This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “New Heavens & New Earth” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 31, 1989.

Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave birth to you in pain. When he was one, I called him. Then I blessed him and multiplied him.

Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places, and her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, the thanksgiving and sound of the melody. Pay attention to me, O my people. Give and give ear to me, O my nation, for a law will go forth from me, and I will set my justice for a light of the people. My righteousness is near. My salvation has gone forth. On my arm, I judge the people. First, the country, as you are very good at it. On my arm, as you are very expected. Lift up your arms. to the sky, and look to the earth beneath.

For the sky will vanish like smoke, and the earth will fall out like a comet, and its inhabitants will die in white foam. But my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not end. Listen to me, you who know me, a people of whose pardon is my law. Do not feel the reproach of men. We will be dismayed at their revival, for the moth will eat them like a garden, the grub will eat them like wool, and my luncheon shall be corrected by salvation to all generations. Awake! Awake! Put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake, as in days of old, generations of long gone!

Was it not Thou who cut Rahab in pieces and pierced the dragon? Was it not Thou who dried up the sea and brought it to the great deep, and made the depths of the sea a pathway for the redeemed to cross over? So the ransom of the Lord will return, and come with joyful shouts of honor. Everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy sorrow and silence will flee away. Ah, and even ah, and he who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of the man who died? Or the son of man who is made like a dragon? That you have forgotten the Lord your Maker who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. That you fear continuing all day long because of the fury of the as he makes ready to destroy. But where is the fury of the oppressor? The exile will soon be set free. It will not die in the dungeon, nor will this dread be laughed at.

For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea and the waves and the world. The Lord of hosts is His name. I have put my words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of my hand to establish the heaven found the earth to save as I am, you are my people. O Lord, your word goes forth from your throne. Who can stand in the way of your purpose? O God, your word goes forth. And who can resist? Who can resist the good of your Spirit?

By your word, Lord, you create. By your word, you destroy. By your word, you change the face of the earth. By your word, you change the heart of man. We have been changed by your word, O God. We are placed in the company of men who have been so changed May it please you, our Father, now to grant us strength by that word, that we might live by it. And may it please you, our Father, to remind us of the company throughout the world you together profess with us, the truthfulness of the word that you have given. As they believe, so may we. May our faith be informed.

Pray this in Jesus’ name. the time of Isaiah was a time of great upheaval in the life of the nation of Israel I think that most of you realize that Isaiah was a prophet to the southern tribes that the northern tribes during his ministry and his time of prophecy have been destroyed the capital of Samaria to the north have been destroyed by the Assyrians and the people of Israel have been taken away and captured there now stood Jerusalem to the south the territory of Judah, Benjamin The Assyrians had made their assault upon that territory as well.

These assaults by the Assyrians were not without God’s direction. They did not come apart from His will. They came as a result of the sin of this nation. Now I’ll stop until we settle down and then I’ll go on. I do not intend to preach competing with evil tonight. It was a time of judgment. For God was visiting his people because of their sin.

This time of judgment spoke of greater judgment still. For as the northern tribes had fallen, So Isaiah, the prophet to the southern tribes, was proclaiming to them the inevitability of judgment upon them because of their transmissions as well. If there had been exile for the ten northern tribes, there would be exile for the two southern tribes. So as this message of what seems to be the remedial judgment is read out over Jerusalem and Judah, There rises the question as to what are the purposes, the intention, the promises, the covenant of God.

How shall God vindicate His cause? How shall God vindicate His name? How will God keep His promise? There was also that voice of fire that arose from within that territory, that voice that arose because it recognized the seriousness of the situation, acknowledged God’s justice in doing what He was doing, but yet was terrified at the prospect of the impending judgment, and terrified with respect to what was in the offing for Israel as judgment was sure to come. What of the true people of God? What of those whose faith remains firm?

Isaiah is a prophet in the midst of such people as those true, reading out God’s judgment against the sin of the nation, but also speaking to those who are of faith, who are committed, as he is, to the purposes of God. These people who are liable to undergo this judgment now make stock of themselves, their circumstance, and despite their faith, fear begins to rise in their hearts the message of the prophet is don’t fear men, fear God don’t fear men, fear God Now there is reason to fear God.

You may recall how Isaiah himself is summoned to be a prophet. There is that magnificent chapter in Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 6. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high in the sky, and His glory filled the earth. God is manifest in that temple in all of his righteousness and holiness. And one as good as Isaiah is undone. He left unsung. He said, I am a man of untamed wits, and I dwell in the midst of a people of untamed wits.

Isaiah then is the prophet for the holiness of God, the glory of God. And while men are not to fear men, they are to fear the Son. It has been the habit of some to say that we have graduated from the Old Testament in such a way that we need not fear God anymore. Well, if you are better than Isaiah, then you can forget about fearing God. Isaiah feared God. So, after he Isaiah is not only the prophet for the holiness of God, the glory of God, that God that we are to achieve.

He is also the prophet for the suffering servant. As Isaiah would survey the territory, even with all of his faith, as Isaiah would survey the people, even with the fear of the Lord that was resident within him. It was obvious to him that no one feared God perfectly, no one served him as he ought to be served. And while he might rise in this day to put his fear of man aside and to trust in the Lord absolutely, aspired to trust in the Lord absolutely, yet he knew in the end that he failed. So you move from Isaiah being that prophet for the holiness of God, to him being the prophet for the suffering servant of the Lord. For in the suffering servant envisioned by Isaiah, there is one who does perfectly fear God. And so perfect is his trust in God, that he does not and will not fear man. You remember the most beautiful expression of for description of that suffering servant from Isaiah 53.

Surely He has borne our griefs, He has carried our sorrows, yet we esteem Him stricken, smitten, gone, afflicted. He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening of our well-being fell upon Him and by His scourging. we are heathen, for we, like sheep, have gone astray, and have turned to plunders already. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of the soul to fall upon him. He is oppressed and afflicted, and yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, like a sheep that is silent before its shearer. So he did not open his mouth.

The one who perfectly fears God, and in his trust of God does not fear men. Of course we know of whom Isaiah spoke. He spoke of the coming of Christ. And if there is any hope for us in fearing God alight, if there is any hope for us in our trust of God not to fear men, it is found only in Jesus Christ. So then, Isaiah, the prophet of the holiness of God, fear God not man, the prophet of the suffering servant of the Lord, the one who for us fears God perfectly, and perfectly in faith, so expresses himself, so is not to fear man. But Isaiah is as well, the prophet of comfort. Isaiah is melted before the revelation of God in his holiness and all of his glory.

He is sobered and humbled before the vision of the suffering servant. But because this message of the suffering servant has come together with the message about the holiness of God, consequently there is a message of comfort for the people of God. For God has not left Himself without witness, and He has not left His people without strength. He comforts His own now. by root of that one who shall come to bear iniquity and to carry away affliction even through his own body.

Remember the opening of the section, the latter section of Isaiah’s prophecy, chapter 40, verses 1 and 2? Comfort, O comfort, my people, says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem and call out to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the Lord’s hand double for all of her sins. The God then spoken of by Isaiah is a God of comfort. And that comfort is extended to the people of God who trust, those who feel pushed, constrained to fear, who need not fear.

For the suffering servant has come for you. All that he has experienced, all that he has endured, you think for your sake. But there is one other dimension to Isaiah and his message. He is the prophet for the holiness of God. He is the prophet For the suffering servant he is the prophet of comfort, but he is also the prophet of the new heavens and the new earth.

God, out of his fullness, and because of his righteous justice, shall bring judgment for sin. And those who trust in him even through the experiences of that judgment will see how in fact he has provided for them in the one who is offered up the suffering servant and they who are of faith and see these things will receive of him the comfort intended and they will see also in the pattern of the outworking of Israel’s history the very program of redemption that shall come to its culminations in the New Heavens and in the world.

Yes, Assyrian assaults, and after them come the Babylonians. They will attack. They will destroy the city Jerusalem. They will leave the temple devastated, not one stone left upon another. The people will be marched eastward into Babylon itself. They will be in captivity for 70 years.

But Isaiah’s message is one of comfort. Don’t despair. Don’t you understand that what God is doing here is unto the end of bringing about full redemption through the suffering servant, which he has described here for you, and ultimately to grant you an entirely new environment, an environment which will never be subject to adaption, never be subject to loss, never given over to defilement. never subjected to punishment as long as matters are kept within the circle of this creation they are subject to destruction, to loss, to futility God’s purpose is not to leave things in that condition, in that situation. His ultimate intention is to establish for his people an environment that will never suffer loss.

So after the first creation comes another creation. After the first creation comes the new creation. And the pattern of the new creation, the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth, is seen in what God will do for the exiles. He will redeem them, he will bring back for himself a remnant and in so doing he will vindicate his name and reassert his purpose before the face of all the nations that purpose shall be consummated when through Jesus Christ the new heavens and the new earth are born That is what in fact Isaiah speaks of in the 51st chapter of his prophecy.

In the 16th verse of that chapter, he talks about the privilege of those who have trusted in the Lord. God says, I have put my words in your mouth. I have covered you with the shadow of my hand. Unto the end of planting the heavens. Here you see the planting of the heavens and the establishment of the earth. The founding of the earth. Are viewed as the end point, not the beginning point. So what is in view here is not the original creation, but rather the new creation, the endpoint of God’s activity.

The words that He has sent forth, that He has put in the mouth of His servants, the word that you have in your hand, that is inscripturated, the word that is declared to you week by week, the word that you hear, that is unto this end. The covering that you have received, the fact that you have taken up an abode under the shadow of his hand, the protection and the security that he has endured you, is unto this end! Everything is unto this end! That you might be brought to dwell in that environment that cannot suffer love, the new heavens and the new earth. Does change bother you? Does change in your world bother you? Today things are as they are, tomorrow they will be completely different. Does not being able to count on anything bother you? Does the fact that you’re getting older bother you?

The fact that you’re going to die bother you? in this created order everything is subject to change and ultimately to dissolution and it doesn’t even matter whether you’re talking about Jerusalem and it’s temple or Israel and the order established in her and with her So all of the words that God has spoken are to this end.

The security that you have found under the shadow of his hand, the protection that you have discovered there, the salvation which you know to be yours, this is unto that end. That the heavens might be planted afresh, established again, and the earth founded as if for the first time, And so that it might be read out in your ears, you are my people. You are my people. Now, Isaiah’s ease here is eternal. Not just another installment in Israel’s history. Not just another dispensation. What Isaiah sees here is eternal.

And the establishment of that perpetual environment that cannot, does not suffer loss. if you are of the faith of Isaiah if you know the God that he knows if you serve the servant that he saw and prophesy about you are indeed a part of the people that he speaks of here and your place will be unshakable in the new heavens and in the new earth. O Lord, we ask that we with faith and with expectation might envision the conclusion of all of the matters of this creation not in keeping with our own imaginations but in keeping with your word may there be at the center of our lives that hope for and conviction about an unshakable and unchangeable environment O Lord, the new heavens and the new earth have in fact been established by the work of Jesus Christ and shall be unveiled with us in them in the day that is coming and in that day we will take our place in the heavens and in the new earth with Jesus Christ our Savior and also with Isaiah the prophet who served him

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.