural God who has planned the end from the beginning a God who is sovereign over all of the ages of humanity predictive prophecy is no problem for the Holy Spirit. And so it’s no problem that the Holy Spirit would reveal to Isaiah events that would occur a hundred years or more into the future with respect to Isaiah’s time. So again we must reject the unbelieving rationalistic critical view that would claim that well Isaiah didn’t really write this because we know quote we know that predictive prophecy is an impossibility. It’s not impossible for God.

And if this is the word of God there’s no reason to doubt the Holy Spirit inspiring Isaiah himself to speak this oracle with respect to Babylon. But if you’ll allow me to offer another perspective allow me to quote from a commentator a sound orthodox commentator who offers another perspective on this passage this particular commentator says this and I quote Babylon and Assyria are treated together in the first oracle the first oracle stretches from chapter 13 verse 1 through chapter 14 verse 27 because Babylon became the crown jewel of the Assyrian Empire. Assyrian kings had themselves crowned as kings of this renowned city. Babylon was regarded as the epitome of religion and culture and as such Babylon represents the kingdoms of this world now that’s something to to take note of Babylon has great significance because it represents the kingdoms of this fallen rebellious world.

So that’s that’s another way to look at this passage but again I tend to lean towards the view held by Dr. EJ Young that indeed what Isaiah is prophesying of and predicting here has to do with the empire of Babylon that would take Judah into exile later on. In any case we have this oracle concerning Babylon and how does the oracle begin? Let’s look at verses 2 and 3 it says on a bare hill raise a signal this is a military signal the Lord is pictured as raising a signal cry aloud to them wave the hand for them to enter the gates of the nobles the Babylonians were considered Babylon was considered a place of great nobility and culture so raise and enter the gates of the nobles I myself have commanded my consecrated one and have summoned my mighty men to execute my anger my proudly exalting one.

What’s going on here in verses 2 and 3? Well what we have here friends is that Yahweh the true and living God the faithful covenant making covenant keeping God of Israel is pictured as a divine warrior as the commander of his hosts and he summons an army to serve as his instruments in executing his righteous anger against proud cruel Babylon that’s what’s going on here he is summoning his armies he is saying Babylon which was such a powerful empire such a cruel empire and had so much power if you lived back in the time of the Babylonian empire you would think this empire will never crumble it is so strong it is so solid but the Lord was going to raise an army even against the great Babylonians and then notice verse 4 it says the sound of a tumult is on the mountains as of a great multitude Isaiah is very skilled in writing in a picturesque manner you can picture and you can almost hear the sound of the tumult of this great multitude this great army on the mountains it goes on to say the sound of an uproar of kingdoms of nations gathering together the Lord as he’s gathering his army to destroy and judge Babylon he gathers his army from among the nations and he gathers them together as a great host Yahweh the Lord musters his hosts from even among distant nations to overthrow Babylon and again the fact that the Lord raises his army from distant nations what does that show that shows that Yahweh the Lord is sovereign over all the nations his sovereignty extends beyond the borders of Israel to all of the nations of humanity and then in verse 5 they come from a distant land from the ends of the heavens the Lord and the weapons of his indignation these armies that he raises against Babylon are God’s armies they are in his hands they are his instruments of indignation to destroy the whole land this army is described back in verse 3 as the Lord’s consecrated or holy ones that’s not to say that the Medes and those who attacked and destroyed the Babylonians that they were holy in the sense of worshippers of the Lord and righteous in conduct and so forth but it is they were holy in the sense that God set them apart to serve as his instruments of judgment against wicked Babylon and so again we learn in verse 5 that Yahweh summons his armies from afar all of which assumes that he exercises universal sovereign lordship over all of the nations of humanity and what do we learn from all of this brothers and sisters and why is this such an important truth for us to embrace and to proclaim well first of all brothers and sisters God’s universal sovereign lordship over all of the nations serves as a warning to the wicked and unbelieving to those who are of the spirit of Babylon which as we will see is actually the spirit of antichrist you see God is the divine potter we are but the clay he is the creator we are his creatures he is the judge we are the judged and we have no right to put God in the dock and sit in judgment over him or subject him to our tests in his divine lordship he requires all peoples everywhere to love and to obey and to serve him in total complete devotion and loyalty no one is exempt from that requirement all of us having been created in God’s image we know in our heart of hearts through even through general revelation and natural conscience we know that God is and that we are obligated to obey him to love him to worship him to love him to worship him to give thanks to him to give him our supreme loyalty and yet how many today fear God where is the fear of God today among our contemporaries is there any fear of God the fear of God is all but gone except among a remnant chosen by grace dear ones if we refuse to live under his lordship this passage serves to warn us that there is no escape from his righteous anger there is no escape apart from repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ praise God there is a way of escape for all of us have fallen short none of us loves the Lord our God with all of our hearts soul mind and strength none of us loves our neighbor as ourselves as we are commanded to do we all fall short of that standard we all miss the mark of living up to what God requires of us but praise God out of love for sinners he sent his son Jesus to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification and that we might receive the gift of eternal life so that all who believe in him might not perish but have everlasting life what about you have you heeded this warning are you do you recognize that you have rejected his lordship in your life that you have sought to be autonomous to be a law unto yourself I’m reminded of that Frank Sinatra not him Frank Sinatra song sorry about that I did it my way that seems to be the motto of many folks today it’s not a hymn believe me it’s a hymn to secular humanism maybe but and I understand that the lyrics of that song speak about determination and and so forth but but so many think you know I’m gonna do it my way I’m gonna choose my path my life me me me me no it’s not about you God created you and you will stand before your maker on the judgment day Jesus Christ King of Kings and Lord of Lords will gather all humanity towards him before him on that final judgment day and all of us will give an account of every thought word and deed and the only way that we will stand on that judgment day that day of the Lord the only way that we will stand confident is if we stand in Christ forgiven of our sins through his blood on the cross clothed in his perfect righteousness and you say how do I get that you get it by grace through faith you simply receive and rest upon Christ and Christ alone for your salvation from sin so take heed let us take warning let the godless take warning and let us recognize our rebellion and flee to Christ for salvation but we also see in this passage beloved that Yahweh’s universal lordship is a great comfort to God’s people a great comfort especially to believers who suffer persecution at the hands of the wicked now the ancient people of God who would read of this prophecy and who would come later on to experience the wrath of Babylon experience the chastisement and judgment that God would send against his people in the Babylonian exile the people of God experienced great cruelty horrific suffering under Babylon and so how would this oracle against Babylon comfort them it would comfort them because it would show them that God is going to right all wrongs the Lord is going to right all wrongs Yahweh’s universal lordship is a great comfort to us it reminds us that God governs all of the nations and all of human history for his ultimate glory and for our ultimate good and this is especially again a comfort for God’s persecuted people now this is something that we in America don’t relate to very well because we enjoy religious liberty we don’t face too much in the way of of overt persecution you know snide comments and and and sarcasm maybe we might be objects of verbal verbal humiliation from others but we don’t we have not experienced the kind of horrible suffering such as God’s people experienced under the Babylonians but here the Lord is assuring his people through this oracle of judgment against Babylon that look yes Babylon was horrible but I’m going to right all wrongs I am going to bring my judgment against Babylon and so this ought to comfort us beloved because it points to the fact that God will in the end right all wrongs and bring justice to bear so praise be to God for his amazing justice and his amazing grace Yahweh is the Lord over all the nations we are called upon in the gospel to recognize and to confess Christ’s lordship in fact we’re told in Romans 10 verse 9 and 10 that if you confess with your lips Jesus is what Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you shall be saved calling Jesus Lord means more than just recognizing his deity though it certainly includes that it means recognizing his right to rule our lives he is the sovereign Lord over all the nations but he wants to be acknowledged confessed trusted as our very own Lord and Savior from sin may God give us the grace to trust him and to proclaim him as Lord over all of the nations he’s not just Lord of his church though he is Lord of his church in a special way but he is Lord over all of the nations so let us confess and declare his sovereign lordship over all as we look forward to that final day of the Lord a day of the Lord that will be to us who trust in him a day of light and joy a day of great a joy joy inexpressible and filled with glory but for the wicked for those who are of the spirit of Babylon it will be a day of horror and terror how is the day going to be for you may you trust in Christ as your Lord and Savior so that you need not fear the day of the Lord or wail at its coming but you might rejoice in it amen let us pray our great God and heavenly father we thank you and praise you oh God that you care for us your people we thank you for caring for your persecuted people we thank you Lord that in this fallen sin-cursed world where the spirit of Babylon prevails the spirit of the Antichrist we thank you that Christ is still Lord over all King of Kings and Lord of Lords may these truths be a comfort to us and may these truths govern us as we seek to live out our lives as faithful disciples of Christ we pray these things in Jesus name and all of God’s people said amen as we

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May 4, 2025
Behold, God is My Salvation!

About this sermon

Isaiah 12 is a song for the day of salvation: “Though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation.” It echoes Exodus 15: “The Lord is my strength and my song.” God’s people draw water with joy from the wells of salvation, give thanks, and make known his deeds among the peoples. Worship and mission belong together. Evangelism proclaims the mighty deeds of the Lord, not the felt needs of man, and the Holy One of Israel is great in the midst of his people.

More sermons from Isaiah · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Amen. Well, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. We return this morning to our consideration of the book of the prophet Isaiah, and today we are in the shortest chapter in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 12, it’s just six verses long, and I will read the entire chapter. Isaiah chapter 12, verses 1 through 6, you’ll find that on page 684 in your pew Bible. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let us hear the word of God. You will say in that day, I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation.

With joy you will draw waters from the wells of salvation, and you will say in that day, give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the peoples, proclaim that His name is exalted. Sing praises to the Lord, for He has done gloriously. Let this be made known in all the earth. Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion. For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. May God add His blessing to this reading of His holy word. Let’s pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, once again, we thank you that you have spoken. You have spoken clearly in your word, but Lord, we are often obtuse and dense and not open to what you have to say. And so we pray that this day that your Spirit would give us tender, teachable hearts, open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word.

And we would ask that your word would find a lodging place in our souls. We pray that by your Spirit the seed of your word would take deep root and bear much spiritual fruit in our lives, fruit that brings praise and glory and honor to your holy name, fruit that brings joy and comfort to our souls. Be with us now and bless me, your unworthy servant, with the grace to declare and speak forth your word with clarity and power. We pray these things through Christ our Lord and all of God’s people said, Amen, you may be seated. There’s quite a number of words that the young people can be listening for in my sermon this day, which are printed out in your sermon outline. And those words are thanksgiving, comfort, salvation, proclamation, praise and presence.

The title of my sermon is Behold, God is my salvation. Well, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the journey of life, it is often the case that we experience the highest of joys after we have gone through the deepest of struggles and sorrows, challenges and difficulties. Just to give you some examples, consider the world of sports. Isn’t it often the case in a sporting event between two competing teams that the greatest exhilaration over a victory for the winning team occurs after there’s been an intense struggle, an intense competition and a close game? In the realm of academics, isn’t it the case that the greatest satisfaction among students who are taking a difficult class, a class that requires hours of intensive study and research, isn’t it the case that such students experience the greatest sense of satisfaction after they’ve put in their time and effort to that class and finally they get their report card and not only have they just passed the class, but they’ve actually attained an A?

Or consider the joy of a mother in welcoming her child into the world after the pain of a long and difficult labor. Well, dear ones, the joy that the prophet Isaiah expresses in this brief passage of God’s word is a similar kind of joy. Now, of course, there are differences. You see, the joy that Isaiah speaks of is not a joy that God’s people have in any way worked for or earned or deserved after intense personal labors or personal efforts. Rather, it is a joy that is given to an undeserving people as a sheer gift of God’s grace and God’s grace alone. It is the joy of salvation, the joy of salvation and deliverance that God’s people would experience following his judgment against them as a covenant nation for their unfaithfulness. That is the context of our passage for today.

Friends, as I mentioned, Chapter 12 is the shortest chapter in this long book, the Book of Isaiah. And it’s a chapter that contains two short but interconnected songs of praise which serve as a fitting conclusion to the first section of Isaiah, a section, you will recall, that largely consisted of judgment oracles against Judah and its capital city of Jerusalem. There’s been a lot of depressing passages that we’ve considered up to this point in the first section of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah because this section is dominated in many ways by judgment oracles where the Lord promises and threatens his judgment against his people for their wickedness in forsaking Yahweh their God and breaking his holy covenant through their blatant idolatries and also through their societal injustices. The Holy Spirit through the Prophet Isaiah had predicted that severe judgment would indeed come against the Lord’s vineyard, that is to say against his professed covenant people.

But the final chapter in the story of God’s covenant people would not end on a note of judgment and ruin and exile, though indeed judgment and ruin and exile would come. But instead we are assured in passages like this one that Yahweh our God would once again show himself to be faithful to his gracious covenant and merciful to his people, merciful to his people in spite of their faithlessness. While Isaiah had predicted judgment, ruin, and exile, he also predicts that God graciously would preserve a remnant of his people, a remnant chosen not because they deserve to be chosen, not because of their faithfulness, a remnant chosen by sovereign grace and grace alone. Following God’s judgment against the covenant nation, a remnant of the exiles would return. Not only that, the promised Messiah, the Immanuel that we read of in chapter 9, the branch of the Lord that we read of in chapter 11, this promised Messiah would finally arrive on the scene of human history.

God’s righteous anger against his sinning people would indeed be turned away. And he would turn once again in mercy to his people. He would turn to his people once again not to judge and destroy them, but to comfort them, to restore them, to save them. And as our passage for today drives home, our joy as God’s people is being able to say both as individual believers and together collectively as the church of Jesus Christ to be able to say, behold, God is my salvation. So as we turn our attention to our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, we first consider a thanksgiving for God’s comfort and salvation. This is the first point on your sermon outline. We notice a thanksgiving for God’s comfort and salvation. Let me once again read the first two verses. You will say in that day, I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.

Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and will not be afraid for the Lord God is my strength and my song and he has become my salvation. This is the first song of praise in chapter 12. The second song of praise begins in verse four and leads to the end of the chapter. But in this first song of praise, how does Isaiah begin? He begins by saying, you will say in that day. You will say in that day. Now in that day, that should raise the question. If you’re a sensitive and careful Bible reader, one of the qualifications for being a good Bible reader is to ask good questions. And so what questions should you be asking when you read in that day? You should be asking the question, what day is Isaiah speaking about?

Is he speaking about the day of Israel’s restoration to the land following the Babylonian exile? Well certainly that would be at least a partial fulfillment of this passage. Or is he speaking of the day of the coming Messiah and the introduction of the new covenant era? Well again, this is an eschatological passage. This passage uses eschatological language. And so the day that is being spoken of here is an eschatological day, which means that it is a day that has to do with the unfolding of God’s plan and purpose within human history. This language, this eschatological language echoes chapter 11 verse 10 where we also read those words in that day. And as we saw when we considered that particular passage, the day spoken of there is the age of the Messiah. In other words, the new covenant era of redemptive history.

In other words, friends, this passage ultimately points to the messianic new covenant age in which we Christians are privileged to live. This is talking about today, this period of time that we live in, this period of time between our Lord’s first coming and his future glorious second advent at the end of this age. Now notice the first word that begins in this translation, the ESV here of chapter 12 and verse 1. You will say in that day. It’s interesting that the you here is in the singular. But the you in verse 4 is in the plural. What’s the significance of that? Well, in this first song of praise in verses 1 through 3, what we see here, it appears, we see that God’s people are depicted as speaking this song of thanksgiving unitedly as if they were one man, as if they were one individual.

This kind of corporate singular, if you will, is used throughout the scriptures in various places. For example, the apostle Paul speaks of our united praise in the Church of Jesus Christ, our united praise to the Lord in passages like Romans 15, verses 5 and 6. And in that passage, Paul is standing in awe of the fact that through the gospel, both Jews who believe in Jesus and Gentiles who believe in Jesus are brought together into one body and unitedly they give praise to God. As it says in those verses, Romans 15, 5 and 6, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may, plural, you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Friends, in this new covenant messianic age, whether we be Jew or Gentile, whether we be male or female, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, cultured or common, because of our spiritual and saving union and communion with Jesus of Nazareth, the promised Messiah, we, as God’s people, lift up our hearts and our voices together in unity and with one accord in praise and thanksgiving to our Savior God, the God who has done so much for us, the God who has restored us, who has saved us, the God who in Christ and by His Spirit comforts us. And so, again, the covenant nation is depicted as one man praising God and saying what? In verse 1, I will give thanks to you, oh Yahweh, the Lord, the faithful covenant-making covenant-keeping God of Israel. I will give thanks to you.

Here, friends, is a song of thanksgiving to Yahweh in view of gracious benefits received. We should praise God, of course, for who He is. The infinite, almighty, transcendent, creator, sustainer, and sovereign Lord over heaven and earth, the God who is infinite, eternal, and unchanging in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. He deserves to be praised simply for who He is. But here, we are also encouraged to praise Him for what He has done for us. And what has He done? He’s done something amazing. He’s done something amazing. It says this, for though you were angry with me, God was angry with His covenant nation, rightly so, because the covenant nation had broken His covenant. They had stiffened their necks. They had hardened their hearts. They had rebelled against the Lord. They had continued on in impenitence and idolatry, immorality, and injustice.

And yet, God has mercy upon them. And they are pictured as standing in awe. For though you were angry with me, rightly angry. This is a righteous anger that God had with them. Nevertheless, notice what it says. Your anger turned away, that you might comfort me. You know, only God can turn away God’s anger. How has God done this? How has the holy, righteous, just God, who is angry with the wicked, rightly so, every day, we’re told in the Scriptures, God is angry with the wicked every day. And His wrath is continuously being revealed from heaven against the unrighteousness and godlessness of men who, as Paul tells us in Romans 1, suppress the truth and unrighteousness. You read the Bible, and you read how God’s people, and indeed the nations of humanity, continually and consistently rebel against the Lord.

And we realize, wow, God is so amazingly patient, forbearing, long-suffering with humanity, that He’s rightly angry with us. But how does God turn away His own righteous, just anger? He does so through the promised Messiah. You see, in Christ our Lord, God’s righteous anger has been decisively turned away. And as a result, we receive not only salvation, restoration, we receive eternal comfort. Your anger has turned away that you might comfort me. And then verse 2 naturally flows out of this opening praise in verse 1, as Isaiah, speaking as a psalmist would, says, Behold, God is my salvation. God is my salvation. Children, what does the word behold mean? The term behold is basically a term, you know, if you’re in class and you’re kind of, your mind is wandering or you’re doodling on your writing pad, you’re not paying attention, your teacher might say, listen up, or pay attention.

That’s what the term behold means. That means we really need to, I mean, we need to pay attention to God’s Word, whatever you’re reading in God’s Word. But here, God is saying through the prophet Isaiah, this is really important. Pay attention, for a great truth is about to be announced. And what is that great truth? It is a great truth that goes against the grain of our proud, fallen, self-righteous nature. It is the truth that you can’t save yourself. You can’t contribute to your salvation. You can’t lift a finger to save yourself. Behold, God is my salvation. He is the salvation of His people. In what sense is God our salvation? Well, I like what Dr. E.J. Young writes about this in his commentary on Isaiah. He states it well. He says that when Isaiah writes, God is my salvation, he says, quote, it means that God is the author, the cause, the agent, the accomplisher of that salvation.

Let me read that again. God is our salvation. The term salvation can be a more general term, meaning deliverance. But I think that we are to understand it in its deepest sense, salvation from sin. In what sense is God our salvation? Again, as Young says, God is the author, the cause, the agent, the accomplisher of that salvation. And then it goes on to say, I will trust and will not be afraid. If God in grace turns away His righteous anger from you, dear sinner, what do you have to fear? I will trust and will not be afraid. You need not be afraid of God’s wrath anymore if you are in Christ. If Christ is your Savior, for God has turned away His anger from you, the Lord is your salvation. And then it goes on to say, for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation.

You know, the language here in verse 2 echoes the song of Moses. Let’s turn back to Exodus chapter 15 and look at verse 2, Exodus chapter 15, verse 2. And as you’re turning there, let me once again read verse 2 of our passage, Isaiah 12, verse 2. Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation. With those words in mind, turn to the song of Moses, Exodus 15, and notice verse 2, notice the wording. The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation. Do those words sound familiar? They ought to because Isaiah is basically quoting from that in verse 2 of chapter 12. It goes on to say, this is my God, and I will praise Him, my Father’s God, and I will exalt Him.

The fact that Isaiah is here referencing or quoting from the song of Moses serves to underscore the theme of a second or new Exodus. This is a theme throughout the book of Isaiah, that something greater than the first Exodus is coming. The new or second Exodus will be a great act of deliverance that will far surpass God’s amazing deliverance of His people, Israel, from Egyptian slavery under Pharaoh. And that was amazing in and of itself, wasn’t it? How God poured out His plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians, how He parted the sea so that the people went through on dry land, how He rescued His people and caused the waters of the sea to return over the Egyptians who pursued them. Amazing, an amazing deliverance from physical slavery and political oppression. But the new Exodus, the Exodus of the Messianic age, will be much greater than that.

This new or second Exodus, of course, was accomplished by Jesus Christ and His mighty works of salvation, such as His obedient life, His atoning sacrificial death, whereby He fully satisfied for all of the sins of all of those who trust Him as Lord and Savior, and His resurrection, His physical bodily resurrection from the dead. These mighty acts of salvation, this second Exodus, is much greater than what was accomplished through Moses. Christ accomplished a much greater deliverance, a much greater Exodus, than had been accomplished under the ministry of Moses. So again, we can say, the Lord God is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation. I want to make a couple points of application from this first point. First of all, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us remember and give thanks for the comforts of our salvation in Christ.

Many Christians who love the Lord, who trust the Lord, do not experience the comfort of their salvation. God desires, brothers and sisters, that we experience the comforts of our salvation. What are those comforts? Well, how about I read a wonderful Bible-based summary of those comforts in the Heidelberg Catechism, question one. You’re welcome to turn there. So on page 872 in the back of your Psalter hymnal, page 872, the Heidelberg Catechism opens with this question, question one. What is your only comfort in life and in death? The Bible-based answer is this. Listen to these words. Brother, sister, and Christ, if you do not find these words, these good news words to be of great comfort to your soul, then I don’t know what to say. What could be more comforting to know that you belong to a faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who has given you the gift of eternal life, forgiven you all your sins, who dwells in you by His Spirit, and who is keeping you and preserving you unto life eternal?

Dear listener, do you know not only the salvation of Christ, do you know the comforts of Christ? Have you embraced the saving comfort offered to you in the Gospel? Is God your salvation? God in the Gospel offers Jesus Christ, crucified for the forgiveness of sins, raised from the dead, so that whoever believes in Him, whoever trusts in Him, might not perish but have everlasting life. Do you repent and believe in Christ? God calls you, He calls all people through the Gospel to repent and believe the good news, believe that Christ was crucified for the forgiveness of sins and that His death is sufficient for you, believe that He rose from the dead to bring newness of life to all who turn to Him, turn to Christ, trust in Him, and He will cleanse you from your sin and clothe you in His perfect everlasting righteousness, causing you to be justified once and for all and forever.

He’s going to begin sanctifying you and fitting you and preparing you for your glorification. These are the comforts of knowing that God is our salvation. But wait, there’s more as we move on. Let’s consider next as we move on to verses 3 through 5, the inexhaustible wells of salvation and the universal proclamation of God’s mighty deeds. The inexhaustible, limitless wells of salvation and the universal proclamation of God’s mighty deeds. The two key words in that main point are salvation and proclamation. Look at verse 3, with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. What a picture, what a picture. With joy you will draw waters. You ever been so thirsty that you feel like you’re about to faint? You want water. You need refreshment to enliven you, to strengthen you. At a spiritual level we need the waters of salvation, and the waters of salvation bring us joy.

Did you know, believer, that God’s goal for us in Christ is not only that we would glorify Him, that’s His highest goal, obviously, for God’s chief end is to glorify God, but God’s goal for us also in Christ is our joy in Him. And here we are told in verse 3, with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Now this reminds us of Israel’s wilderness wanderings. There were times while Israel, having been delivered from their slavery in Egypt, they’re wandering through this desert wilderness. And there were times when they were thirsty and there was not enough water. And God supernaturally provided them with water in the wilderness in order to quench their physical thirst. You know, in the New Testament the Apostle Paul connects this provision of God for his people with Christ.

Let’s turn briefly to 1 Corinthians 10, verses 1 through 4. And I want to especially focus on what he says in verse 4 of chapter 10. Now obviously this is a different context here, but in 1 Corinthians 10 he’s using the wilderness generation as a warning and an example to the Corinthians that they might avoid the kind of idolatry and immorality that the wilderness generation was guilty of. But notice what he says. He says, for I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, that would be the manna. And notice, all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

Christ was with them in the wilderness. And the provision of physical water to quench their physical thirst points forward to Christ, the living waters, who quenches our spiritual thirst. You see, unlike the physical waters that God provided his people in the wilderness, the spiritual waters of salvation that are provided to us believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are limitless, inexhaustible wells of salvation that will never run dry or cease to provide us with life-giving, life-sustaining, life-strengthening refreshment. You know, water was important in the ancient Near Eastern context, and making sure that you had access to a well that wasn’t dry to water was, you know, it’s not like the people back then could just turn on their tap and water flowed from it, like we are privileged to enjoy today. And so there was always the danger that a well would dry out.

But the well that Jesus the Messiah provides us with is not just a well, it’s wells of salvation, pointing to the limitless, inexhaustible resources of sovereign grace available to God’s people. Again, all of this imagery is ultimately fulfilled in the promised Messiah, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And I just want to quote a couple passages from the New Testament that confirms this truth. Consider, for example, Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, verses 13 and 14, where it says this, Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water, in other words, the physical water that came from the well that Jesus was conversing with her beside, Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.

The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, springing up to eternal life. Or consider Revelation, the scene in Revelation chapter 7, verse 17, which is a verse from a passage that depicts the gathering of the great multitude of the redeemed before the throne of God and of the Lamb. And it says this, for the Lamb, that’s Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away our sins, for the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, who will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Jesus Christ is the living water. He’s the only one who can refresh and satisfy and sustain your soul. And then verse 4 begins the second song of praise. And you will say in that day, you plural this time, will say in that day, give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted.

This is a call to thanksgiving and praise, but it’s also a call to make known among the nations the mighty deeds of the Lord. Here we have another glimpse of the eschatological day and another call to thanksgiving. And what are we to proclaim? His deeds. What deeds of God are in view? By the way, God has done many mighty deeds. His mighty works of creation where he spoke the universe into existence out of nothing by his sovereign word of power. The mighty deed of creating man, male and female in his image, taking them from the dust of the ground, breathing life into them. What an amazing miracle that was. And his mighty deeds of providence where he governs all of creation. But probably in Isaiah’s mind here when he speaks of these mighty deeds, probably the Lord’s mighty deeds of salvation and deliverance are in view.

Mighty deeds such as the Exodus, the anticipated return of God’s people from their exile, and ultimately the coming of the Messiah and his saving work. And it says, proclaim that his name is exalted. Now children, what does God’s name indicate? You know, sometimes when we use names, to us they’re just labels. And sometimes parents will name their children, give their children a particular name because, well, this sounds like a nifty name, so let’s give this name to our child. But more often than not, and most parents are a little more careful than that, they will say, well, no, we’re going to name our child with this name because it means this. My parents, I remember them telling me that they named me Jeffrey. I’m a G off Jeffrey, Jeffrey with a G. They said to me, well, it means God’s peace.

That’s one of the reasons they chose that name for me. Now I can’t, don’t quote me on that. I’m just taking my parents at their word, assuming that they were being accurate when they said that. But the point is, in the Bible, God’s name represents his character. And biblical names had significance. You would name a child according to characteristics or attributes that you see in that child or that you hope that child will attain to. God reveals his character, his attributes through his name. But God makes his name, his character and attributes known through what he does. Notice the close connection between the deeds of the Lord and the name of the Lord. Make known his deeds, what he has done among his people. And then as a parallel, it says, proclaim that his name, his character, his attributes, his name is exalted.

What is the ultimate revelation of God’s name? The Lord Jesus Christ. You want to know what God is like? Look to Jesus. Look to all of his word, of course, but look especially to the Lord Jesus Christ. Thanksgiving and worship here, we learn, fuels evangelism and proclamation. For we are told, make known his deeds, proclaim that his name is exalted. This is confirmed in the very next verse, verse five, where it says, Let us sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously. Let this be made known in all the earth, in all the earth. Worship and testify. This is, in some, this is the remission of the church of Jesus Christ in this Messianic age. We are to worship God in spirit and in truth and proclaim his mighty deeds. Worship and testify.

Praise and proclaim. We can certainly distinguish worship and mission, but we dare not separate the two because they are inextricably interconnected. Well friends, a couple applications here. First of all, notice that the subject of missionary preaching is not the felt needs of man, but the mighty deeds of the Lord. There are many schools of evangelism and evangelistic and church planting experts out there today who would say that, well, if you want to grow your church, what you need to do is scratch people where they itch. You need to find out what their felt needs are and relate Jesus to their felt needs. Now, again, there’s a certain amount of legitimacy to that. The Bible does speak to us in our context. But our greatest need, whether we feel it or not, is the need for our sins to be forgiven and to be reconciled to a God who is apart from Christ angry with us.

And so we need to remember that the subject of missionary preaching is the Lord, who he is, what he has done, his mighty deeds, especially his mighty deeds in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so let us as a church seek to be faithful in our worship and in our mission as well. But finally, as we close off this brief passage in verse six, this is my final point. We notice here the praise of God’s people for his presence in their midst. We learn in this closing verse of this wonderful song of praise. We see the praise of God’s people for his presence in their midst. It says this, and this is a joyful verse, shout and sing for joy, oh, inhabitant of Zion. You know, some folks say Old Testament worshiping was really boring and joyless.

No, read Isaiah 12, read the Psalms. The Bible is pulsating with the joy of the Lord as experienced by the redeemed of the Lord. Shout and sing for joy, oh, inhabitant of Zion. Are you an inhabitant of Zion? We may not live in the region that was in biblical times called Zion. We don’t live in that region, but we are, brothers and sisters, inhabitants of Zion. We are part of the people of God, the covenant people of God in Christ. Remember, this is a messianic song of praise. Shout and sing for joy, oh, inhabitant of Zion. Why? For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel, the Holy One of Israel. Holy, he is set apart, he is transcendent, he is above time, space, and matter. And yet, and he’s infinitely holy, and yet he comes to dwell in the midst of a sinful yet redeemed people.

That’s the amazing thing about what Jesus has done. You see, friends, from Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptures testify that the ultimate goal and blessing of our salvation is not just that we get to go to heaven when we die. Praise God, that’s part of the Gospel. But the ultimate goal of our salvation is that God would dwell in the midst of His people. God dwelt in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, who were able to commune and fellowship with Him freely and without shame, naked and unashamed before the Lord until they rebelled against the Lord. And then what’s the Lord do? He kicks them out of His garden temple. He kicks them out of His presence. Now, God is present everywhere, but in terms of His special saving, loving presence, He has removed mankind from His comfortable presence.

He has cast them out of Eden. But ever since Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden, God has been about the business of reestablishing His dwelling place among His people. We see that in the tabernacle, in the temple. We see that ultimately in our Lord’s incarnation where Christ, the eternal Son of God, took upon Himself our humanity and the Word became flesh and tabernacled, made His dwelling in our midst. And we see that in the church, which is described in the Scriptures as a temple of the Holy Spirit. Again, what is our highest incentive as inhabitants of Zion to shout and sing for joy? What is our highest incentive for worship? The answer is clear, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. In closing, as our catechism states, man’s chief end is to glorify God.

But what’s the rest of that say? And to enjoy Him forever. And think about that word enjoy. There’s two parts of that word. What’s the latter part of that word? Joy. Joy. God is at work, brother, sister, for your ultimate joy, even as He is at work for His ultimate glory. You know, one aspect of our salvation that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves is the truth that God in Christ delivers us from the misery of our sin and wretchedness, not only because it brings Him glory, which of course it does, but also so that we might know His joy, joy which is expressed in Scripture as a joy inexpressible and filled with glory. It is a joy that sustains you through trials. It is a joy that buoys you up, holds you up in the midst of persecution and opposition.

You know, what could be greater joy than knowing that your Creator loves you with an everlasting love, that in Christ all of your sins, past, present, and future, have been nailed to the cross, knowing that in Christ God accepts you as righteous. Because we are in Christ, brothers and sisters, we can say, in a sense at least, that the Father loves us just as much as He loves His Son, because we are in His Son. So what greater comfort to know? You are loved. You are forgiven. You are righteous, not in yourself, but because of Christ’s righteousness. You are an adopted child of God. His Spirit abides with you. And He’s working all things together for your good, even the bad stuff. He’s working together for your good, fitting you, preparing you for glory. And one day He’s going to come and take you to be with Himself forever.

What greater comfort than knowing that? I think it was John Piper, and I know Piper has some theological, we have some theological issues with him, but he is once, I believe he was once quoted as saying, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. As you find your joy in the Lord, He will be glorified in your joy. And He is at work, brothers and sisters, for our eternal joy. And so let us rise up and shout together, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Sovereign and Eternal God, we thank You for the joy of the Lord, that the joy of the Lord is our strength, and we thank You for the good news of Jesus, our Savior. We pray that by Your Spirit, You would take this word that has been proclaimed today, and may it find a lodging place in our souls.

We ask, Heavenly Father, all of these things in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, Amen. As we close our time together in worship, let’s rise and we’ll sing, Hymn 437, how marvelous, how wise, how great.

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.

April 27, 2025
Messianic Unity, and a Greater Exodus

About this sermon

Isaiah 11 promises that in the Messianic age the jealousy between Ephraim and Judah will depart and God will unite his people. Their victory over the Philistines, Edom, and Moab pictures the spread of Christ’s kingdom among the nations, as Christ brings former enemies into his church. The Lord will dry up the sea and make a highway for the remnant, as he did for Israel coming out of Egypt. That greater exodus is not mainly deliverance from political oppression; Christ accomplishes it by freeing his people from the guilt, penalty, and dominating power of sin.

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Sermon transcript

Amen. A prayer that the Lord would bless the seed of His Word as it is sown in our hearts this day. And speaking of the Word of God, we continue this morning our consideration of the book of the prophet of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah, and we are today in Isaiah chapter 11. I’ll read verses 10 through 16. I began preaching through this passage on the last Lord’s day, and there’s so much in this passage that we had to come back and finish it up. So Isaiah chapter 11, verses 10 through 16, you’ll find that on page 684 in your Pew Bibles. Dear friends, this is the Word of God. Hear it with reverence and awe. In that day, the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples, of him shall the nations inquire and his resting place shall be glorious.

In that day, the Lord will extend His hand yet a second time to recover the remnants that remains of His people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathras, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, and those who harass Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim. But they shall swoop down on the shoulder of the Philistines in the west, and together they shall plunder the people of the east. They shall put out their hand against Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites shall obey them. And the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the sea of Egypt, and will wave His hand over the river with His scorching breath, and strike it into seven channels, and He will lead people across in sandals.

And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnants that remains of His people, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of His word this day. Almighty God, our gracious Heavenly Father, once again we ask that by your Spirit you would cause this portion of Scripture which your Spirit has breathed out. We pray that you would breathe new life into our souls through what we consider today from your word. And we would ask, Lord, that you would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word. And once again we ask that you would make us open-minded and attentive and receptive to your word.

We ask that your word, by the blessing of your Spirit, might bear much spiritual fruit in our hearts and lives. And Lord, bless me, your unworthy servant, as I speak forth your word. Grant me the grace to declare it with clarity, with power, and with the assistance of your Spirit. We ask these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, Amen. All right, you may be seated. Title of my sermon this morning is Messianic Unity and a Greater Exodus. And the key words, if you’re following along on your sermon outline, there’s five key words to listen for today, the words unity, messiah, conquest, exodus, and promises. Well, my dear friends in Christ, whether we realize it or not, our gathering here today to worship the true and living triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is in a very real sense a fulfillment of our passage for this Lord’s Day morning.

A passage which is a prophecy of the Messianic era when our Lord Jesus, the promised Messiah, would be lifted up as a signal to the nations. And he will be lifted up as a signal for the nations through the preaching of the gospel and the missionary labors of the true visible church of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we considered on the last Lord’s Day, our holy Christian faith is at its heart a missionary faith. And the reason that our Christian faith is a missionary faith, beloved, is because our God is himself a missionary God. He is a God whose heart moves him in grace and mercy to seek and to save that which is lost. How are we and our gathering here today for worship, how are we an aspect of the fulfillment of this prophecy as recorded by the prophet Isaiah?

Well, I want you to think about it for a few moments. We ourselves, my friends, are part of the remnant that God has graciously brought into his kingdom from among the nations and he’s brought us in through the proclamation of the gospel. And we are gathered together today to inquire of Christ or to rally to him, to seek him as we gather to hear his word. Look at verse 10. It says, in that day, that day, meaning the day of the Messianic age, the root of Jesse, which is a Messianic title, the root of Jesse who shall stand as a signal for the peoples of him shall the nations, not the nation of Israel, but the Gentile nations of him. The nations shall do what? Of him the nations inquire and his resting place shall be glorious.

Though I’m guessing that most if not all of us are Gentiles and though many of us come from different backgrounds and different places, yet through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the converting power of the Holy Spirit, we are brought together into the body of Christ and by his grace, we have been graciously redeemed by his mighty hand and outstretched arm and we have been drawn to saving faith in his son. Again, this is reflected in verses 11 and 12. It says, in that day, the Lord will extend his hand, not that God in his divine being has a physical hand, but this is a picture of God’s power. The Lord will extend his hand to do what? Yet a second time. The first time was the Exodus. The second time is in the Messianic era.

The Lord will extend his hand a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathras, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath and from the coastlands of the sea. And then verse 12, he will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. In context here, this is not just speaking of a return from exile, though that would be part of the fulfillment of this passage. This is speaking of the conversion and the ingathering of the Gentile nations for the root of Jesse, the Messiah, would be raised up as a signal to the nations. Now, on the last Lord’s day, we focused our main attention on these verses, verses 10 through 12.

Now, that being the case, again, let me revisit the question. How are we to understand the fulfillment of this prophecy as recorded in verses 10 through 12 by way of review? Well, in other words, what event or events is Isaiah under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration predicting? Some interpreters, including some conservative evangelical interpreters, suggest that this passage points to and is fulfilled simply in the return of God’s people from the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. But while the return of the post-exilic community to the promised land was a wonderful thing, and while that event may perhaps be viewed as an initial historical fulfillment of this prophecy or perhaps as a foretaste of a greater regathering to come, the view that this prophecy is fulfilled exclusively in the post-exilic community simply does not do justice to the heightened language that Isaiah uses in this passage, in particular, the eschatological language, the in-that-day language, and the language of the promised Messiah, the Messianic language, namely the root of Jesse.

Who was Jesse? Well, remember, Jesse was David’s father. So speaking of the root of Jesse, that’s a clear reference to the Davidic King, the promised Messiah. So in the context of this passage, this is speaking of something much greater than the return of God’s people from exile in Babylon, though, again, that was a mighty work of God as well. This is speaking of something much, much greater. In other words, the language Isaiah uses in this passage makes it clear that he was speaking prophetically about the future Messianic era, an era where the promised Messiah would be raised up as a signal to the Gentile nations. These details in the text point to the fact that this passage finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus, the promised Messiah, and in the in-gathering of Gentile converts in the Messianic New Covenant era, a fulfillment, of course, that was made possible through the saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ and was carried out through the missionary and evangelistic endeavors of the church, the church being, of course, the true Israel of God.

And so that is how we are a fulfillment of this passage. We’re part of that in-gathering. Jesus, our Messiah, was lifted up before our eyes through the preaching of the gospel and the spirit has drawn us with the cords of love to faith in Christ. However, in Isaiah’s day, the covenant people of God as they existed at that time were sadly divided into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom, the northern tribes, which is called Israel, sometimes called Ephraim or Samaria, and the southern kingdom of Judah. So how could the Gentiles be assembled along with believing Jews as a remnant into one assembly, one body, when God’s people were divided? Well, that brings me to the first main point that I want us to consider from verses 13 and 14 today. Let us consider from verses 13 and 14 the unity of God’s people in the Messianic age.

We learn here of the unity of God’s people in the Messianic age. It says this in verse 13, the jealousy of Ephraim shall depart. Ephraim again, that’s the northern kingdom. The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart and those who harass Judah, that’s the southern kingdom, those who harass Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah and Judah shall not harass Ephraim. There will come a time when this great schism, this great division among the covenant people of God will be healed, will be repaired. There will be unity once again among God’s people and that unity is displayed in their oneness of mission and purpose which is spoken of in verse 14. It says they, that is, Ephraim and Judah, they shall do what? Shall swoop down on the shoulder of the Philistines in the west and together they shall plunder the people of the east.

They shall put out their hand against Edom and Moab and the Ammonites shall obey them. Now again, as we reflect upon verse 13, we need to consider that one of the tragic events of Old Testament history was the great schism among the people of God between the northern kingdom of Israel which again was sometimes referred to as Samaria or Ephraim and the southern kingdom of Judah. And of course, the Davidic kings ruled over the southern kingdom of Judah and the capital city of Judah was the holy city of Jerusalem and the temple was there in Jerusalem and so forth. But here in verse 13, the Lord promises that in the Messianic age that schism would ultimately be healed and there would be one people of God. Now you may say, okay, well, Pastor, if this is speaking of the Messianic age, this new covenant age in which we live, the age following the arrival of the Messiah Jesus of Nazareth to the scene of human history, if this is speaking about our age, how can we say that the people of the Messiah are one today?

You see, in this present age, the visible church is obviously and regrettably divided into numerous denominations and fellowships and ecclesiastical organizations. And yes, it is clear, it is true that there is not yet a perfect visible unity in the body of Christ. However, there is for those who are truly in Christ, there is a deeper unity, a unity in the truth of the gospel. Unity is not achieved outside of the truth, it’s achieved in the truth of the gospel and by the work of the Holy Spirit. You see, if we are truly in Christ, we are spiritually united as brothers and sisters in the Lord and that is true even if we happen to belong to different denominational expressions of the true visible church of the Lord Jesus Christ. So in view of this, let us seek to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace as we are commanded to.

And again, this is not to say that denominational differences and distinctives are unimportant or that we should not be concerned to bear witness to our own denominational and confessional distinctives because we believe that those distinctives are based upon and agreeable to the Word of God. But the point is that we share true unity in Christ and by the Spirit with all who truly embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fundamental integrity and look to Christ alone for their salvation. And so as the apostle Paul instructs us in that very familiar passage of Ephesians chapter four verses one and six and let me just read these verses to you. Paul writes, I therefore a prisoner of the Lord urge you to walk, that is to live in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

And how is that? He says with all humility and gentleness. There’s a lot of harshness out there today. Where to be characterized by humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And then Paul writes, and this is the spiritual reality for those who are truly in Christ. He says there is one body. There may be many different ecclesiastical organizations but today, that exist today, but the foundational reality for the true, those who are truly in Christ, there is one body and one Spirit. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Dear listener, do you belong to the promised Messiah? Do you believe, do you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ? And do you belong to a faithful expression of his church? Christ calls you, dear sinner, to repent of your sin and to turn in faith to him. So repent and believe the gospel, believe the good news that God has conquered sin through his Son, Jesus Christ. Christ is the God man who died upon the cross to pay the penalty for sin, who rose from the dead physically, bodily, miraculously, so that all who believe in him might not perish but have life everlasting. And he reigns at the Father’s right hand. He’s going to come again to judge the living and the dead. And if you are trusting in him, resting upon him alone for your salvation, then you have been called by him into his messianic fellowship, into the church.

And if you are in Christ, you ought to belong to a faithful local expression of the body of Christ. Is that true of you? Turn to Christ and come into the fellowship, the messianic fellowship of a true visible expression of his church. Now, verse 14 of our passage is interesting as well, because it talks about a united people of God in the messianic era swooping down on the shoulder of the Philistines and plundering the peoples of the East and putting out their hand against Edom and Moab, causing the Ammonites to obey them and so forth. What are these nations? What are these people groups? Well, groups like the Philistines, along with Edom, Moab, and the Ammonites, these represent Israel’s gentile neighbors in Old Testament times, neighbors who often proved to be not very nice neighbors.

In fact, they often proved to be hostile enemies of God’s people. But here, God’s united people are depicted as swooping down upon them, plundering them, and subduing them. That sounds like rather violent language, doesn’t it? The language here appears to be the language of royal conquest. So, does that mean that in this age of the Messiah, we as the church are called upon to take up the sword as God’s people under the Old Covenant were called upon to take up the sword and to put to the sword the Canaanites who were put under the ban, put under God’s curse? Are we to use the sword and propagate our faith through the power of the sword? How can that be since Isaiah has depicted the Messiah in chapter 9 verse 6 as the Prince of Peace?

The language here, again, appears to be the language of royal conquest. But how are we to understand this violent language in light of the coming of the promised Messiah, the one who is revealed as Prince of Peace? Well, once again, I think that Dr. E.J. Young in his excellent commentary has some helpful thoughts. He says the following, and I happen to agree with him on this. He says, what Isaiah is describing here cannot, of course, be understood in a literal sense. Rather, here is a beautiful picture of the unity that is the possession of the saints of God, obtained for them not through their own works but through the blood of Christ and of the vigorous, active participation in the work of conquering the enemy world, a conquering which is brought about through the sending of missionaries and the constant active, vigorous, faithful proclamation of the whole counsel of God to every creature.

And so, friends, as we consider verse 14 in particular, in this passage, the Lord gives two wonderful promises that will be fulfilled in the Messianic Age and which is being fulfilled even today, for we live, brothers and sisters, in this Messianic New Covenant Age. First of all, we see the promise of the reunification and thus the spiritual unity of the true people of God. Through faith in Jesus Christ and the truth of his gospel, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, God’s true people would be united into one body, one people of God, and thus united in their mission to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. In spite of the denominational and ecclesiastical diversity that we find today in Christ’s visible church, we share genuine spiritual unity, genuine unity in the Holy Spirit with all those who are our true brothers and sisters in Christ.

A unity that has been secured by Christ’s finished work, a unity that has been produced by the Holy Spirit through the word of the gospel. It’s not a unity that ignores the truth or that ignores doctrine. It’s a unity founded upon the fundamental truths of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so we find that reunification and spiritual unity promised here, and that is being worked out in this present Messianic Age. We also see the promise of a Messianic conquest of the nations, but again this raises the question, how does Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah whom Isaiah had described earlier as the Prince of Peace, how does he conquer all of his and our enemies in this present age, this present Messianic Age of grace? For not with swords, loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums, the deeds of love and mercy, and the greatest deed of love and mercy is to proclaim the gospel through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That’s how Christ conquered you, sinner. If you’re a sinner who’s found salvation in Christ, Christ has conquered you, but he’s conquered you not by crushing you, but by humbling you and raising you to newness of life in himself, and he’s done so not by putting a sword to your neck, but through the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, which by the blessing of the Spirit has converted your soul, and you’ve been effectually called from darkness to light, from the deadness of sin to new life in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so how does the United Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in this Messianic Age conquer God’s enemies? Not by being cultural warriors, not by getting the right people elected into office. Again, I’m not saying that there isn’t a place for responsible Christian citizenship.

There is, but that’s not the church’s job. It’s not the church’s job to transform our culture. As the gospel is faithfully preached, as discipleship happens, as we fulfill the Great Commission, that will have ripple effects that oftentimes will impact, positively impact, our culture. But the point is, we’re not called to conquer our culture. We’re called to love our neighbor. We’re called to pray for the salvation of the lost. We’re called to take the good news of Jesus to sinners who desperately need that good news. How does Christ conquer all of his and our enemies in this present Messianic Age? Oh, judgment is coming for those who do not repent and believe, indeed. But he conquers not by means of destroying them, as was the case under the old covenant with the conquest of Canaan, but by means of saving them through the offer of grace in the gospel.

I’m reminded of what, again, the quote from Paul, I’m reminded of what the apostle Paul writes about this in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 1 through 6. Let me just read that passage quickly for you. Again, this is a different context here, but nevertheless, I think it can connect, the principles here can connect with what we’re considering today. Paul, as he defends his apostolic ministry to the Corinthians, some of whom are questioning his apostolic credentials, he says, I, Paul, myself entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away. I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.

But notice what he says, starting in verse 3, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh or by carnal means. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments. We don’t kill people. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. And so friends, praise God, we serve a conquering savior, but he conquers as the prince of peace. Let us be a people of peace who graciously love our neighbor and as we have opportunity, seek to share the good news of Jesus with them. But in our passage as well, as we move on to verses 15 and 16, we note next the greater exodus of the Messianic age, the greater exodus of the Messianic age.

Look at verse 15. It says this, and the Lord, notice the word Lord is in all capital letters. This is Yahweh, the covenant name of God. And again, it has in view God’s covenant redemptive mercies towards his people. And the Lord, Yahweh, will utterly destroy what? The tongue of the sea of Egypt. In other words, he’s going to dry it up. When did that happen before in biblical history? Happened in the exodus, right? A newer and greater exodus is being predicted here. The Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the sea of Egypt. And not only that, it says he will wave his hand, simply by a wave of the hand, it’s as if he’s using that imagery, will wave his hand over the river. What’s that referring to? What river? That’s usually in scripture when it talks about the river, it’s speaking of the Euphrates River, the other extreme of the territory there in the east.

So he’s not only going to dry up the sea of Egypt, he’s going to dry up the Euphrates with a wave of his hand, with his scorching breath and strike it into seven channels that are easy to pass. That’s the picture that we get in our minds here of this. And he will lead people across in sandals. It’ll be so dried up that you don’t have to worry about getting your feet muddy. You can cross them with sandals. And then verse 16, and there will be a highway from Assyria on the east. Assyria, remember, the Assyrians were great oppressors and enemies of God’s people, right? But there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant that remains of his people as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

You know, friends, the major redemptive event in the Old Testament times that God’s people at that time would look back upon as the evidence of their special relationship with God, as the evidence of God’s favor towards them and his saving power toward them. The event they would look back to was the Exodus event. Just as if someone might come to you and say, well, as a Christian, what central event of the Bible do you look to that defines you as a Christian? If you’re a Christian who knows your Bible and knows the gospel well, you’ll say, well, the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus died for my sins. He rose from the dead. That’s what I look back to. That’s the central, ultimate redemptive event that we look to as God’s people living today in this Messianic New Covenant era.

But if you were a believer who lived under the Old Covenant, you would look back to the Exodus as definitional of God’s grace to you. Because in the Exodus, Yahweh, the God of Israel, rescued his people from their slavery to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and he brought them miraculously into the promised land. He did that by his mighty supernatural power alone, and not because of the worthiness or with the help of the Israelites. But one significant theme that we find in Isaiah, and we’ll see this as we continue to work our way through Isaiah, is the promise of a newer, indeed a greater, Exodus in the Messianic age, an Exodus that would far surpass the miraculous events that took place during the original Exodus. I mean, you think about the original Exodus. There’s some pretty amazing stuff that happened then.

Remember the plagues? The Lord turns the water of the Nile. Remember the Egyptians worshiped the Nile. The Lord turns the water into blood. It’s a miraculous event. And he sent hail to destroy the Egyptians, but he made a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites. And then, of course, the death of the firstborn. The greatest miracle of the Exodus was God parting the Red Sea so that the people walked through on dry land. But when the Egyptians foolishly decided to follow them, what happened? The Lord closed the Red Sea over them. You may say, well, what could be more miraculous, more amazing than the plagues of Egypt or the parting of the Red Sea? Well, maybe, just maybe, the resurrection from the dead, the raising of Jesus from the dead, the miracles of Christ, and especially his physical bodily resurrection from the dead.

Friends, in hindsight, we know that this greater Exodus that is depicted in this passage, this greater deliverance, is not merely a deliverance from physical slavery and oppression. Rather, this language here, this Old Testament language that Isaiah is using here, points to new covenant realities. Ultimately, it points to and is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Exodus of deliverance from the guilt, the penalty, and the dominating power of sin, which was accomplished by the saving work of Jesus, the Messiah. And in verse 14, in verse 15, we learn of a highway. I’m sorry, 16, 14, 15, 16, whatever. Verse 16, and there will be a highway from Assyria, a highway from Assyria. We will read about that more in chapter 19, where it talks about God making a highway between Assyria and Egypt, and all three, Israel, Assyria, and Egypt, coming and worshiping together the Lord.

That, of course, is a foreshadowing and a prediction of the ingathering of the Gentiles in the new covenant age. There will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant that remains of his people. And by the way, that includes in context even the Gentile converts. As there was for Israel when they came from the land of Egypt, God made a way for his people. In spite of the obstacle of the Red Sea, God made a way for them. Well, we have a way made for us into the ultimate promised land of the new heavens and the new earth. And what is that way? What is that highway? That highway is Jesus Christ himself, where Jesus said in John 14, verse 6, I am what? The way, which could also be translated as the road. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man cometh unto the Father except by me. And as the Apostles declared in Acts chapter 4, the Apostle Peter declares in Acts 4, verses 11 and 12, as he confronts the religious authorities with the Gospel, he says, this Jesus, Acts 4, 11 and 12, this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And notice what he says in verse 12, and there is salvation in no one else. There’s no other God appointed Savior for sinners but the Lord Jesus Christ, because he’s the only one qualified to save us from our sins. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Any so-called Christian preacher who tells you you can get to heaven by a way other than Jesus is a false prophet and must be rejected.

Christ is the way. He is the highway. Dr. E.J. Young writes in his commentary, the Egyptian sea and the Euphrates were far apart, yet they were two obstacles that the people of God in olden times had to face. And then notice what he says. He says, when God acts, however, all obstacles will be removed just as they had been in former times. When God leads his people, he brings them in safety through all hindrances and difficulties into the land of promise. Oh, do you see the comfort in those words? Let me read that again. When God leads his people, he brings them in safety through all hindrances and difficulties into the land of promise. If you, brothers and sisters in Christ, in this present age, we face formidable hindrances and difficulties and obstacles that threaten to prevent us from reaching our final destination of heavenly glory.

We face the world, the flesh, and the devil. We face enemies such as the sinful world, this fallen, sin-cursed world that seeks to mold us into its image. We face spiritual enemies. We face the devil and his demonic hosts that seek to discourage us. The devil is called the accuser of the brethren, and he comes along and he dredges up those old sins that you had repented of long ago. But he says, how can you call yourself a Christian when you did this or you did that? And we face probably the greatest enemy of all. We face our own sin nature, our own sinful flesh. Left to ourselves, we would all be dislodged from Christ and end up back on the broad road that leads to destruction. All of these enemies threaten to pull us off the narrow way and dislodge us from our firm foundation in Christ.

But friends, oh how comforting to know that our God is able to overcome all hindrances and obstacles and to bring us in safety and joy to the ultimate promised land by His mighty hand, by His outstretched arm, His omnipotent power. And that language, that imagery of God’s mighty hand and outstretched arm should have special significance to us as believers in the New Testament as we live in this New Covenant era. Because the outstretched arms that embrace us are the arms of Christ that were stretched out upon the cross to bear the penalty of our sin. And those arms are the arms that embrace us as we come to Him in faith and repentance. Insofar as I can trace and understand my own conversion experience, I believe I was called in grace to the faith in the Lord when I was a 15-year-old.

I will tell you I’m no longer a 15-year-old. I’ve been in the Lord for a while. But I’m reminded of that wonderful stanza to that familiar hymn, Amazing Grace, the stanza that goes as follows. Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come. It doesn’t stop there. God overcomes all obstacles as we are on the narrow way. The narrow way is Jesus Christ Himself, the way, the truth, and the life. As we travel the narrow road of faith in Christ and Christ alone, we face many dangers, toils, and snares. But as the Lord has led us safely thus far, He will lead us home. How comforting to know that He who has begun a good work in us through Christ will indeed carry it through to completion until the day of Christ Jesus, as we’re told in Philippians 1 verse 6.

O friends, let us continue to repose our full confident trust in Christ and Christ alone, for He has overcome all obstacles, all of His and our enemies, all hindrances, and our salvation and security are found in Him. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, sovereign and eternal God, we do indeed thank you that you are victorious over sin, death, hell, and the devil. We thank you that in Christ we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us, who gave up His life for us, that we might live. We ask, O Lord, that this good news would so enlighten us and so encourage us, that we would be motivated out of gratitude to lift up as a signal for the nations the root of Jesse, our Messiah, and Lord Jesus Christ.

In His name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen. Friends, let’s close our time together by rising in

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.

March 30, 2025