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The title of my sermon this morning is God’s Enduring, Unfading Word. And children,
the three words to listen for this morning are the words voice, transience, and word.
Voice, transience, and word. And that word transience has to do with what is temporary,
what is brief. Well, friends, recently I read a comment written by a professing Christian
who shared what he believed about the Bible. And in the comment, the author wrote something
like this. He said, I believe the Bible is inspired, but not inerrant. I believe the
Bible is inspired, but not inerrant, he said. In other words, the author of this statement
seems to believe that the Bible is at least in some sense inspired by God, but at the
same time subject to error. Now, think about the implications of that position of that
statement. If the Bible is God’s divinely inspired word, but at the same time contains
errors, does that not mean that God himself is subject to error? If the Bible is really
God’s word, but at the same time it’s a book filled with errors and inaccuracies, does
this not imply that the God who inspired the Bible is somehow unreliable or untrustworthy?
For example, when it comes to fleshing out the logical implications of this position,
that views the Bible as divinely inspired, yet errant, subject to error when it comes to fleshing
out the implications of this position. If we take this position that the Bible contains errors when
it comes to, say, historical details, or when it speaks about the workings of the natural world,
the world that scientists study, well, then how can we trust what the Bible teaches us about
spiritual and eternal matters, matters such as the way of salvation, matters such as the
Bible’s teachings on ethics and godly living and Christian discipleship? In other words,
if the Bible is inaccurate and subject to error when it speaks about earthly things,
then why should we trust it when it speaks about heavenly, spiritual, and eternal things?
A Bible that is filled with errors would imply a God who is untrustworthy and whose word could
not be relied upon as an enduring, unfading word. Instead of the Bible as God’s unchanging,
enduring, unfading word sitting in judgment over us, we would then get to subject the Bible,
and thus to subject the God who is revealed in the Bible, to our own puny, finite, subjective
judgments, and to the ever-changing cultural fads and trends of our time. Now, of course,
in all fairness to this gentleman who wrote those comments, there are some misunderstandings and
misconceptions out there in the contemporary world about the doctrine of the inerrancy of the
Bible. And so, for example, the doctrine of inerrancy does not preclude the scriptures
from using figurative language or from employing ancient literary devices to convey the truth of
God. Nor does inerrancy prevent the Holy Spirit from using a wide variety of different literary
styles and genres. The Bible contains things like historical narrative, poetry, and highly
symbolic language, apocalyptic language, such as what you find in the book of Revelation. And so,
for example, when it comes to historical details, there are places in scripture where the biblical
author uses round numbers instead of technically exact figures. And likewise, there are numerous
genealogical lists in the scriptures that are clearly selective and not exhaustive in the
genealogical information that they convey. But friends, the use of rounded numbers and selective
genealogies, those were commonly accepted literary devices and conventions in biblical
times. And the ancient readers of those texts wouldn’t have viewed them as errors, as some
today would view them as errors. And likewise, the scriptures often use what the theologians
call phenomenological and figurative language when describing nature. For example, think about the
term sunrise and sunset. Let’s say that you and your spouse, you and your wife go to take a
vacation and you travel to a part of the world that’s and you’re on a beautiful beach and you’re
observing a beautiful sunset. And you say to your wife, honey, isn’t that a lovely sunset? What
would you think if your wife turned to you and said, are you a scientific illiterate? The sun
does not set. Come on. I mean, the sun revolves around the earth. The earth revolves around the
sun. Or think about the weatherman on TV, the meteorologist. If the meteorologist on TV tells
you, well, the sun is going to rise tomorrow at such and such a time and set at such and such a
time, are they guilty of conveying error? No, they’re simply using ordinary, non-technical,
non-scientific language. The term sunrise and sunset simply explains the world in the way that
we see it from our perspective here on terra firma. That’s what it looks like to us. Likewise, think
about when the Bible tells us about the four corners of the earth. When the Bible uses that
language, it’s not guilty of scientific error because in using that kind of language, the Bible
is not intending to give us a scientific statement about the earth’s geography,
nor is it teaching us that the earth is flat. But friends, misconceptions and misunderstandings
about inerrancy aside, in line with the scripture’s testimony to itself, we as Orthodox
Presbyterians, we believe that the Bible is the inspired, that is God-breathed and inerrant Word
of God. And because it is inspired and inerrant, it is also enduring and unfading, just as God
Himself is enduring and unfading in His eternal being and perfections. Well, friends, our passage
for this Lord’s Day morning is just one of many scriptural testimonies to the enduring Word of God.
The Holy Spirit, through Isaiah the prophet, sets human transience, human temporality in sharp
contrast to the enduring, abiding Word of God and by implication to the enduring trustworthiness of
the God who inspired, who breathed out His unfading, enduring Word. Here we see man’s
temporality contrasted with the permanence of the set purposes of our sovereign God and we,
and to the abiding trustworthiness of His enduring Word. And so as we turn our attention to our text,
our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, we are first of all confronted in this passage with a
voice to be reckoned with. That’s the first point in your sermon outline. Consider first a voice to
be reckoned with. It says this in verse four, a voice says, cry. And I said, what shall I cry?
All flesh is grass and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
Friends, as we considered on the last Lord’s Day, chapter 40 begins a major new section here
in the book of the prophet Isaiah. In this chapter, the Holy Spirit leads the prophet Isaiah
to envision a future time when God’s exiled people, who will have experienced the effects of God’s
stern word of judgment that he communicated in the first section of the book of the prophet Isaiah,
when his exiled people would now hear a word of gracious gospel comfort from the Lord who promises
to deliver them out of their exile. And so after an opening declaration of gospel comfort, which
sets the tone and trajectory for this latter section of Isaiah in verses one and two, we next
read a call for God’s people to prepare the way of the Lord through turning back to their God in
repentance and faith as they anticipate the coming of the promised Messiah. We consider that in verses
three through five of this chapter on the last Lord’s Day. But in our passage for this morning,
the Lord through Isaiah now calls us to remember and take to heart that while human life and human
beauty and human endeavors are temporary and fading, nevertheless, that should not cause us
to be hopeless. Why? Well, because of the promise given in verse eight that the word of our God
will stand forever. Praise be to God.
Now regarding the ancient context, the historical context of our passage, Dr. G.W. Grogan in his
commentary, I think puts it well. He says, the exile itself must have made the people aware of
their frailty. He’s talking about the Babylonian exile. What unites all human enterprises is their
transience. Flowers may look beautiful, but where will they be tomorrow? God is the one enduring
reality in a constantly changing world, and he himself designed it so. I remember way back when
I was doing my internship in a church in New Jersey. I was driving down the road one day,
and I saw a billboard advertising a local church. And the slogan of that church was this,
and I love this slogan, never changing truth for an ever changing world. Never changing truth
for an ever changing world. That’s what this passage points us to. It points us to the fact
that the word of our God endures forever. Life changes, times change, but God’s word
never changes. And even the powerful Assyrians and Babylonians in the ancient world, who at the time
seemed so permanent, so stable, so powerful, so undefeatable, even those great empires would
eventually fade away. Now our passage for this morning is the third of three passages here in
the beginning of chapter 40, in which an unidentified voice is called upon to cry or to herald forth a
message. And so for example, if you go back to verse two, it says this, speak tenderly to Jerusalem
and do what? Cry to her. And then skip down to verse three, a voice does what? A voice cries
in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Well our passage for today, we read of this voice
again calling an unnamed recipient to cry out. A voice says cry, and I said, what shall I cry?
And while the voice of the one who commanded to cry, and the one who is commanded to cry,
are technically unidentified, and while Bible scholars have debated how to understand this lack
of clear identification, it seems quite clear when you look at the context, my friends, that the voice
that speaks to us, the voice that says cry, is none less than the voice of God. It is a divine
prophetic voice, a voice that speaks forth the very word of God. Passages like this,
one beloved, remind us that our God is a God who speaks. He is a communicative God. He is a personal
God, a God with whom we can have a personal relationship, a God with whom we can commune
and fellowship with. He is the speaking God, the living God, a personal God of revelation
who communicates His will and His word to us. And this passage also reminds us that the scriptures
are ultimately His word and not merely the words of His human servants, the prophets and apostles.
I may have shared this before, but there was a time when I was a college student,
my senior year of college, I lived in the international dormitory on our campus,
and I befriended a fellow in my dormitory from Pakistan, and he was obviously a Muslim,
and in my desire to witness to him, I gave him a copy of the New Testament. And he took it,
he was very grateful and gracious in receiving the New Testament, and he perused through it.
He came back to me later with a question. He said, Jeff, I’m looking in this book that you gave me,
and I see it says the gospel according to Matthew, the gospel according to Mark, Luke.
I see the letters of Paul to the first Corinthians, second Corinthians. He says,
this is the word of man, isn’t it? It’s not the word of God. He had a particular conception about
how God’s word would be communicated based on his understanding of the Quran as the word of God,
which of course, we reject the Quran as the word of God. But what this friend of mine didn’t
understand is what the apostle Peter says about scripture in passages like 2 Peter 1, 19 through
21. Let’s just turn there briefly. 2 Peter chapter 1, look at verses 19 through 21. Peter writes this,
and he says, and we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay
attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises
in your hearts, knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone’s own
interpretation. And then especially catch verse 21, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will
of man, but men spoke from God as they were what? Carried along by the Holy Spirit. Men indeed spoke,
the prophets and apostles did indeed speak. They did indeed write. And we, when we look at their
writings, we can detect their writing styles, their personalities come through in that which
they wrote. But ultimately, it’s the Lord using these men as his instruments to convey his word.
The Bible is God’s inerrant word coming to us through the writings, the words of men,
God’s word coming to us, if you will, in servant form. But that doesn’t make it the word of man.
It is the word of God because why? Well, as Peter reminds us in verse 21, men spoke from God as they
were carried along by the Holy Spirit. They were supernaturally inspired by the Holy Spirit to write
precisely what they wrote. So dear ones, while the Bible was indeed written by human authors who used
their own writing styles and who employed the various literary genres and literary conventions
of their time to communicate their message, the ultimate voice behind what they wrote was none
other than the voice of God himself. For what they wrote was not primarily nor ultimately a human word,
but rather it was God’s inspired, God-breathed, inerrant word. You know, sometimes you hear
unbelievers say, oh, if only God would talk to me or speak to me, I’d believe him. When they have
in view an audible voice, if God would speak audibly to me. And sometimes you hear, I wish God
would just speak audibly to me, directly, audibly to me. I can guarantee you based on records that
we have in Scripture where God does speak audibly, that would be a terrifying experience. Remember
the children of Israel gathered before Mount Sinai and God starts to speak. He speaks the 10
commandments. And what do the people say to Moses? You talk to him. You talk to the Lord Moses. Don’t
let God speak to us. We don’t want to die. It was a terrifying experience. And so it has been said,
rightly, that if you want to hear God speak, if you want to hear with your ears God speak,
then read the Bible out loud, because the Bible is God’s word. After all, the voice we hear in
the Holy Scriptures is not ultimately the voice of the human author. In this case, the ancient voice
of the prophet Isaiah. Instead, my friends, what we have in the Scriptures is the voice of God
himself. And that, my friends, is a voice to be reckoned with. Think about that. Whenever you
read the Scriptures, whenever you take the Scriptures upon your lips and recite Scripture,
you are taking the very word of the creator of the universe upon your lips. You are speaking his
word and you are hearing his word when it is read to you. Dear listener, have you reckoned with the
voice of God speaking by his Spirit in the Scriptures? Have you reckoned with the voice of
the law, which thunders forth and confronts you with your sin and shows you that you, like all
people, fall short of the glory of God? And does that not strike you with fear, knowing that the
wages of sin is death? Have you heard the word of God’s law showing you your sin and your desperate
need for the Savior? And have you heard the word of the Gospel that speaks peace and rest and salvation
to those who rest in Christ? The word that says, for God so loved the world that he gave his one
and only Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life. Have you
reckoned with the word of God and do you embrace the Bible for what it claims to be, namely,
the very word of God? But in terms of what the divine voice in our passage for this morning
declares, let us next consider the message proclaimed by this divine prophetic word.
And the message is a contrast. The first part of the message has to do with the transience
of human life and earthly endeavors. And this leads me to my next point in your sermon outline.
We consider next the transience of human life and earthly endeavors. Again, Isaiah writes,
a voice says, cry. And I said, what shall I cry? Here’s the first part. All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades.
When the breath of the Lord blows on it, surely the people are grass. Friends, the uncomfortable
truth that the Lord’s voice calls upon us to recognize in this passage is the truth that all
of human life and all of human endeavors in this fallen sin cursed world are ultimately temporary,
ultimately fading, ultimately transient. This is just part and parcel of the vanity of vanities
of living life under the sun here in this fallen world. To borrow language from the
preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes, you remember? The preacher declares,
vanity of vanities, all is vanity. And the preacher also says, there’s nothing new under the sun.
Life in this fallen world is ultimately futile because it’s transient, temporary.
This truth about the transience of human life has recently hit home for me as we approach February.
Since the end of this February will mark the 10-year anniversary of my father’s passing.
It was almost a decade ago that I received a surprise early morning phone call that woke me
out of my sleep. And it was a call from England where my father had been living towards the end
of his life. There was a nurse on the other end, lady speaking with a pleasant British accent, but
the message was not pleasant. She informed me that my father was not long for this world
and I was not able to be there. I did ask for a chaplain and a nurse to be present with him.
I asked the chaplain to read some scripture and pray with my father.
A few hours later, I got another phone call informing me that he had passed away. That was
10 years ago. But when I think about this, it feels hard to believe that it’s been so long.
The memories of processing my grief and making quick travel plans to England
to make funeral arrangements for my father and to settle my father’s affairs make it feel like only
a short time has passed. Indeed, my friends, the grass withers, the flower fades. Time flies.
Health and vigor fade. Life is precious, but life is preciously short. Why? Well, it says in verse
seven, the grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Now, God’s
breath or wind or spirit, the Hebrew term is ruach, is often depicted in scripture as bringing
life, bringing health, bringing wellbeing. But God’s breath or wind, his ruach, is sometimes
depicted in scripture, not as bringing life and mercy, but as bringing judgment and wrath to some.
In this particular verse, the breath of God that is connected to human transience is a judgment
breath, not a life or salvation breath. And there’s many places, numerous places in the
scriptures where this reference to breath or wind is used that way. Just to give you a few
samplings, let’s turn back to Psalm 103 and look at verses 15 through 18, Psalm 103, verses 15 through
18. It says this, as for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field,
for the wind passes over it and it is gone and its place knows it no more. Thank God it doesn’t stop
there because it goes on to say this in verse 17, but the steadfast love of the Lord is from
everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to children’s
children. Or consider Jeremiah chapter 4, verses 11 and 12. Jeremiah chapter 4, verses 11 to 12.
And there’s other passages we could turn to as well, but I just wanted to give you a couple
samplings. Jeremiah 4, verses 11 and 12 says this, Jeremiah is speaking the judgment of the Lord.
At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, a hot wind from the bare heights in
the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or cleanse, a wind too full for this comes
for me. Now it is I who speak in judgment upon them. This is a judgment wind that God sends upon
him. And here verse 10 represents the destructive wind again of God’s judgment. Well, dear friends,
what are we to do with this information? In light of the transience of human life, how then should we
live? Well, beloved, in light of how short and temporary life is, let us make the most of the
time. Let us redeem the time because the days are evil and let us live lives that have eternity
in view and are not focused on merely earthly things. Our Lord Jesus reminds us of this in
one of his parables. Let’s turn to Luke 12 and let me just read verses 13 to 21. Luke chapter 12, 13 to 21
says this, someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance
with me. But he said to him, man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? And he said to them,
take care and be on your guard against all covetousness for one’s life does not consist
in the abundance of his possessions. And he told them a parable saying the land of a rich man
produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my
crops. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there
I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods
laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night,
your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one
who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Or think of what the apostle James
writes in James 4, 13 through 17, James chapter 4, verses 13 through 17.
Come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there
and trade and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For
you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say,
if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is you boast in your arrogance,
all such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him,
it is sin. Brother, sister in Christ, what is the right thing for us to do? The right thing for us
to do is to lay aside the weight of sin that so easily encumbers us and to run the race with
faithfulness. But if you’re here this morning or you’re watching and you haven’t trusted Christ as
your savior, what is the right thing for you to do? The right thing to do for you to do is to flee
from the wrath to come, flee into the open arms of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified to pay
the penalty for sin and raised from the dead so that whoever trusts in him rests in him alone
for salvation might not perish but have eternal life. Some might foolishly say, well, I’ll do that
tomorrow. I’ll deal with my soul later. But again, the grass withers, the flower fades, life is
uncertain, and you don’t know whether or not you will have a tomorrow. And that’s why the scriptures
say today is the day of salvation. May it be the day of salvation for you, dear listener,
as you turn to Christ. But friends, since our passage is found within a section of Isaiah that
is intended to bring comfort to God’s people, we close our time in the Word with a glorious truth,
and this is briefly my final point here based on verse 8. We find here the enduring quality
of God’s Word, the enduring quality of God’s Word. After we are reminded of this sober truth,
this uncomfortable truth that life is short and temporary and fading like the flower, like the
grass and the fields, says in verse 8, the grass withers, the flower fades, but, oh thank God for
this but. But the Word of our God will stand forever. And as we learn from the passage that
immediately follows, this is intended as a gospel word, a word to be proclaimed by the Zion of God,
herald of good news on the high mountain. This is the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ,
good news that in Christ we have a merciful, forgiving God who cleanses us from our sin by
His blood, who renews us by His Spirit, and who seals us for the day of redemption.
Dr. E.J. Young in his commentary says, to God’s Word there is a permanent character.
Unlike the flesh of man which withers and fades, it stands forever. It rises up, stands, and endures
in contrast to all flesh with its perishable nature. The Word of God is imperishable and endures
forever. The thought is similar to that of our Lord’s statement, the scripture cannot be broken.
When God speaks, His Word expresses the truth, and that truth cannot be annulled or changed.
And that, my friends, my dear friends, that is what gives us hope, that is what gives us comfort,
that is what gives us a stable and secure foundation, that is what gives us stable peace
and security in the midst of an unstable, fallen, fading world. So we close our time
in the Word today. Let’s hear what the Apostle John has to say about this in 1 John 2, 15 through 17.
Here’s the takeaway. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world,
the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh
and the desires of the eyes and pride of life, is not from the Father but is from the world.
And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God
abides forever. And what is the will of God as revealed in John’s epistle? That you believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ and love the brotherhood. May we not love the world or the things of the
world. May we love and trust, serve and follow Jesus our Lord. And may we love the brotherhood
until he returns. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you, oh God, for your
amazing grace and goodness to us. And we thank you that your word is an enduring word, a sure
and certain word. It does not fade like human life fades. It does not pass away. And so we
can rely upon it both now and throughout the remainder of the time of our pilgrimage that
you grant to us. So help us, Lord, to always ground our life, our decisions and all that we
do and say and think in the enduring, unfading word of God. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of
God’s people said, amen.