Podcasts about like isaiah

March 31, 2025Today's Reading: Isaiah 12:1-6Daily Lectionary: Genesis 42:1-34, 38; Mark 12:1-12“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.” (Isaiah 12:1-2)In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.Has anyone ever been angry with you? Since you have a pulse, probably. You might have done something to anger someone, or you might have accidentally done something that resulted in another person's anger. Still, it happened. You did something, and they were angry. Perhaps that was when you learned that saying, “Now, don't be angry…” doesn't actually help someone's anger go away. Parents, siblings, teachers, classmates, and others aren't impressed when you just ask them not to be angry.But on the Last Day, God won't be angry with you. That's the promise of Isaiah. That promise makes you want to throw your hands in the air and say, “What?! How does that work?!” God has every right to be angry with you because of your sin. You live like God doesn't matter and like you matter most. You don't keep his Commandments, and sometimes your actions flaunt God's holiness, even on purpose. He should be angry with you, but because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, His anger is turned away, and He comforts you.Micah 7:18-19 declares, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” God pardons you and forgives you, and He is your salvation.  That sounds too good to be true, but it is true. This truth can't be proven or debated but only believed. Like Isaiah says, trust and don't be afraid because the Lord your God is your strength and your song. He has become your salvation. If you have ever had someone stop being angry with you, you know how difficult that is to believe. But God's grace is true and believable for you. He is your salvation.In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.Yet as the Law must be fulfilled Or we must die despairing, Christ came and has God's anger stilled, Our human nature sharing. He has for us the Law obeyed And thus the Father's vengeance stayed Which over us impended. (LSB 555:5)-Rev. Peter Ill, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Millstadt, IL.Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.Visit the timeless rhythms of the Christian life with award-winning author Harold L. Senkbeil. As he addresses the concerns and pressures of the world today, you'll discover that even while the world is dying, Christ's death brings about life. True life. One that He offers to you. Order Now!

A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany St. Matthew 13:1-43 by William Klock   Seeds.  Matthew 13—most of it at least—is all about seeds.  Well, sort of.  It's about the kingdom of God.  But Jesus told the people about the kingdom using the imagery of seeds, because it was something familiar to them.  Obviously, they lived in an agrarian society, but more than that, the God of Israel had been using this imagery of seeds going all the way back to the Prophets and even back to Abraham.  Remember his promise all the way back at the beginning: he promised to bless the nations through Abraham's seed.  In other words, to set the world to rights through Abraham's descendants, through his family.  This image carries on through the prophets.  The seed grew and became a tree—or in other places it became a vine—but it failed to bear fruit.  The Lord warned that he would come to prune the dead wood—or even to cut the whole tree down.  And yet there was reason to hope.  The Lord keeps his promises.  Even if the tree were to be cut down, the seed would remain—and it would put forth a new shoot.  No matter how bad things might get, there was always reason to hope in the Lord. And so, as Chapter 13 begins, St. Matthew tells us that Jesus sat in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, just off from shore, to preach to a crowd on the beach.  “He had much to say to them, and he said it all in parables,” writes Matthew in verse 3.  And so Jesus begins: “Look!,” he said, “Once there was a sower who went out to sow.  As he sowed, some seed fell beside the path, and the birds came and ate it up.  Some seed fell on rocky soil, where it didn't have much earth.  It sprang up at once because it didn't have depth of soil.  But when the sun was high it got scorched, and it withered because it didn't have any root.  Other seed fell in among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.  And other seed fell in good soil, and produced a crop, some a hundred times over, some sixty, and some thirty times over.  If you've got ears, listen!” The people had seen the Messiah things that Jesus was doing throughout Galilee.  Blind eyes and deaf ears opened, lepers cleansed and the dead raised.  Demons ran at his command.  In Jesus, God was on the move.  It was obvious.  The long winter was coming to an end.  Everywhere Jesus went the ground thawed and flowers began to spring up.  At the same time, it wasn't what they expected.  They knew the prophecies.  They knew the word of the Lord.  They knew his promises and they knew he was faithful.  And so they knew he would come to their rescue.  Like a sower sowing his seed, the Lord would one day sow Israel in her own land.  And so when Jesus began to tell a story of a sower going out to sow, they listened.  But it wasn't quite the story they were expecting.  The story Jesus told was a story of failure after failure after failure before—eventually—success!  Jesus was telling the story of Israel.  Over and over God had spoken.  Over and over he had sent his emissaries: priests, judges, kings, and prophets to speak his word and to set things to rights.  But the people wouldn't listen.  But now something was changing.  Jesus had their attention.  “If you've got ears, listen!” Jesus says.  In other words, “I get it.  This isn't what you expected.  It's hard to understand.  But things are different this time.  Really!  Stick with me.  Keep watching.  Keep listening.  And you'll figure it out.  You'll see that God is faithful.”  Eventually they would understand—at least some of them would—but for now thy were just confused. So were the disciples.  So, Matthew says, they “came to him.  ‘Why are you speaking to them in parables?” they asked.  So Jesus answered: “You have been given the gift of knowing the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.  But they haven't.  Anyone who already has something will be given more, and they will have plenty.  But anyone who has nothing—even what they have will be taken away!  That's why I speak to them in parables, so that they may look but not see, and hear but not understand or take it in.” Well, that doesn't seem very helpful, does it?  Every once in a while I hear someone claim that there are secret codes hidden in the Bible.  So far I have yet to discover that any of these secret codes is actually there.  The idea itself runs against the purpose of scripture.  God speaks because he wants us to hear him and to know him.  If scripture is hard to understand, that's on us, not on him.  But if that's true, why would Jesus speak in riddles.  That's how the disciples saw it.  And they knew: in Jesus the most important thing that had ever happened was happening.  Everyone needed to know about it.  So why not just say it plainly?  The thing is that it was the same for them as it is for us.  Jesus was speaking plainly.  Everyone knew that when he told a story about a sower planting seed, he was talking about the Lord sowing his promises for Israel.  They knew their story.  They knew the prophets.  The problem wasn't with Jesus.  The problem was with the people who thought they had it all figured out already.  The problem was with the people who thought the Messiah should come, for example, to take up a sword and establish his kingdom the way other kings established theirs.  And because they thought they had it all figured out, they weren't hearing what Jesus was plainly and simply saying. So Jesus says to the disciples (verse 14): “Isaiah's prophecy is coming true in them [in the people].”  And he quotes from Isaiah 6:9-10.  This was the Lord's commissioning and sending of Isaiah.  He was to go and say to the people, “You will listen but won't understand, you will look but not see.  This people's heart has gone flabby and fat, their ears are muffled and dull, their eyes are darkened and shut; in order that they won't see with their eyes or hear with their ears, or know in their heart, or turn back again for me to restore them.” Imagine being called as a prophet and the first message you're to declare is that no one will understand you.  What the Lord had promised to Isaiah was now being fulfilled in Jesus.  Like Isaiah, he would speak plainly, but the muffled ears of the people would be unable to hear.  Jesus goes on and says to his disciples: “But there's great news for your eyes: they can see!  And for your ears: they can hear!  I'm telling you the truth: many prophets and holy people longed to see what you see and didn't see it, and to hear what you hear and didn't hear it.” Now, the disciples knew their Bible.  They knew that in that same passage of Isaiah—in verse 13—they knew that was when the Lord spoke of judging the tree that was Israel.  All that would be left was a stump, and yet, says the Lord, “That stump is the holy seed.”  It was a prophecy of judgement followed by restoration.  So this is what would be in their heads as Jesus explains the parable to them. “This is what the sower story is all about,” Jesus went on.  “When someone hears the word of the kingdom and doesn't understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart.  This corresponds to what was sown beside the path.  What was sown on rocky ground is the person who hears the word and immediately receives it with delight, but doesn't have any root of their own.  Someone like that only lasts a short time; as soon as there's any trouble or persecution because of the word, they trip up at once.  The one sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but the world's worries and the seduction of wealth choke the word and it doesn't bear fruit.  But the one sown on good soil is the one who hears the word and understands it.  Someone like that will bear fruit: one will produce a hundred times over, another sixty, and another thirty times over.” So God's kingdom is coming.  That's the point of Jesus' parable.  But his point is also that it's not coming the way people expected.  Most people expected the kingdom to come in a blaze of glory.  The Lord would return to his people and defeat their enemies.  He would set everything to rights.  He would bring justice and peace and righteousness, beginning in Jerusalem and then extend his righteous rule throughout the earth.  But Jesus' parable says that, no, that's not how God's kingdom will come.  In fact, instead of coming with a blaze of glory, it's instead going to be like seed sown on the ground.  It's going to start quietly, many won't listen at first, but it will slowly and surely grow.  Because this is how the Lord works.  The story is as much about the history of Israel as it is about the people of First Century Judah or people today. This is how the Lord works and there's a good reason for it.  The world is not as it should be.  We long for the Lord to set it to rights.  But for him to come back in a blaze of glory to deal justly with the world's sin problem would mean that every last one of us would stand condemned.  This is why, along with his promises to set the world to rights, the Lord also spoke through the Prophets to say that he is patient and merciful and because of that, his judgement will be delayed so that (1) he can provide a means of salvation for us and so that (2) people will have time to hear this good news and believe.  The word—the seed—has to be sown and it needs time to germinate and grow. This is what the people of Jesus' day needed to understand.  Not only did they need this gospel seed in order to know God's mercy in the face of coming judgement, but so did the nations.  They thought the Lord would come, congratulate them for their faithfulness, set them on top of the heap, and then rain down fire and brimstone on the gentile nations, but the truth of the matter was, that they needed to be set right just as much as the gentiles did and it would be through the Lord's faithfulness to his people on display in the Messiah, that a new people would be born, that judgment would come on unfaithful Israel—and all of this before the eyes of the watching gentiles who would stand in awe of the God of Israel and be drawn to him in faith.  The Lord will set Israel and the world to rights, not only by judging sin, but even more so through his grace and mercy to those who believe.  This is how God would make good on his promises. Now, as I've been pondering this parable, one caution came to mind.  The parable was Jesus' way of telling the story of Israel.  God had sown the seed of his word over and over and people—or most of them—didn't listen.  The seed didn't take root.  And Jesus' point is that in him, this time, God was doing something new.  In him, the seed, the word had become flesh.  This time, through Jesus, the Lord would do something he'd never done before: he would pour out his Spirit.  And because of Jesus and the Spirit, the seed would finally grow and flourish—thirty, sixty, a hundred times over. Brothers and Sisters, Jesus and the Spirit have changed everything.  So I think we need to be at least a little cautious in how we think of this parable, because what we usually do when we hear about the seed on the path or the steed on the rocky soil, or the seed choked by thorns, what we usually do is say something like, “Don't be that kind of soil.  Don't let the birds take away the seeds.  Don't let the thorns choke it out.  Be the good soil.  Let the seed grow and put down deep roots.”  And there is something to be said for that.  People do let the cares of the world choke out gospel seed planted in them.  Some people are rocky soil and the seed looks like it's going to grow and then it withers and dies.  But here's the point—and never forget—that because of Jesus and because of the Spirit, everything is different.  They make the soil fertile and that's why God's word, ever since, has done what it has done.  That's why the church exists.  That's why this good news about the God of Israel has gone out and conquered the nations.  Because Jesus and the Spirit have made the soil fertile.  Without them the gospel seed will never take root and grow.  That's something else to remember in our ministry and evangelism.  We are stewards.  We're called to plant the seed.  But it is Jesus and the Spirit who cause it to grow. That doesn't mean we should just be passive hearers of the word.  Do the work.  Get rid of the rocks in the soil.  Pull the weeds that might choke it out.  But there's a promise here that if we will faithfully steep ourselves in God's gospel word, Jesus and the Spirit will cause it to take root and grow.  And if we will proclaim it, Jesus and the Spirit will grow the kingdom. Now, Matthew continues, Jesus put another parable to them.  Verse 24: “The kingdom of heaven is like this.  Once upon a time a man sowed good seed in his field.  While the workers were asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds in among the wheat, and went away.  When the crop came up and produced wheat, then the weeds appeared as well.  So the farmer's servants came to him.  “Master,” they said, “didn't you sow good seed in your field?  Where have the weeds come from?”  “This is the work of an enemy,” he replied.  “So,” the servants said to him, “do you want us to go and pull them up?”  “No,” he replied.  “If you do that you'll probably pull up the wheat as well while you're collecting the weeds.  Let them both grow together until the harvest.  Then, when it's time for the harvest, I will give the reapers this instruction: First gather the weeds and tie them up in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” Again, it's in our nature to want God to act right now.  We're tired of the pain and the tears.  We're tired of sin and death.  Why does God allow evil to continue?  In the next breath, Jesus tells the disciples that “the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.  It's the smallest of all the seeds, btu when it grows it turns into the biggest of the shrubs.  It becomes a tree, and the birds in the sky can then come and nest in its branches.”  But, of course, the tree doesn't grow all at once.  That takes many, many years.  And then he talks about a different kind of “seed”: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid inside three measures of flour, until the whole thing was leavened.” Just the other day I saw a video in which a woman went on an angry rant about how her first attempt at bread went horribly wrong.  She turned her bread pan upside down and the loaf fell out and hit the floor with a loud “thud”.  She picked it up and banged it on the counter: “Clunk, clunk!”  “I followed the recipe exactly!” she yelled.  “Why didn't it work?”  And then in the comments she revealed that, yes, she'd mixed all the ingredients correctly, but she never let the dough rise.  She said she didn't have time for that. And sometimes we feel like we don't have time—or we shouldn't have to wait for God's word to do its work.  I have to remind myself all the time as a pastor to be patient.  God's word doesn't grow people (or the kingdom) overnight.  You probably—or you should—have to remind yourselves that God's word doesn't grow pastors overnight either.  It takes time.  That's why the Lord uses this imagery of God's word as seed all through scripture. But this also means we need to be patient and to wait for the Lord to do his thing.  The disciples weren't sure they understood this and they asked Jesus what the parable of the wheat and the weeds meant and Jesus said, “The one who sows the seed is the son of man.  The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom.  The weeds are the children of the evil one; the enemy who sowed them is the devil.  The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are the angels.  So when the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire, that's what it will be like at the close of the age.  The son of man will send out his angels, and they will collect together out of his kingdom everything that causes offense, and everyone who acts wickedly.  They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.  If you have ears, listen!” God's word will do its work.  The kingdom will grow.  The enemy will sow weeds in its midst, but nothing can stop God's word from bringing the life he sent it out to bring.  As surely as the mustard seed will grow into a giant tree.  As surely as the little lump of dough will rise and fill the bowl, God's kingdom will do the same.  If you ever doubt that, just remember what Jesus says here: “The one who sows the seed is the son of man”—is Jesus himself.  Jesus (and the Spirit) will grow the kingdom and nothing the devil can do will stop that.  And we can trust that one day God's justice will confront our old enemies, sin and death, and put an end to them forever.  I think that what Jesus had in mind here was the judgement soon to come on Judah, Jerusalem, and the temple but as that judgement showed God's faithfulness to his promises, it also points forward to that time at the end of history, that time when the seed has grown into the great tree, when the leaven has worked its way through the whole loaf, when the gospel has gone out and the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea, we can trust that God will deal with the wicked and with sin and death once and for all and the righteous will shine like the sun.  That's an image of resurrection that Jesus takes from the Prophet Daniel. When something doesn't seem right or when it doesn't seem like it's going to work, the experts love to say “trust the process”.  And, Brothers and Sisters, that's exactly what Jesus is asking us to do.  He's planted the seed himself.  He's shed his own blood to water the soil.  He's given God's Spirit to make the soil of human hearts fertile.  And he's done none of that in vain.  His gospel seed will surely grow and if it seems like it's taking too long, remember that it's all for the sake of his grace and mercy—grace and mercy you and I already know, but grace and mercy that the rest of the world still needs to know for themselves.  Grace and mercy that, like the death and resurrection of Jesus, reveal the God who is worthy of glory, honour, and praise. Let's pray: Heavenly Father, keep your household the Church continually in your true religion; that those who lean only on the hope of your heavenly grace may always be defended by your mighty power, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven's Armies! The whole earth is filled with his glory (Isaiah 6:3). Isaiah's words rightly magnify our holy God. Join Pastor Chuck Swindoll as he discusses God's holiness, the gift of holiness for believers, and a believer's calling to pursue the same. Like Isaiah, fall before your holy God in awe of His majesty. Let His holiness propel you toward a life set apart and lived for His glory. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/82/29

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven's Armies! The whole earth is filled with his glory (Isaiah 6:3). Isaiah's words rightly magnify our holy God. Join Pastor Chuck Swindoll as he discusses God's holiness, the gift of holiness for believers, and a believer's calling to pursue the same. Like Isaiah, fall before your holy God in awe of His majesty. Let His holiness propel you toward a life set apart and lived for His glory. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/82/29

Like Isaiah and Daniel, Ezekiel saw God. In Ezekiel's vision, God was with strange spiritual creatures that were hard for him to describe. The whole experience clearly communicates how transcendent God is. Ezekiel 1:4-28 The prophet Ezekiel has a vision of four-winged living creatures with a fire in their midst, huge gleaming wheels, and God Himself sitting on a throne above them. He struggled mightily to describe the scene, employing the word “like” twenty-three times in this chapter. Ezekiel 10:15-22 A little over a year later, Ezekiel was able to process the initial vision he saw. When he had a second one, he could describe it without using so many analogies. Furthermore, he realized that the living creatures were cherubim. Cherubim were on the lid of the ark of the covenant (Ex 25:17-22), standing fifteen feet tall on either side of the ark (1 Kgs 6:23-28), sewn into the curtain separating the holy of holies (2 Chr 3:14), and on the door and walls in the temple (1 Ki 6:29-35). Ezekiel 1:1-3 After five years in exile, Ezekiel was now thirty years old—the age he would become ordained and enter his service as a priest in the temple. God showed him a powerful vision far beyond what he would have experienced if he were serving in the temple back in Jerusalem. Ezekiel's vision communicates that God is transcendent. He's not like everyone else; he's extraordinary, other, beyond what we know (Ps 113:5-6; Job 36:26; Isa 40:18-28; 55:8-9).The post Seeing God 3: Transcendence first appeared on Living Hope.

May 27, 2024Today's Reading: Isaiah 6:1-8Daily Lectionary: Ecclesiastes 4:1-16; John 7:32-53And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:5–7)In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Isaiah was a smart one. He knew what was going on around him. You see, for sinners, the presence of God is absolutely bad news. What happens to sinners in the presence of God? Death. Blown up. Toast. Zapped. Whatever fun phrase you use to describe it, the point is this: God is perfection, and perfection will not abide chaos and sin in its presence for very long. And so Isaiah is afraid. Isaiah is not only reflecting that the people he dwells with are unclean and say unclean things, but he is aware that he himself is a sinner. He thinks he is done for.And so what happens? Is Isaiah zapped by God? Absolutely not. What Isaiah experiences is one of the most awesome absolutions anyone has ever experienced. He confesses his sins (“I am a man of unclean lips”) and is then forgiven by God, which is the angel touching his lips with the coal. Notice that God does not say in response, “Yes, you are. Your lips are filthy” or “Yes, you are, and so you better get fixing it.” God simply directs one of his ministers (in this case, an angel) to absolve Isaiah so he can continue his work on behalf of the LORD. Believe it or not, you get the same thing. No, you don't quite have an angel touching your lips with a flaming coal, but you do still have one of the LORD's pastors ready and waiting to hear your confession and pronounce that your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for. In the Divine Service, you make the sign of the cross, remembering that you are a baptized child of God. Like Isaiah, you are given something on your lips: Jesus' Body and Blood in the Lord's Supper. This also delivers to you God's forgiveness. You are covered with Jesus and are now perfect before God; you get to continue in the work that God has placed before you as you love and care for your neighbors. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.Almighty, everlasting God, for our many sins we justly deserve eternal condemnation. In Your mercy You sent Your dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who won for us forgiveness of sins and everlasting salvation. Grant us a true confession that, dead to sin, we may be raised up by Your life-giving Absolution. Grant us Your Holy Spirit that we may be ever watchful and live true and godly lives in Your service; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. (Before confession and absolution, LSB)-Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, Ky.Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, Ky.A Complete Guide to Christian Symbols . This collection of over 600 hand-drawn Christian symbols by artist and author Edward Riojas will teach you the extensive history of the imagery of the Church. Each symbol is a beautiful and historical connection to generations of Christians that have worshiped before you. A Complete Guide to Christian Symbols. Now available from Concordia Publishing House. 

Hey! Sam Vecenie is going live to answer YOUR QUESTIONS about the 2024 NBA Draft! Send off some questions ahead of time, and I'll answer as many as I can live on the show! Already, we'll be talking about guys like Isaiah Collier, Kyle Filipowski, Reed Sheppard, Donovan Clingan, and more! CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 1:20 Isaiah Collier and Bronny James, G, USC 8:00 Kentucky, Aaron Bradshaw, Reed Sheppard 24:10 UConn, Donovan Clingan, Tristen Newton 32:32 Nikola Topic, G, Mega 40:24 Ryan Dunn, F, Virginia (plus some Pacers stuff) 46:00 Raptors stuff, plus should teams try to convey draft picks in 2024? 51:49 Biggest faller top-15 54:03 Evaluating Upperclassmen, who can find success? 58:47 Garwey Dual, G, Providence 1:00:08 Robbie Avila, Indiana State 1:01:37 Oklahoma City Thunder Trade Stuff 1:03:54 Jarin Stevenson, F, Alabama 1:05:23 Malik Mack, G, Harvard! 1:08:23 Otega Oweh, W, Oklahoma 1:10:03 Aday Mara and what makes Sengun, Jokic, Sabonis special 1:11:26 Andrej Stojakovic, Jaylon Tyson, Hansen Yang, Ajay Mitchell 1:16:45 Ignite 1:18:38 Bub Carrington, G, Pittsburgh 1:21:43 Tyler Smith, F, Ignite 1:23:13 Kyle Filipowski, C, Duke 1:29:51 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pastor Al Dagel wants us to be a bit like Isaiah, but that won't be easy.

Humility might not top the list of qualifications for a pastor, but it should! As David Mathis wrote: “Few things poison the church, and sully her reputation in the world, like arrogant pastors.” And the Apostle Paul included humility in his list to Titus: “Not overbearing [arrogant]” (Titus 1:7). In Isaiah 6, we find the prophet's specific call to ministry and his humble response. Isaiah was given a vision of the Lord, sitting on His throne. The hem of His robe filled the Temple. Surrounding seraphim covered their faces and their feet with their wings, and they cried to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty! (v. 3).” The triple “holy” emphasized the degree to which God was set apart. The Lord's utter perfection prompted Isaiah's reaction. He cried, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (v. 5). When confronted with the perfection and majesty of God, Isaiah's response was humility. He could only acknowledge his own sinfulness and that of the people. Then, in the vision, one of the seraphim touched Isaiah's lips with burning coal, an act of cleansing and forgiveness (vv. 6–7). Upon Isaiah's cleansing, the Lord uttered His call: “Whom shall I send?” (v. 8). Isaiah knew nothing of the actual assignment—He didn't know the message, the location, or the duration of the call. He didn't understand the difficulties he would face. Yet, unlike Moses and Samuel, Isaiah offered no objection and expressed no fear. He simply offered himself. “Here am I. Send me!” (v. 8). The prophet had a difficult task ahead. The Israelites' hearts would be hardened. Yet a remnant would remain. Throughout all generations, God preserved a faithful remnant of His people. >> Like Isaiah, we are not worthy. We must not become proud or self-reliant in our call. The Bible teaches us the importance of confession and cleansing. May we too adopt this beautiful posture of willing obedience.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's study, I finish up with Chapter 15. Once again before I begin I go into this study I go into a rant on some of the current events that affected our daily life, Such as Satan using the Jewish government to destroy Christian Civilization. I talk about the Rockefeller Brother Funded of the Hamas along with George Soros. I discuss ‘Pharmageddon' and how the Covid Vaccine Bioweapon Kills innocent people/The Sixth Vision "In Heaven”It is the Vision which introduces us to the most terrible of all the Visions which affect the earth; for it is followed by the Seven Vials, the seven great and final judgments which close up the whole series set forth in chapters— 16  The Great Judgments.  17  The Great Whore.  18  The Great City.IntroductionChapter 15 is the final chapter and the climax of the “Introduction to the Bowls”, which began with chapter 12.The angels of verse 1 are prepared to deliver Yahweh's wrath. However, before proceeding directly into the wrath, we see a pause in order to make a point: Yahweh's wrath is justified.Now John is giving us another insight on what is taken place in this Temple in Heaven.The 4 beasts or living creatures!"The FOUR LIVING CREATURES"--not "beasts" as in the A.V. which confuses with "the beast" of chapter 13. "FOUR" in number these "living creatures" represent things on earth or MANKIND. They have eyes on all sides. That is, they see all that is going on in all directions. They have the qualities of a LION--STRENGTH, an OX--SERVICE, the FACE OF A MAN--INTELLIGENCE, and the EAGLE of HIGH SPIRITUAL FLIGHT. Like Isaiah's seraphim (Isa. 6:1-13) each has six wings. And they sing of the mighty strenght of Yahweh PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE. (verse 7). J. P. Love suggests "It will be well worth while to read this fourth chapter of Revelation and the sixth chapter of Isaiah together and then go carefully through the hymn "Holy, holy, Lord God Almighty," noting how remarkably the hymnist has blended the figures used by Isaiah and John." (Dr. J. P. Love "Layman's Bible Commentary on John--Jude--Revelation" SCM Press, Page 64). The praising of Yahweh by the four living creatures and the elders in verses 6-11 lift our hopes for the time when the qualities of ALL mankind shall be equal to the STRENGTH of the lion, the POWER and SERVICE of the ox, the INTELLIGENCE of a man, and the SWIFTNESS of the eagle.7  And one of the four beasts = See the notes on Rev. 4:6-7. Which one of the four is not mentioned.Gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials = The word used here - φιάλη  phialē ‘fee-al-ay'- means properly, “a bowl or goblet, having more breadth than depth”Full of the wrath of God = Filled with what represented his wrath;Who liveth forever and ever = The eternal Yahweh.8   And the temple was filled with smoke = smoke symbolic of judgement! The usual symbol of the divine presence in the temple.From the glory of Yahweh = From the manifestation of the divine majesty.And from his power = ‘doo-nam-is' Produced by his power; and the symbol of his power.And no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled = Until those vials had been poured out, and all that was indicated by them was accomplished. At this point in time, Heaven is locked up. The gates are closed.Observations About the Wrath of YahwehYahweh's wrath is not like the wrath of a man. A man can get angry, become carried away by his emotions, and lash out, only to regret the consequences later.Join me as we go Chapter by Chapter, Verse by Verse, Unraveling the Words of Yahweh! Have any questions? Feel free to email me at keitner@netzero.net

The new creation will be a place of joy and restoration, and we're made to look forward to that day.

Ezekiel 2:3-4 God certainly didn't do anything to make Ezekiel's ministry look attractive! Like Isaiah, he is informed that he will have a really tough time serving God and will meet with constant resistance. Serving God in a world which largely ignores or rejects him is always hard work. Earlier today, I was reading a biography of John Newton, the slave trading captain turned Christian. Newton was convinced that God had called him to be a minister and had his eyes wide open to the challenges of doing so. In his journal, he noted that he expected to face “opposition on all sides... censure and ridicule...a larger measure of trials than others.” I'm not going to disagree with any of that. It is hard work being involved in God's work and, after 40 years of being a minister, I know from personal experience that this is true. But serving God has also been the greatest joy and honour that could be imagined – and I am sure both John Newton and Ezekiel would agree with me. Having the privilege of speaking God's word, seeing people receive it and be transformed by it, is a breath- taking privilege. Seeing people find hope in God and a confidence for the future is amazing. Amid all of the challenges that we inevitably face, in a world that is fundamentally opposed to God, serving God is life at its best - whatever he calls us to do and wherever we are called to do it. If you are a Christian leader, be encouraged, however tough the going may be at the moment. And if you are not, remember those who serve in
 this way in your prayers. Remember that many are facing life and death challenges on a regular basis, and will constantly be stretched by the demands of their work. They need your love, understanding and sensitivity more than you realise. QUESTION In what specific ways can you support your church leaders? And, if you are a church leader, how could you support your colleagues more effectively? PRAYER Loving God, thank you for those who are called to serve you as leaders. Give them your strength and peace as they serve you. Amen

The Fifth Sunday after Trinity: Fishing for People St. Luke 5:1-11 by William Klock Jesus had a big message, he was alone.  He knew the amazing and miraculous circumstance of his birth.  He knew the words that had been spoken over him as a baby, when he was too small to understand, blessings given by old saints like Simeon and Anna when Mary and Joseph had taken him to be dedicated in the temple.  Most of all, he knew the scriptures.  He'd pieced it all together and he knew who he was and why his Father—not Joseph, but his Father father had sent him.  Jesus knew what the God of Israel was doing through him.  Jesus knew what he had to do.    If he'd had any doubts about it, his baptism by John in the Jordan had driven them all away.  John knew who he was.  And then the heavens had opened, the Spirit had descended on him, and his Father had spoken: “You are my son.”  And he had proved himself in the desert as he was tempted by the devil—each time that knowledge of who he was, what he was here for, and all those scriptures he'd memorised and meditated on came flooding back.  He resisted the devil and the devil had fled.  And his Father had vindicated him, sending his angels to minister to him.  Walking out of the desert, Jesus was ready to take that big message to his people.  And he began, literally, with his people.  He went back to his home town of Nazareth and on the sabbath, in the synagogue, the rabbi gave him the Isaiah scroll to read. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, [Jesus read out]          because he has anointed me          to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives          and recovering of sight to the blind,          to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus said.  Today it begins.  Israel had been crying out to the Lord for deliverance for centuries.  He has heard your cries and he has sent me to proclaim the good news.  Deliverance and judgement are coming.  Judgement always comes with deliverance, because the faithful cannot be delivered unless the unfaithful and the wicked are judged and cast down.  So repent and believe for the kingdom of God is near. At first the people—many his friends and family—were amazed, but all they wanted was their own personal Messiah to work miracles for them.  By the time Jesus had finished rebuking them, they'd formed a mob and chased him to the edge of a cliff.  They were ready to throw him down, to kill him.  By some miracle he escaped.  He fled to Capernaum.  There, people listened.  He cast out a demon.  Word about him quickly spread.  One sabbath, after preaching his message in the synagogue, that message about the coming kingdom, about deliverance and judgment and the need for Israel to repent, he was invited to the home of a man named Simon.  Simon's mother-in-law was sick and had a fever.  Jesus healed her.  Pretty soon everyone in town with a problem was crowding Simon's house to be healed by Jesus.  In him they were getting a glimpse of the age to come, of the world finally set to rights.  They didn't want him to leave, but he had to go, he had to take the good news about the coming of the kingdom to the rest of God's people, to the rest of Judea.  Judgement was coming for Israel, and the people—everyone in Israel—needed to hear Jesus' call to repentance. So many villages and town and cities.  So many people.  So many heard and were enthusiastic.  Many even believed.  But so many didn't.  Some just saw the miracles and their only thought was for today and they missed what the good news really was.  Some got it, they heard Jesus' announcement of the kingdom, but they misunderstood or they got angry.  The Messiah was supposed to announce judgement on Israel's enemies, not on Israel!  No matter how Jesus looked at it, his mission was so big and he was just one man.  It weighed heavily on him.  A big message and even bigger task for just one person. But one day not long after, St. Luke tells us in today's Gospel, Jesus was standing on the shore of the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum.  He was preaching.  It was a good spot for that.  There are coves that amplify the sound.  He was using one of them like a natural amphitheatre.  But the crowd of people just kept getting bigger and bigger.  People wanted to see the miracle-worker, but more than that, they wanted to hear the good news he was proclaiming—that in him the Lord had heard the cries of his people and had come to deliver and to judge.  Some—the hurting and the poor—needed to hear that message of consolation.  Some wanted to know just who it was that would be judged—because they'd heard Jesus calling people to repentance.  And the crowd got bigger and bigger and people were struggling to hear what he was saying. And Luke writes that there were a couple of boats on the beach.  Fishing boats.  The fisherman had come in from their night's labour, had emptied the boats, and were on the beach looking after their nets while Jesus preached.  Jesus recognised one of the fishermen.  It was Simon.  A few days before he'd been invited to his house and he'd healed his mother-in-law.  And so he called to Simon and asked him to row him out onto the water so that he could preach from his boat and let the water and walls of the cove amplify his voice.  Simon did as Jesus asked. And Jesus preached about the Lord's kingdom that was so soon to come.  Luke doesn't give us Jesus' specific words on this occasion, but we know he preached there what he preached everywhere else.  He preached about coming judgement, he preached about repentance, and he preached about the life of the age to come that awaited the repentant on the other side of that judgement.  In Jesus the Lord had come to set things to rights, but to be part of that new world and that new and restored people, the people of Israel needed to be right with the Lord.  For those who refused to repent, war with Rome waited and the death and utter destruction it would bring.  To make his point Jesus spoke of outer darkness and gnashing teeth—just the sort of judgement language the old prophets had used—Gehenna and unquenchable fire.  Jesus reminded the people of familiar passages from the prophets, from Isaiah and from Ezekiel and from Jeremiah, passages about judgement and deliverance and national repentance, and about the faithfulness of the Lord. And in the middle of all that, inspiration struck Jesus.  He had an idea.  The good news wasn't going to proclaim itself to Israel and there were only so many places and people Jesus could reach with the message in the short time he had.  He needed helpers.  He needed disciples.  And I can't help but think that a little bit of Jeremiah was running around his head—I'll come back to Jeremiah in a bit.  He may have just preached this little bit of Jeremiah to crowd, and as the great crowd finally dispersed and he was alone in the boat with the fishermen, he asked Simon to row out into deeper water and to cast his nets for a catch.  Jeremiah echoing in his mind the whole time. Simon liked Jesus.  After hearing his preaching, he'd invited him to his home.  But you can hear the annoyance in his voice when he responds to Jesus, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”  If the fish weren't there in the dark, they certainly wouldn't be there in the day.  And they'd just cleaned the nets.  And they were tired.  What was the point?  But Simon knew.  If it was anyone else, he'd have pushed him overboard, but this was Jesus.  He'd seen Jesus do things.  And, anyway, he owed him one.  So Simon and his friends rowed out into the deep water and cast their net.  And to their surprise, they caught something.  They caught a lot of somethings—and it wasn't old boots and hubcaps!  Simon started yelling to haul in the nets before they broke from all the fish teeming inside.  But the nets started tearing anyway.  Sooo many fish!  Simon was calling to James and John in the other boat, “Get over here!  Quick!  Help, before the nets are destroyed and all these fish get away.”  And pretty soon they were hauling and scooping fish into both boats.  But now it was the boats that were in danger.  There were so many fish that the boats were riding dangerously low.  The waves were washing over the sides and the boats were sitting lower and lower in the water by the minute.  The fishermen started bailing frantically. But not Simon.  Luke tells us that Simon Peter—yes, that Simon—he tells us that Simon Peter fell down on his knees in the middle of the sinking boat and wriggling fish and cried out to Jesus, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”  Simon Peter had an encounter with the holy.  He was no great theologian.  He knew nothing of homoousioses or hypostatic unions.  He simply knew Israel's scriptures and in Jesus he saw the faithfulness of the God of Israel revealed brighter than the sun at noon.  He knew that in Jesus the Lord had come to his people and Simon Peter did what everyone who has ever had an encounter with the God of Israel has done: He fell to his knees, confessed his sinfulness, and pled for that holiness that felt like it was burning into his sinful heart like a red hot poker, he pled for it to go away and leave him be.  Luke makes a point of telling us this detail of the story, because it points back so obviously to Isaiah's encounter with the Lord.  Do you remember Isaiah's response to the presence of the holiness of God?  Isaiah cried out: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5) Isaiah couldn't bear the presence of the holy either.  And that's when an angel flew down to Isaiah bearing a burning coal from the altar.  He touched Isaiah's unclean lips with the coal and proclaimed that his guilt had departed and his sin blotted out.  And then, when the Lord called out, “Whom shall I send?  Who will go for us?  Who will proclaim my message to Israel?” Isaiah responded with those familiar words, “Here I am!  Send me!” And it's that scene all over again in that sinking fishing boat between Simon Peter and Jesus.  As Simon Peter knelt, shaking in the presence of the holy, Jesus announced to him, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”  In Matthew and Mark, Jesus says to Simon Peter and his friends, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  These were the men Jesus needed to help him to proclaim the coming kingdom and to call the nation to repentance in anticipation of it. But what, exactly, was Jesus calling Simon Peter to do?  On the one hand it's obvious.  We've all been singing the song since we were in Sunday School.  I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men.  I will make you fishers of men if you follow me.  And if you're like me, of course you think of evangelism.  And we forget that Simon Peter and his friends fished with nets and we imagine ourselves doing evangelism as if we're fishermen casting out a line with a worm on the hook and sitting and waiting for a bite.  And that last little bit about “if you follow me”—if.  There was no “if” in that sinking boat.  Jesus just told Simon Peter, “From now on you'll be catching men.”  When the Lord calls you, Brothers and Sisters, there's no if.  Not for Abraham, not for Moses, not for Isaiah, not for Simon Peter—not for us.  They all cowered in fear and then they squirmed and they even argued “I'm not worthy”, “I don't know how”, “I can't”, but the Lord purified them, absolved them, equipped them, and sent them and they went.  Every one of them.  Not just Simon Peter that day, but James and John.   But, again, what was Jesus calling them to do?  What was he calling them for? Remember I said that I think Jesus had a bit of Jeremiah running around his head when he told Simon Peter to row out into the deep water and to cast his nets.  And I think that was the case because, first, Jesus was always preaching the prophets, and second, because of the context—he was in a fishing boat with fisherman. In Jeremiah 16 we read the Lord's words of warning to Israel.  The prophet was to announce the Lord's coming judgement on the nation and people of Israel.  Here's what he says in Jeremiah 16:10-13.  This is the indictment. “And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?' then you shall say to them: ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.'   Some of the specifics of the sins had changed since the days of Jeremiah, but Israel in Jesus' day was just as unfaithful to the Lord.  This was a perfect passage for Jesus to draw on in order to explain his ministry and why the Lord had sent him.  The Lord had judged Israel then and he was about to do it again and for the same reason.  Jump down a few verses to 16-18.  Because they have not been faithful to his covenant, the Lord is going to remove his people from the promised land and send them into exile.  And he's going to be thorough about it.  He uses the imagery of fishing and hunting. “Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. But first I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”   Jeremiah's point was that none would escape the coming judgement.  When Babylon fell on Judea like a ton of bricks, many would flee, but none would escape the Lord's judgement.  Like fishers casting their nets across the rivers and catching everything, the Babylonians would let no one escape.  Everyone would be carried off into exile. And this wasn't some bit of Old Testament prophetic imagery that the Jewish people had forgotten.  It's used in the Thanksgiving Psalms found at Qumran, in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The singer of the psalm sees himself as a fisherman with his net spread over Israel, ready to catch the children of injustice and to bring them to judgement.[1]  That's why I expect Jesus would have preached on this passage from Jeremiah, if not this day, then on some other.  But what better passage to be preaching as he stood in Simon's fishing boat. And something clicks in Jesus' head.  This time there's a way to escape the coming judgement.  That's why Jesus was sent.  Not just to announce that judgement was coming soon, but to call the people to repentance—and even to give his life as a sacrifice for their sins.  To make a new people, forgiven and full of God's own Spirit, who would be ready to live the life of the age to come, who would be ready to live in God's world set to rights, to live his law of love, and to take up their original vocation, to be his stewards and the priests of his temple.  As Jesus says in John's Gospel, “God did not send his Son to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”  What Israel needs is fisherman, just like in Jeremiah's day, but not fisherman to catch the fish for judgement.  Israel needs a corps of gospel fishermen who will catch people that they might live.  The word Jesus uses for catch means to capture something alive.  In the Old Testament it was used to describe capturing an enemy, while sparing his life instead of putting him to death.  It's the perfect image for the mission of Jesus and his disciples.  In the face of coming judgement, these gospel fishermen will catch men and women so that their lives will be spared. I doubt Simon Peter or James or John had any idea that day the full extent of what they were in for, but they had heard the good news, they had chosen their side, and Luke writes that when they'd got their boats and nets and the fish to shore, they left it all and followed Jesus.  Like Isaiah, Simon Peter had heard the call, had been absolved and equipped by the Lord, and was ready to stand and say, “Here I am.  Send me!”  These disciples were the labourers sent out in to the harvest.  Jesus gave them authority to preach and to heal and to cast out demons.  They went out in the name of Jesus to prepare Israel for the judgement to come.  Like Jesus, they announced the Lord's coming judgement on Israel for her unfaithfulness, and they called the people to repentance.  There was life in a renewed people of God on the other side of the coming disaster, a life full of the Spirit, a life as the people Israel had always been called to be—the people who lived with God in their midst.  And that ministry drew a line down the middle of Israel.  There were those who heard this good news and believed.  There were those who rejected the message.  The disciples were to leave such people—to symbolically shake the dust from their feet and to move on and to carry the message to those who would receive it. This is why Jesus told them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6).  Judgement would one day come to the gentiles, too, but before the Lord could judge the gentile nations, he had to judge and to renew his own people—to set his own house in order.  Seeing the Lord do that, seeing the Lord come in judgement on his own rebellious people, and seeing him, through Jesus, establishing a new people, that's what would pique the interest of the gentiles.  Seeing the faithfulness of the God of Israel—something they'd never seen in their own gods—that is what ultimately prompt the gentile nations to come and glorify this God who was unlike any other.  This was the good news that would eventually conquer the world of the Greeks and Romans for Jesus the Messiah.   Now, Brothers and Sisters, it's our turn.  We're here this morning reading Luke's Gospel because the Lord has kept his promises.  Because he kept his promise to discipline his own children and, through Jesus, to put his own house in order.  Because he kept his promise to pour out his Spirit on that new people who found their identity in Jesus.  Because he kept his promise to Simon Peter, that he would, from them on, be catching people instead of fish.  Because the Lord was faithful and may in Israel believed.  Because the Lord was faithful, the gentiles saw and believed.  This God and his crucified and risen Son, and this Spirit-filled people were unlike anything the world had ever seen or heard of and so the world came, a trickle at first, but then nations and eventually an entire empire, to kneel before him and to give him glory.  And the amazing thing is that through their faith in Jesus, they became part of this new Israel, this people of God, forgiven by his Son and filled with his Spirit.  And ever since, this good news about Jesus and about his cross and about his resurrection from the dead and about his ascension to his heavenly throne and about the faithfulness of the God of Israel has been spreading—gospel fishermen casting their nets and catching fish—catching them that they might hear and believe and repent and know the life of the age to come.  Because the Lord will one day judge all the earth, just as he judged Israel, and just as he judged the Greek and Romans.  When Jesus has put every last enemy under his feet—and if the Lord's past record is worth anything, we know Jesus surely will put every last enemy under his feet—when the gospel and the church and the Spirit have done their work—and if the story of Simon Peter and this Spirit-filled church is worth anything, we know it will one day do the work Jesus equipped it to do—then the Lord will finally wipe every last bit of rebellion and sin and wickedness from his creation.  There will be outer darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth, but there will also be life in this world set to rights.  Brothers and Sisters, Jesus sends us out to proclaim this good news, to prepare the world for what lies ahead, to preach the death and resurrection of Jesus, to proclaim like royal heralds that he is Lord, and that forgiveness and healing and life with God are his gift, that all who repent and believe can be part of this amazing, life-filled people he has created in Jesus, but that to receive that gift of his grace, we must repent and believe that we might be transformed—aligned with the values of his kingdom, that we might be prepared for the age to come and life with him.  Today we're the gospel fishermen sent out to cast our nets, to proclaim the good news for the glory of God. Let's pray: Father, you have called us and made us your people.  You send us out, like Simon Peter, to fish for people that they might know the life of your kingdom.  When we're tempted to protest, thinking that we are unworthy of the task, that we are too sinful, that we aren't up to it, remind us that in Jesus you have forgiven us, that you have made us holy, that you have filled us with your Spirit, and that you have given us this remarkable and irresistible story to tell the world, this story of your goodness, your love, your grace, your mercy, and your faithfulness.  Give us the grace to do the work of your kingdom as we trust in your faithfulness to us and to all who hear it.  Through the Lord Jesus we pray.  Amen. [1] 1QHa 13:7-11

Holy, Holy, Holy Lesson Text: Isaiah 6:1-8 #SundaySchool #COGIC #TheProphetAndPraise God is worthy of praise and worship. Thought to Remember: The removal of sin enables one to hear what God is saying. Lessons learned: Spirit-led worship marks true believers. Through the Spirit, we worship God by bringing all our creative faculties under Christ's rule. The Spirit enables us to offer God our worship in a way that pleases Him and brings our lives into greater conformity with His will. Like Isaiah, who experienced the burning coal to purge his sin, he realized that God was more interested in purging sin than punishing sin. So, Isaiah committed himself to God's mission for his life. Considering this lesson, I must not simply worship God on Sunday but commit myself to a life of holiness that reflects the attitude of Send me God. My Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, we honor You, for You alone are worthy of our worship and adoration. We live in a world where there is a lack of reverence for Your directions and guidance. Forgive us for times when we compromised by agreeing with the culture, the world's system. So use us as change agents to bring glory to this world. Allow us to bear witness that Your Word is true. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen.

Chris Carter of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, hosts the Locked on Steelers podcast.The Pittsburgh Steelers' 2023 roster could still use another linebacker on its roster, and Omar Khan is exploring options. But there's no rush in the current NFL market to finalize the Steelers' plan at the position with players like Kwon Alexander and Deion Jones still in free agency and Isaiah Simmons as a possible trade target for the Arizona Cardinals. Patience will be key for Omar Khan to make the right move again for the Steelers.Also, there's a debate for after Diontae Johnson and George Pickens, who should be WR3? Allen Robinson is an obvious choice, but should Calvin Austin III be overlooked? And when looking at the wide receiver depth chart, how much will a WR3 even get targeted in an offense that looks to establish the run and will have Johnson, Pickens, Najee Harris and Pat Freiermuth as primary options before that spot. So there's less pressure for a third wide receiver to be a key player for the offense. A big similarity can be drawn back to the 2005 Steelers when Ben Roethlisberger was in his second year just like Kenny Pickett is now in his second year with the Steelers.CALL INTO THE SHOW AT 412-223-6644 or if international, e-mail your audio message to LOSTEELERSTOPICBAG@GMAIL.COMFollow Chris Carter on Twitter: @CarterCritiques.Theme music is 'Soul Kick' by Ceddy P, and 'Too Easy' by Nerdboy. Both from their label Renaissance Music. Find more from their label here.This show is part of the Locked on Podcast Network.DONATE to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation with this link: https://finest.cff.org/pgh50finest/cartercritiquesSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONNFLBuilt BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you'll get 15% off your next order.PrizePicksFirst time users can receive a 100% instant deposit match up to $100 with promo code LOCKEDON. That's PrizePicks.com – promo code; LOCKEDONUltimate Football GMTo download the game just visit Ultimate-GM.com or look it up on the app stores. Our listeners get a 100% free boost to their franchise when using the promo LOCKEDON (ALL CAPS) in the game store.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Place your first FIVE DOLLAR bet to get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Free Bets – win or lose! Visit Fanduel.com/LockedOn today to get startedFANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chris Carter of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, hosts the Locked on Steelers podcast. The Pittsburgh Steelers' 2023 roster could still use another linebacker on its roster, and Omar Khan is exploring options. But there's no rush in the current NFL market to finalize the Steelers' plan at the position with players like Kwon Alexander and Deion Jones still in free agency and Isaiah Simmons as a possible trade target for the Arizona Cardinals. Patience will be key for Omar Khan to make the right move again for the Steelers. Also, there's a debate for after Diontae Johnson and George Pickens, who should be WR3? Allen Robinson is an obvious choice, but should Calvin Austin III be overlooked? And when looking at the wide receiver depth chart, how much will a WR3 even get targeted in an offense that looks to establish the run and will have Johnson, Pickens, Najee Harris and Pat Freiermuth as primary options before that spot. So there's less pressure for a third wide receiver to be a key player for the offense. A big similarity can be drawn back to the 2005 Steelers when Ben Roethlisberger was in his second year just like Kenny Pickett is now in his second year with the Steelers. CALL INTO THE SHOW AT 412-223-6644 or if international, e-mail your audio message to LOSTEELERSTOPICBAG@GMAIL.COM Follow Chris Carter on Twitter: @CarterCritiques. Theme music is 'Soul Kick' by Ceddy P, and 'Too Easy' by Nerdboy. Both from their label Renaissance Music. Find more from their label here. This show is part of the Locked on Podcast Network. DONATE to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation with this link: https://finest.cff.org/pgh50finest/cartercritiques Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! LinkedIn LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONNFL Built Bar Built Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you'll get 15% off your next order. PrizePicks First time users can receive a 100% instant deposit match up to $100 with promo code LOCKEDON. That's PrizePicks.com – promo code; LOCKEDON Ultimate Football GM To download the game just visit Ultimate-GM.com or look it up on the app stores. Our listeners get a 100% free boost to their franchise when using the promo LOCKEDON (ALL CAPS) in the game store. FanDuel Make Every Moment More. Place your first FIVE DOLLAR bet to get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Free Bets – win or lose! Visit Fanduel.com/LockedOn today to get started FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to "The Power Of God's Whisper Podcast", friends. We're all in for a treat today as we dive into a profound verse from the book of Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 8, "I heard the Lord asking, 'Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?'" It's an invitation, a challenge, and a call to each one of us. But to truly understand and answer this call, we must first learn to listen, and to listen, we must learn to worship.My Reasons To Believe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Point 1: The Link between Worship and Listening Think of worship as a radio frequency where God's voice is most clear. When we worship, our spirits tune into God's frequency, aligning us with His presence. Worship isn't just singing songs, it's our hearts resonating with God's heart. And as our hearts beat in sync with His, we begin to hear His whispers more clearly. Worship opens our spiritual ears to hear God's voice.Point 2: Encountering God in Worship When we worship, we encounter God. It's like standing at the foot of a towering mountain, realizing its grandeur and your smallness. This sense of awe, of reverence, is what makes worship an environment ripe for hearing God. Like Isaiah in the temple, when we enter into a place of worship, we're more likely to have a profound encounter with God.Point 3: Cultivating an Atmosphere of Worship Creating an atmosphere of worship isn't just about music or a specific location. It's about the posture of our hearts. It's about choosing to give God the glory even when life is tough, to sing His praises even when our hearts are breaking. This attitude of worship, regardless of our circumstances, creates a spiritual greenhouse where our relationship with God can flourish._______In the words of Isaiah, we see a clear demonstration of the power of worship, the impact it has on our ability to hear God, and the transformative effect it can have on our lives. Worship is not a one-way street of us praising God. It's a divine interaction, a spiritual exchange where we offer our praises, and in return, we receive the privilege of hearing His voice.Call to Action: This week, I challenge you to create your own greenhouse of worship. Regardless of your circumstances, fill your heart and mouth with praises. Tune into God's frequency through worship and listen out for His whispers. Remember, God is asking, "Whom should I send as a messenger?" Will you be ready to answer His call?Join us next time as we explore more about the journey of listening to God's whispers and answering His call. Don't forget: age is just a number in God's Kingdom. You're never too young to make a difference. Until then, keep cultivating your spiritual greenhouse. Stay blessed!Let's Pray…Holy God, You are glorious, majestic, and beautiful. I adore Your heart  —and Your willingness to share it with me. Let me live with a strong sense of Your presence, an atmosphere in which Your words are abundant and clear. Open my heart and my ears to hear You.Thank you for reading My Reasons To Believe. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to My Reasons To Believe at myr2b.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to "The Power Of God's Whisper Podcast", friends. We're all in for a treat today as we dive into a profound verse from the book of Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 8, "I heard the Lord asking, 'Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?'" It's an invitation, a challenge, and a call to each one of us. But to truly understand and answer this call, we must first learn to listen, and to listen, we must learn to worship.My Reasons To Believe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Point 1: The Link between Worship and Listening Think of worship as a radio frequency where God's voice is most clear. When we worship, our spirits tune into God's frequency, aligning us with His presence. Worship isn't just singing songs, it's our hearts resonating with God's heart. And as our hearts beat in sync with His, we begin to hear His whispers more clearly. Worship opens our spiritual ears to hear God's voice.Point 2: Encountering God in Worship When we worship, we encounter God. It's like standing at the foot of a towering mountain, realizing its grandeur and your smallness. This sense of awe, of reverence, is what makes worship an environment ripe for hearing God. Like Isaiah in the temple, when we enter into a place of worship, we're more likely to have a profound encounter with God.Point 3: Cultivating an Atmosphere of Worship Creating an atmosphere of worship isn't just about music or a specific location. It's about the posture of our hearts. It's about choosing to give God the glory even when life is tough, to sing His praises even when our hearts are breaking. This attitude of worship, regardless of our circumstances, creates a spiritual greenhouse where our relationship with God can flourish._______In the words of Isaiah, we see a clear demonstration of the power of worship, the impact it has on our ability to hear God, and the transformative effect it can have on our lives. Worship is not a one-way street of us praising God. It's a divine interaction, a spiritual exchange where we offer our praises, and in return, we receive the privilege of hearing His voice.Call to Action: This week, I challenge you to create your own greenhouse of worship. Regardless of your circumstances, fill your heart and mouth with praises. Tune into God's frequency through worship and listen out for His whispers. Remember, God is asking, "Whom should I send as a messenger?" Will you be ready to answer His call?Join us next time as we explore more about the journey of listening to God's whispers and answering His call. Don't forget: age is just a number in God's Kingdom. You're never too young to make a difference. Until then, keep cultivating your spiritual greenhouse. Stay blessed!Let's Pray…Holy God, You are glorious, majestic, and beautiful. I adore Your heart  —and Your willingness to share it with me. Let me live with a strong sense of Your presence, an atmosphere in which Your words are abundant and clear. Open my heart and my ears to hear You.Thank you for reading My Reasons To Believe. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to The Power Of God's Whisper at myr2b.substack.com/subscribe

In 'EPISODE 309 GOD PROMISES PROTECTION FROM TRIBULATION IN REVELATION--DOES GOD REALLY KEEP HIS PROMISES--WHAT DO BOOKS LIKE ISAIAH, EZEKIEL AND OTHERS SAY THE FUTURE HOLDS--DOES IT MATCH THE WORD OF JESUS', author/speaker and host Elbert Hardy starts out with a mighty promise from Jesus himself saying 'Because you have kept the word of my patience to persevere, and have not denied my name, I will also keep you from the hour of trial.' (Revelation 3:10). Is he talking about the Rapture? Find out the truth in this Episode.Go to itellwhy.com to read Elbert's books free of charge, no Ads and no requests for money or Email addresses. You can watch faith building YouTube Links to Videos and the listen to Elbert's Life of Christ Audio Book in 30 minute Episodes arranged and read by the author straight from the Bible, but rearranged in logical harmony of the Gospels, Revelation and other scriptures. All FREE of charge in the public interest.

2 Timothy 1:9 When Jesus met Paul on the road to Damascus, everything changed. He moved from darkness to light. He experienced the forgiveness of his sins and entered into a new life with God which would never end. His whole life changed direction and he became an enthusiastic champion of the Christian faith, encouraging everyone to discover this salvation for themselves. In this verse, he reminds Timothy that salvation is not the end of the process. God saves us for a purpose, so that we will live a transformed life of holiness. Holiness is the kind of word from which we all naturally shrink. Like Isaiah long ago, we are more than aware of how unholy we are, and how unholy our society is. However, holiness is God's intention for us because that is life at its best. Let me illustrate this by sharing the experience of living with hard water. My wife and I have spent much of our married life living in chalky areas and, as you probably know, chalk tends to fur up water pipes. It does it very gradually but, as time passes, the pipes get so clogged up that water can no longer pass through them. If sin is like the chalky deposits which restrict the water flow, holiness is like having totally clear pipes. So when we live holy lives, we are able to live life to the full. Seeking to be holy is the same as seeking to be fully alive. That's why salvation is so important. God has saved us so that we can live a holy life. Paul often reminded his readers that salvation is a gift, and it's vital that we remember that. We possess many things that are ours because we worked hard for them. Our educational and sporting achievements are the result of our effort, and our possessions are often the reward of years of work. But salvation is different. It's entirely a gift. However much effort we put into it, we cannot achieve salvation. All we can do is open our hands and receive the gift. That's amazing grace. QUESTION How would you describe salvation to somebody who is not a Christian? PRAYER Loving God, I thank you for the gift of salvation. I pray that you will teach me more each day how to live a holy life. Amen

If you appreciate this work, consider supporting it - https://www.patreon.com/seekgodtogether Today we will read John 12:23-25 which says, “Jesus replied to them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop. The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.'” This is Holy Week which began with the Triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. Holy Monday commemorates the cursing of the fig tree, and the cleansing of the temple. Today is Holy Tuesday and observes Jesus predicting His own death. Christians vary in how specifically they celebrate Holy Week, but there is value in understanding the ancient traditions. And even now, in setting out to say something of value concerning Christ's work leading up to the cross, I personally want to clasp my hand over my mouth and say nothing for fear of getting it wrong. Like Isaiah, I am a man of unclean lips and we are looking upon the most holy things of God. And yet we've been invited to look on in worship at our incredible Savior. And so we'll venture in further. Jesus' had become infamous. And His entry into Jerusalem, especially around Passover, had created quite a stir. Some Greeks wanted to see Him. But when asked if they could, Jesus seems to answer a question no one asks and says, “The hour has come.” Jesus predicts His own death.  To illustrate His death, He appeals to the principle of sowing and reaping. By Jesus dying, He (like a seed) lays the groundwork for exponential returns. His death is not the end of the story but rather just the beginning. His eyes are on His impending death yes, but more so on the crop it will yield later.  And He includes us in on the picture. Often the passion of Jesus is seen as something He does alone. And that's true. But here Jesus sees an obvious if/then. Since He will die and produce a crop, in the same way, you and I will produce a crop leading to eternal life. But how? By hating our lives. This passage has often disturbed readers. And understandably so. Let's not attempt to soften the blow of His words. But let's also consider. Did Jesus hate His life? Did He want to lose it? No. He asked that the cup of suffering be taken from Him if possible. Jesus never had a death wish. But He passionately wanted to redeem people, and please God, and accomplish His task, and fulfill scripture, and reconcile all creation. You could say these far outweighed His all-too-human instinct for self-preservation. And in the same way, we are invited to participate. In the suffering, yes. But far more in the glory. Jesus - You amaze me at every turn. I've seen You suffer. And I've seen some of the return. I want to see more. And I hardly even know what I'm asking, but I want to play the role You have for me in it. 

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas' website.So far:Amos preached a message of divine judgment, demanding repentance.Religion without righteousness is worthless.Economic and political prosperity are not necessarily a sign of divine approval.Opulent, self-directed living plus lack of concern for the needy is reprehensible.Yahweh's reign is over all the earth, not just over Israel.Since the law demands covenant faithfulness, without which the ultimate penalty of exile will be exacted, and since Israel has refused to listen to her prophets, she will surely go into captivity.Amos encountered official opposition.Religion in Israel was closely allied with the state. Power appears to have intoxicated the priests of the corrupt system of Jeroboam.Amaziah, priest at Bethel, commands Amos to return to Judah. "Southerner, go home!"The prophet remains undaunted.Light-hearted harvest is to become heavy-hearted judgment (8:1-3)Songs of joy in the season of plenty will become dirges and laments in time of judgment.The summer fruit (in August or September) would have been figs or pomegranates.Word-play: qayits means summer fruit (2 Samuel 16:1-2); qets means end. It's the end of Israel; the time is ripe!In these verses the message is no longer “Seek the Lord and live” (5:6). Now it has become: “It's too late; you must die” (like a physician telling patient his disease is terminal).That day (v.3) is none other than the day of 5:18-20. The Assyrians will surely come, though this is still a couple of decades off.Love of money at any cost (8:4-7)8:4-7 echoes 2:6-8. The entrepreneurs are running roughshod over the poor.The rapacity of the leaders reached criminal proportions. For an illustration of how the powerful seized whatever they desired, read 1 Kings 21 and 2 Kings 9 (the incident with Naboth's vineyard).They are impatient for the Sabbath to be over, so that they can get back to business (exploiting the poor). Israel was, as it were, eager to get out of church as quickly as possible in order to return to their favorite activity: making more money.God will bring an earthquake! (8:8)The earthquake (judgment) motif is also found in 2:13, 3:14-15, 9:1, and of course 1:1. Amos' prophecies would have grown greatly in credibility after the quake (see Zechariah 14:5).“… Amos perceives [the foundations of materialistic greed] to be so firm that only an earthquake can shatter its proud structures.” Craigie 185Then the prophet's imagery moves from the common to the metaphorical.Darkness, baldness, death8:9-10 – eclipse.Interestingly, there were two total eclipses in Amos' lifetime (9 February 784 BC, 15 June 763 BC). These would not have failed to impress the Israelites!Isaiah 30:26 and many other metaphorical passages describe blessing/punishment in terms of amplification/reduction of various natural phenomena.V.10 -- baldness refers to heads shaved in mourning (Jeremiah 16:6).The loss of an only son = goodbye to continued existence, personhood or progeny. See Jeremiah 6:26, Zechariah 12:10 (also Luke 7 – the widow of Nain).Spiritual famineThe famine has been caused by godless leaders, and failure on both their part and the people's to heed the word of God.This is not like Matthew 5:6. For these persons will stumble in their seeking, yet not find (as they refuse to repent).See 2 Chronicles 15:2-4.Word of God as bread: Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4 (Luke 4:4), Isaiah 55:1-3.V.13 -- When the young men/women (youth) are gone, there's no hope for the future. It's the end of the nation.Israel will fall, never to rise again. (Read about how Israel was dismantled and destroyed in 2 Kings 17-25).ConclusionIs there any hope for Israel? Perhaps a better question, is there any hope for us?Will we escape if we continue to ignore the word of the Lord?Am I giving my heart to something bigger than myself, to the message of Christ, to the cross of Christ, to the body of Christ and being transformed into the character of Christ?How many church members fail to read Amos, supposing it has nothing to say to them, no vital message? May it never be so.And last, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?AdvancedOn their cheating in business, the ephah = 22 liters, the shekel 11g. Merchants would line the basket to make it heavier, or use a larger counterweight than legal in the scales (Proverbs 11:1, 16:11, 20:10,23).Re: v.9: This is apocalyptic language, not literal. Like Isaiah 30:26, Joel 2:28-32, Acts 2, and the book of Revelation. How many passages with apocalyptic language can you locate in the Bible?Re: v.12 – sea to sea = S to W; N to E (Dead Sea to Great Sea [Mediterranean], North to West: all four cardinal directions. The famine -- the judgment -- is national.V.14 -- "from Dan to Beersheba" means from one end of the land to another (see Judges 20:1).

Isaiah 6 gives us a grand vision of the holiness of God and reminds us that He is “holy, holy, holy.” When the prophet Isaiah saw this grand vision, he cried out because he was a man of “unclean lips.” Because of Isaiah's sinfulness, a seraphim promptly flew to him, touched his lips with a coal, and pronounced him clean. Like Isaiah, we need cleansing to dwell with God in His supreme holiness. In this session, Dr. John MacArthur considers God's holiness and why it matters both now and forever, explaining that God is holy and that He has made us His holy people. For more info: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/right-now-counts-forever-2021-national-conference/the-holiness-of-god-and-his-people --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/expositorysermons/support

We all know what it's like to be called upon by someone. We also know what feels like to be called to something. Some callings seem like obligations, while others feel like opportunities. Callings can leave us with a burden, a conviction, a sense of must. They drive us with more than just a "have to", but with a "want to". As Christians, we have an inescapable calling over us all, compelling us to surrender our lives to God and voluntarily pursue His plans for our lives. The callings He places over us and plants within us are greater than the highs we get from this world, and supplant any lows we face in this world. They push us forward, pick us up, and fill us with peace. In this message, we talk about the inescapable calling over and on all of our lives as followers of Jesus. We study the life of Isaiah, and see how God got his attention when he was otherwise discouraged and distracted. Isaiah went to seek the Lord one day, mostly for comfort and consolation, but left His presence with a calling. We talk about how this inescapable calling leads us to an irresistible opportunity to serve God. Like Isaiah, we must respond to God with those famous words, "Here I am, send me!" We must pray that God open our eyes, and begin living with open hearts, arms, and hands. We are all sent to minister in our world - what is keeping us from stepping into our mission field in our churches, communities, and beyond?

Be sure to check out Devy to Dynasty Podcast and subscribe on YouTube Jason DiRienzo is @allpurposescout on Twitter be sure to follow him and all of his work Brandon Lejeune is @DevyDeepDive on Twitter be sure to follow him and all of his work SAVE 15% off ANY DynastyNerds.com MEMBERSHIP: PROMO CODE: FEVER   If you love Dynasty, you love Rookies. Look no further than The Rookie Fever Podcast. You've heard of a youth movement, Rookie Fever takes it one step further. We can't get enough, we are hot for Rookies. Stay up to date on Rookies. Rookie Fever is everything Rookies.   Be sure to go to https://campus2canton.com/ and use Code FEVER save 10%  If you love Dynasty, you love Rookies. Look no further than The Rookie Fever Podcast. You've heard of a youth movement, Rookie Fever takes it one step further. We can't get enough, we are hot for Rookies. Stay up to date on Rookies. Rookie Fever is everything Rookies. Be sure to check out our new Rookie Fever Store https://rookie-fever.creator-spring.com   Thanks for listening, please download, subscribe, 5 star review, please tell a friend. Follow us on Twitter:  @RookieFever @AardvarkTV Michael Fanaro @SwagzillaZeroG Shane Swager

Message from Jay Mosser on June 5, 2022

If you appreciate this work, consider supporting it - https://www.patreon.com/seekgodtogether Today we will read John 12:23-25 which says, “Jesus replied to them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop. The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.'” This is Holy Week which began with the Triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. Holy Monday commemorates the cursing of the fig tree, and the cleansing of the temple. Today is Holy Tuesday and observes Jesus predicting His own death. Christians vary in how specifically they celebrate Holy Week, but there is value in understanding the ancient traditions. And even now, in setting out to say something of value concerning Christ's work leading up to the cross, I personally want to clasp my hand over my mouth and say nothing for fear of getting it wrong. Like Isaiah, I am a man of unclean lips and we are looking upon the most holy things of God. And yet we've been invited to look on in worship at our incredible Savior. And so we'll venture in further. Jesus' had become infamous. And His entry into Jerusalem, especially around Passover, had created quite a stir. Some Greeks wanted to see Him. But when asked if they could, Jesus seems to answer a question no one asks and says, “The hour has come.” Jesus predicts His own death. To illustrate His death, He appeals to the principle of sowing and reaping. By Jesus dying, He (like a seed) lays the groundwork for exponential returns. His death is not the end of the story but rather just the beginning. His eyes are on His impending death yes, but more so on the crop it will yield later. And He includes us in on the picture. Often the passion of Jesus is seen as something He does alone. And that's true. But here Jesus sees an obvious if/then. Since He will die and produce a crop, in the same way, you and I will produce a crop leading to eternal life. But how? By hating our lives. This passage has often disturbed readers. And understandably so. Let's not attempt to soften the blow of His words. But let's also consider. Did Jesus hate His life? Did He want to lose it? No. He asked that the cup of suffering be taken from Him if possible. Jesus never had a death wish. But He passionately wanted to redeem people, and please God, and accomplish His task, and fulfill scripture, and reconcile all creation. You could say these far outweighed His all-too-human instinct for self-preservation. And in the same way, we are invited to participate. In the suffering, yes. But far more in the glory. Jesus - You amaze me at every turn. I've seen You suffer. And I've seen some of the return. I want to see more. And I hardly even know what I'm asking, but I want to play the role You have for me in it. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Fifth Sunday After Epiphany, February 6, 2022Epiphany Series: Uncovered Uncovered Messengers: The least qualified are the first sentFirst Reading: Isaiah 6:1-8. Isaiah admitted he was guilty of sin; in his grace, the Lord not only takes Isaiah's sin away, but also sends him out as a messenger of grace.Psalm 67: Oh God, show us your mercy and bless us with your grace.Second Reading: Romans 10:12-17. God's plan is to send saved sinners to proclaim salvation to other sinners.Gospel Reading: Luke 5:1-11. Jesus tales simple, self-admittedly sinful fisherman and removes their fears, calls them to follow, and makes them fishers of men.Sermon Text: Isaiah 6:1-8. Are You Qualified to Share the Gospel?Sin says ‘no' but God says, “yes.” Like Isaiah, like the disciples, you are qualified because God has made you so. You are because God has forgiven your sins. You are because God has called you to the job. You are really just the messenger; you can't make the message more persuasive or powerful; that is the work of the Gospel. It is the Holy Spirit who changes hearts.Amen Pastor Ron Koehler

My homily for the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, as preached during the live-streamed 9.30am Mass from Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hamilton. Today is also marked as Word of God Sunday. The readings proclaimed were Isaiah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11. Today's Psalm is Psalm 137: "In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord." "Like Isaiah, Paul and Peter, we are called not only to hear the Word of God addressed to us but to listen. Listening requires being open to allowing the Word of God to penetrate our very being, to find a home in our very self, and accepting that by doing so we will be forever transformed because the Word of God will change us."

Today I want to make sure you know what we mean when we use the phrase “the second coming of Jesus Christ”. Sometimes there is some confusion because Christ's coming again is in two phases. First we want to note that the reason we called it the “second coming” is because we believe that Jesus had a “first coming”. His first coming was when He was born of the virgin Mary in the city of Bethlehem two-thousand years ago. His first coming was literal! It is historical fact that a man named Jesus lived on planet earth for about thirty-three and a half years. His life was so significant that history dates our calendars based on the year He was born! It can be properly said, “2021, The Year of Our Lord”. Every time you write down the date you are recognizing His birth on earth! The Old Testament is full of prophesies concerning the coming of the Messiah. But what is confusing is that those prophesies do not specifically separate His first coming from His second coming. The prophets could not see the period of time in-between the two comings which we call the church age, which was a hidden mystery on the Old Testament. To be sure, most of the prophesies concerning His coming in the Old Testament were about the Messiah coming to earth to restore His people Israel and set up His glorious Kingdom where He would set on the throne of David and rule the earth! So in Jesus time, when the Jews were under Roman rule and oppression, they were looking for the Deliverer, the Messiah to come and set them free. They failed to realized He first had to fulfilled the OT prophesies concerning His first coming, like Micah 5:2, where He would be born in Bethlehem. Like Isaiah 53, where He would be despised and rejected and die as a lamb taken to the slaughter and be buried in a rich man's grave. Jesus in His first coming literally fulfilled all those prophesies! That is why I believe He will also fulfill all the prophesies concerning His second coming literally also. Now concerning the two phases of His second coming, we need to understand that it begins with Jesus coming in the air to rapture His church! (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:51-58) After that event the Old Testament prophesies concerning the “Time of Jacob's Troubles” will be fulfilled in the seven year tribulation. After the seven year tribulation we have the second phase of His second coming when Jesus comes back literally to the earth and sets up His glorious Kingdom. One of the clearest prophesies of this event is found in Zechariah 14:1-5, “Behold, a day is coming for the LORD, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward.” Read also Revelation 19 with this. My friend, if Jesus literally fulfilled every prophesy concerning His first coming, you can be assured that He will literally fulfilled every prophesy concerning His second coming! Jesus Himself said, “I will come again...” (John 14:3). Are you ready? God bless!

It seems we could almost reuse many of the introductory comments for the books of the Bible in this corner of the canon. Like Isaiah and Jeremiah before it, Ezekiel is a significant text through which to wade. Opening his work on this book, Charles Dyer wrote, "For the average reader of the Bible, the Book of Ezekiel is mostly a perplexing maze of incoherent visions—a kaleidoscope of whirling wheels and dry bones that defy interpretation. This impression often causes readers to shy away from studying the book and to miss one of the great literary and spiritual portions of the Old Testament" ("Ezekiel," BKC, 1224–25). Well, we won't shy away, but mainly because we have a lot of help. Dr. Rick Reed has served as the President of Heritage College and Seminary since January 2013 where he also teaches in the areas of preaching and pastoral theology. Dr. Reed—along with his wife, Linda—blogs regularly on his personal website. Listeners to this episode of Cover-to-Cover may be particularly interested in his ongoing series of devotional insights, Tuesdays with Ezekiel, as well as his recently published, free eBook.

Readings: Isaiah 53:10-11 Psalm 33:4-5,18-20,22 Hebrews 4:14-16 Mark 10:35-45 The sons of Zebedee hardly know what they're asking in today's Gospel. They are thinking in terms of how the Gentiles rule, of royal privileges and honors. But the road to Christ's kingdom is by way of His cross. To share in His glory, we must be willing to drink the cup that He drinks. The cup is an Old Testament image for God's judgment. The wicked would be made to drink this cup in punishment for their sins (see Psalm 75:9; Jeremiah 25:15, 28; Isaiah 51:17). But Jesus has come to drink this cup on behalf of all humanity. He has come to be baptized—which means plunged or immersed—into the sufferings we all deserve for our sins (compare Luke 12:50). In this He will fulfill the task of Isaiah's suffering servant, whom we read about in today's First Reading. Like Isaiah's servant, the Son of Man will give His life as an offering for sin, as once Israel's priests offered sacrifices for the sins of the people (see Leviticus 5:17–19). Jesus is the heavenly high priest of all humanity, as we hear in today's Epistle. Israel's high priests offered the blood of goats and calves in the temple sanctuary. But Jesus entered the heavenly sanctuary with His own blood (see Hebrews 9:12). And by bearing our guilt and offering His life to do the will of God, Jesus ransomed “the many”—paying the price to redeem humanity from spiritual slavery to sin and death. He has delivered us from death, as we rejoice in today's Psalm. We need to hold fast to our confession of faith, as today's Epistle exhorts us. We must look upon our trials and sufferings as our portion of the cup He promised to those who believe in Him (see Colossians 1:24). We must remember that we have been baptized into His passion and death (see Romans 6:3). In confidence, let us approach the altar today, the throne of grace, at which we drink the cup of His saving blood (see Mark 14:23–24).

Pastor JD talks about how God, through the prophet Isaiah, paints a powerful prophetic portrait of what Jesus is like, in a verse-by-verse study through Isaiah 42.Social MediaProphecy Website:  http://jdfarag.orgMobile/TV Apps: https://subsplash.com/calvarychapelkaneohe/appChurch Website:  http://www.calvarychapelkaneohe.comTwitter:  https://twitter.com/JDFaragFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/JDFaragInstagram:  https://www.instagram.com/JDFarag

Pastor JD talks about how God, through the prophet Isaiah, paints a powerful prophetic portrait of what Jesus is like, in a verse-by-verse study through Isaiah 42. The post What Jesus is Like, Isaiah 42 – September 9th, 2021 appeared first on Calvary Chapel Kaneohe.

Isaiah 59 is divided into three parts. If taken out of its context in the book, it could be taken to describe the descent into sin and degradation that characterized many periods of Israel's history, and that still characterizes many periods of the church's experience. But both its position in the book and the closing two verses suggest that the prophet has in view the community of the people of God after they have returned from exile. They are still characterized by sin, and there is no hope but one.The first section (Isa. 59:1–8) describes the people in their desperation. The reason for their plight, the prophet insists, is not some inadequacy in God: “the arm of the LORD is not too short to save” (Isa. 59:1). Their plight turns on their own sin: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isa. 59:2). The wearisome list follows: injustice, want of integrity, violence, conspiracies. At the heart of it all is human character: the evil emanates from within. “Their thoughts are evil thoughts; ruin and destruction mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks in them will know peace” (Isa. 59:7b–8). Small wonder that the apostle Paul quotes several of these lines in his own indictment of the human race (Rom. 3:15–17). What can be done with a brood so persistently sinful? Even the enormous trauma of the exile proves insufficient to transform them.In the second section (Isa. 59:9–15a), the verbs become first person plural. The language is that of communal lament. These mourners (compare Isa. 57:19) grieve for their sins. The language is brutally honest. Like Isaiah himself, like a Daniel or an Ezra, they confess not only their own sins but the sins of their people (Isa. 6:5; Dan. 9:4–19; Ezra 9:6–15). They know their situation is desperate. And that itself, of course, is a mark of grace. The people of God are farthest from reformation and revival when they are smugly content, like the church in Laodicea (Rev. 3:14–22). There is hope when by God's grace they writhe in an agony of honest confession, horribly aware of the insidious and pervasive power of sin in their lives and their culture.The third section (Isa. 59:15b–21) provides the relief. Only God is adequate to this situation—and he is more than adequate. God saw there was no one else who could save the people, “so his own arm worked salvation for him” (Isa. 59:16). And once again, this vision of hope and promise ends in apocalyptic proportions and in the categories of the new covenant (Isa. 59:20–21). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Pray what I say a prayed. And then be prepared for God to open doors for you to do things as lead of him.

In this episode, Drew begins a five-part series on the prophets and how they were able to weather the storms of life. He begins by discussing the "Prince" of the prophets: Isaiah. Visit our website: www.scatteredabroad.org and remember to subscribe to our email list "Like" and "share" our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sapodcastnetwork Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_scattered_abroad_network/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: The Scattered Abroad Network Contact us through email at: thescatteredabroadnetwork@gmail.com. If you would like to consider supporting us in any way, please reach out to us through this email.

In this episode, Drew begins a five-part series on the prophets and how they were able to weather the storms of life. He begins by discussing the "Prince" of the prophets: Isaiah. Visit our website: www.scatteredabroad.org and remember to subscribe to our email list "Like" and "share" our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sapodcastnetwork Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_scattered_abroad_network/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: The Scattered Abroad Network Contact us through email at: thescatteredabroadnetwork@gmail.com. If you would like to consider supporting us in any way, please reach out to us through this email.

EPISODE 15 As we take a look at Isaiah 6:1-7, we see God's glory on display and how we too will have glory in the future. Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Birth of Evangelism(Isa. 40:9–11)What kind of event is described in Isaiah 40:9–11?_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Later in Isaiah there appears a male herald of good news forJerusalem (Isa. 41:27, Isa. 52:7). But in Isaiah 40:9 the herald to pro-claim “ ‘Here is your God!’ ” (NRSV) from a mountain is female, a factbrought out in the Hebrew.In Psalm 68, David praises God because He “gives the desolate ahome to live in; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity” (Ps. 68:6,NRSV). Though here these words apply to the Exodus from Egyptianbondage, Isaiah uses the same ideas with reference to the proclama-tion of a second “Exodus”: the return from Babylonian captivity.Meanwhile, the New Testament applies Isaiah 40:3–5 to John theBaptist, who prepared the way for Christ, the eternal Word who becamethe Lord’s presence in flesh among His people (John 1:14).Even earlier than John, others spoke about the good news of Hiscoming. Among the first of these were the elderly Simeon and Anna,who met Baby Jesus when He was dedicated at the temple (Luke2:25–38). Like Isaiah’s heralds, they were male and female. Simeonwas looking forward to the consolation/comfort of Israel in the form ofthe Messiah (Luke 2:25, 26).In light of Isaiah’s prophecy, it does not appear coincidental thatAnna, a prophetess, was the very first to announce publicly at thetemple mountain to the people of Jerusalem that the Lord had come:“At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak aboutthe child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem”(Luke 2:38, NRSV). This was the birth of Christian evangelism as weknow it: proclamation of the gospel, the good news, that Jesus Christhas come to bring salvation. Later, Christ entrusted to another woman,Mary Magdalene, the first tidings of His triumphant resurrection (John20:17, 18), which ensured that His gospel mission to planet Earth wasaccomplished. Flesh is like grass, but the divine Word who becameflesh is eternal (see Isa. 40:6–8)!Look at Isaiah 40:11. What kind of imagery is presented here?Write out for yourself a paragraph on how you, personally, haveexperienced shepherding by the Lord. Why is it good to recountin your mind the way the Lord has led you?

Jesus was brought into the world to experience the full gamut of human suffering. This was God's plan from the beginning. All four gospel writers connect Jesus with the prophecies in Isaiah 53. Like Isaiah 53, Psalm 22 predicts Christ would experience human pain. God predicted Christ would suffer pain, humiliation, and heartbreak. He knows what it is like to be human. Jesus is God's answer to suffering.

It may be difficult for some Christians, immersed in the heritage of individualism and influenced by postmodern relativism, to find much sympathy for Ezra and his prayer (Ezra 9). A hundred or so of the returned Israelites, out of a population that by this time would have been at least fifty or sixty thousand, have married pagan women from the surrounding tribes. Ezra treats this as an unmitigated disaster and weeps before the Lord as if really grievous harm has been done. Has religion descended to the level where it tells its adherents whom they may marry? Moreover, the aftermath of this prayer (on which we shall reflect tomorrow) is pretty heartless, isn’t it?In reality, Ezra’s prayer discloses a man who has thought long and hard about Israel’s history.First, he understands what brought about the exile, the formal destruction of the nation, the scattering of the people. It was nothing other than the sins of the people—and terribly often these sins had been fostered by links, not least marital links, between the people of the covenant and the surrounding tribes. “Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today” (Ezra 9:7).Second, he understands that if this community has been permitted to return to Judah, it is because “for a brief moment, the LORD our God has been gracious in leaving us a remnant and giving us a firm place in his sanctuary, and so our God gives light to our eyes and a little relief in our bondage” (Ezra 9:8).Third, he understands that in the light of the first two points, and in the light of Scripture’s explicit prohibition against intermarriage, what has taken place is not only singular ingratitude but concrete defiance of the God who has come to Israel’s relief not only in the Exodus but also in the exile.Fourth, he understands the complex, corrosive, corporate nature of sin. Like Isaiah before him (Isa. 6:5), Ezra aligns himself with the people in their sin (Ezra 9:6). He grasps the stubborn fact that these are not individual failures and nothing more; these are means by which raw paganism, and finally the relativizing of Almighty God, are smuggled into the entire community through the back door. How could such marriages, even among some priests, have been arranged unless many, many others had given their approval, or at least winked at the exercise? Above all, Ezra understands that the sins of the people of God are far worse than the punishment they have received (Ezra 9:13–15).How should these lines of thought shape our thinking about the sins of the people of God today? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

“Holy, Holy, Holy”(Isa. 6:1–4)Notice what was happening here in the first four verses of Isaiah 6.The king dies during great political turmoil (the Assyrians are on thewarpath). For Isaiah, it could have been a fearful time when he was notsure who was in control.And then—what happens? While taken in vision, Isaiah gazed uponthe blazing glory of God upon His throne, heard the antiphony of shin-ing seraphim (“burning ones”) calling out the words “holy, holy, holy,”felt the resultant seismic shaking of the floor beneath him, and peeredthrough swirling smoke as it filled the temple. It must have been a stun-ning experience for the prophet. For sure, Isaiah now knew who was incontrol, despite outward events.Where is the Lord in this vision? (See Isa. 6:1.) Why would the Lordmake an appearance to Isaiah here, as opposed to anywhere else?(See Exod. 25:8, Exod. 40:34–38.)__________________________________________________________________________________________________________Ezekiel, Daniel, and John were in exile when they received their visionsin Ezekiel 1; Daniel 7:9, 10; and Revelation 4, 5. Like Isaiah, they neededspecial comfort and encouragement that God was still in charge, eventhough their world was falling apart. (Daniel and Ezekiel were captives ina pagan nation that had destroyed their own, and John had been exiled to alonely island by a hostile political power.) No doubt, these visions helpedgive them what they needed to stay faithful, even during a crisis situation.“As Isaiah beheld this revelation of the glory and majesty of his Lord,he was overwhelmed with a sense of the purity and holiness of God. Howsharp the contrast between the matchless perfection of his Creator, and thesinful course of those who, with himself, had long been numbered amongthe chosen people of Israel and Judah!”—Ellen G. White, Prophets andKings, p. 307.The transcendent holiness of God, emphasized in Isaiah’s vision, is abasic aspect of his message. God is a holy God, and He demands holinessfrom His people, a holiness He will give to them if only they will repent,turn from their evil ways, and submit to Him in faith and obedience.All of us have been in discouraging situations, where from out-ward appearances all seemed lost. And even if you didn’t get avision of the “glory of the Lord,” as did Isaiah here, recount theways in which the Lord was able to sustain you and your faithduring these crises. What have you learned from these experi-ences that you could share with others?

Someone recently mentioned to me that it seems like our country has changed over the past years from one that wanted to be good to one that wants to feel good. I tend to agree. And, quite honestly, as we experience this horrific pandemic with thousands of people dying, the deep divisiveness among people, the acute pain and profound woundedness in our culture, I really do understand the desire to feel good, to long for a feel good sense of hope within ourselves. The truth is, we are a brokenhearted people, and the desire to feel hope is normal. I deeply feel that desire within myself.  In fact, I will confess that is why I will sit and watch a Hallmark movie because there is always a happy ending that evokes a feel-good sense of hope. Yet, that feel good sense of hope is very short lived. Frankly, our culture is very good at offering all kinds of things and stuff that provide a short-lived, feel good hope. But such hope does not last because it is a false hope.  Friends, far too often we try to stem our hurt by running away from our pain to selfishly focus on what makes us feel good. However, we cannot create the hope and peace we so desire by focusing on self. Real hope only comes by facing our pain and opening our hearts to God.  And, real hope is what comes with a broken, vulnerable, open heart that is willing to be mended.  In today’s Old Testament reading, Isaiah is speaking to people who have returned to Jerusalem following political exile in Babylon.  They, too, desired hope and they did not sense God’s presence to them. We hear the prophet Isaiah waiting and calling out for God to break into the peoples’ lives.  Isaiah calls the people to repent, to turn back to God, and he laments and prays to God saying, “No eye has seen any God besides you who works for those who wait.” Isaiah pleads that God would tear open the heavens and break into the lives of the people to bring hope, peace, and a restored life.  As we begin Advent, we begin a time of waiting. Like Isaiah, we wait and we, too, pray that God breaks into our lives, bringing the promise of hope, peace, and restored life. However, Advent waiting is not a form of passive waiting and watching.  It is a time to allow ourselves to turn back to God, to become vulnerable, to open up our lives, our hearts, and our souls with active anticipation as we trust God’s promises to us. It is a time to live with our hearts broken open so that compassion, caring and God’s reckless love can find a way to break into our hearts and the heart of the world.   As we look at today’s gospel reading from Mark, we are given words that ultimately address the brokenness of our hearts.  Initially, the 13th chapter of the gospel of Mark is frightening and chilling to read.  And, while it has sometimes been interpreted as a prediction of the future to frighten future generations, we must look at the historical context and think about what was happening when it was written.  These words are NOT a prediction about the future. It is true, the people were waiting for Jesus to return. However, this writing from Mark follows a long tradition of apocalyptic literature and it is all about providing comforting words to people as they faced their present life and present experience.  Written around 70 CE, Mark is writing to a community of people who were facing horrific situations. Christians were being dragged before local authorities, sometimes by members of their own family. War was on the horizon and, in fact, already happening as they experienced the Jewish Revolt of 66-70 CE, a war that brought the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.  For these early Christians, it felt as if the world had ended, and in some very real ways, it had ended. You see, when people are experiencing fear and going through great pain, you’ve got to acknowledge that pain, that grief, and not bury it or cover it up by simply saying, “Don’t panic, everything will be ok.” As the people wait for Jesus to return, Mark tells them to acknowledge the pain and challenge, but trust God’s promise, stay awake, be alert and be ready for God to break in. When discussing this passage in scripture, theologian, Sarah Dylan, writes that Jesus is addressing the disciples and each one of us by saying: Yes, there is serious pain in the world, in your community. There are wars and rumors of wars. There's strife within families, and even within the family of faith, those called to be one in Christ……So, when you see these horrible things happening, don't think it's a sign that the kingdom of God Jesus promised is late in coming or has been derailed.  We don't know the day or hour, but we know that God is faithful, and Jesus' resurrection from the dead is a sign to us as it was to Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter and our own wounded communities: Jesus is coming, and God's kingdom, inaugurated with Jesus' ministry, is being revealed and finding fulfillment. Friends, this word from Mark’s gospel is Good News for us. Yes, there is serious pain in our world. Yet, as we again wait for the coming of the Christ child, we know something that many don't seem to realize: the person we call Lord is none other than Jesus of Nazareth, who has already come. This Jesus taught and healed, he welcomed the outcast and broke bread with anyone willing to eat with him.  It is Jesus, whose way of life and manner of death underscored what his words taught. His life and words were all about love, love for God and all others. He truly lived this every day of his life and we are also called to live it every day of our lives.  When we know Jesus, the Jesus of the gospels, we know that God is love, and love drives out all fear, whatever our present circumstances. The writer of Mark’s gospel is not pointing us to a future apocalyptic event, but rather a very present one in which Christ’s death and resurrection change absolutely everything we know.  For once and for all, in Christ’s death and resurrection, Jesus suffers all that the world and empire and death have to throw at him…and is raised to new life and nothing will ever be the same again!  And, that includes our present lives and even our present painful situations.  So, get ready!  Jesus is here and Jesus is coming!  Do not be afraid!  Stay awake and be alert!  God comes to us now and is still entering into our lives in ways that align with God’s coming in the vulnerability of a baby in a manger and a man dying on a cross.  God comes to us now as we embrace all those we and the world consider “other.”  God comes to us now as we collect food for the hungry. God comes to us now as we work to offer a hope and future to the guys who are living in our Parish House.  God comes to us now as we collect food and goodies for the hospital staff who are caring for Covid-19 patients. God comes to us now as Caring Committee participants check on other members of the congregation. God comes to us now as doctors and nurses lovingly care for our loved ones who are sick. God comes to us now as we walk with relatives of those who are sick or dying. God comes to us now as we see friends and relatives become healed after having this virus. God comes to us now, even as we are only able to gather online for worship. God comes to us now, as we are, in our vulnerability, in our messed-up family lives, in our deep brokenness, in the pain of this pandemic, in our imperfections, telling us we are deeply loved as we are. God is already present, but God’s reign is not yet fully here. And, this is what gives us true hope, a hope that is not just a feel good hope, but real hope, a hope that endures even the pain of life. In the person of Jesus, God is pulling back the curtain of false hopes and the many things in which we unwisely place our trust, to reveal a very present reality, the reality of God’s commitment to enter into and redeem our lives and world just as they are.  And, this is what gives us real hope, a hope that endures and a hope that lasts, even in the depth of this pandemic. Yes, life is messy, there is much pain, and there is so much that is not right in this world.  But, newness and hope are on the way, a hope we can trust. So, as we go through Advent, stay awake, and be aware of the many ways Christ appears in the present!  God is always breaking in through time and space to be present in our lives and the lives of others. Christ is arriving now, in this present moment, meeting us in our pain just as we are, right before our very eyes. And, God breaks in bringing true hope, a hope that lasts and endures.

A Bible podcast for youth w/Noah Olson

Jeremiah preached during a time when Jerusalem was in despair and when all seemed to be going wrong. He witnessed all three of Babylon's invasions and the fall of Jerusalem. Jeremiah is called the "weeping prophet" because his prophecies are filled with tears and lamentation. He foretold Israel's return from captivity after 70 years. Like Isaiah, Jeremiah wrote several prophecies of the coming Messiah .This message of hope would be not only for Judah, but also for the whole world.

Introduction Waiting on the Power of God Well, after Jesus was crucified, and after He rose from the dead, He appeared to His disciples in the upper room. You think about that scene, the disciples were there in the upper room with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, and Jesus came and stood amongst them and He showed them the physical evidence of His crucifixion, his suffering for them, and He said, "Peace be with you", “and He breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit.” And then He said these incredible words, "If you forgive anyone their sins, they're forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they're not forgiven." And then a week later, they were still in the upper room, and the doors were still locked for fear of the Jews. They knew that Christ had conquered death. They knew it! But they still were fearful of the work that the Lord was laying on them, the work of the Great Commission. They were fearful of what would be asked of them to change the world as would be later said of some of the disciples, “these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.” They were afraid of what it would take to turn the world upside down, or really, right-side up. And so, they were there in the upper room, and they were there also because Jesus commanded them not to leave, that they should wait in that upper room until they were clothed with power from on high. And He gave them over that period of time many convincing proofs that He was alive, and then He ascended into Heaven with the statement that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came on them, and they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth. And they went back and they waited, they waited there in the upper room and then on the day of Pentecost, the power of the Holy Spirit fell on them. The third person of the Trinity was manifested first in the sound of a violent, rushing wind, and then “tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each one of the, and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them,” and a crowd was gathered hearing the sound of that mighty rushing wind and they poured out into the streets, fearless of any consequences that might come on them, in the very same city where their Lord had been crucified only just a short time before that, they had no fear of death, and preached boldly the Gospel. And 3000 were converted that same day. Two Patterns of Resurrection and Power Now, in all of this, two patterns, two lasting patterns were established, that it's worth it to us to study and to understand. The first is the pattern of Jesus' death and resurrection. The pattern of dying and rising again, that was not meant just for Jesus, but was meant also for his witnesses as he said, "Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself a single seed, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." And so, the Church individually and collectively needed to follow that pattern; to be willing to die and have God raise them up, to be willing even to physically die that others might be saved. But of course, all of us tend to preserve our lives. We don't want to suffer and die. And so the second pattern is needful. There you have the Church, understanding all of the facts, understanding the Gospel, aware of the doctrine, aware of the truth, but still it seems powerless, captivated by fear. And then the Holy Spirit pours out and the Church is unleashed in a powerful way. Now, Martyn Lloyd-Jones in 1959, preaching about a revival that happened 100 years before that, in 1859, said that this is the lasting pattern. We see this again and again in Church history, this is what he said. He was speaking at an assembly there on the 100th anniversary of an incredible revival that swept through Great Britain, 1859. And Lloyd-Jones central point there is the Church doesn't really change and neither does the world. The basic issues are always the same, man in his sin, the Gospel is the power of God for salvation. The Church in a weak and almost helpless state unable to meet the challenges of its day, knowing the truth, doing some good ministries, but unable to make significant progress. Suddenly the power of God is poured out from on high, the Church is revived. It moves out in power and many in the world are saved, and they are transformed genuinely. He would say revivals tend to follow their course, they at some point get dissipated in their strength and effectiveness, and the Church returns to its weakened state, needing again the power of God to be poured out from on high. Now Lloyd-Jones is very clear in the distinction between the filling of the Spirit that we have in Ephesians 5:18, where we're commanded to be filled with the Spirit, and what he called the “Baptism of the Spirit.” Now, in this sermon, I'm going to argue that that nomenclature is misplaced, and be bold enough to challenge Martyn Lloyd-Jones on that, but that there's a real experience that our brothers and sisters have had over 2000 years of Church history that we should not discard, no matter what we call it, that there are real experiences of the Holy Spirit being poured out on the Church and the Church being, and this is the normal word, “revived”. Revival comes, and there's tremendous progress made in personal holiness and an evangelistic fruitfulness as a result of that. Lloyd-Jones says, “This is precisely what happens in revival, it is God pouring forth His Spirit, filling His people.” Again, it is not that which is talked of in Ephesians 5:18 which is the command to us, go on being filled with the Spirit. That is something you and I do, but this revival is something that is done to us. It is the Spirit falling upon us, being poured out upon us. These are the terms, “I will pour forth my Spirit,” God alone can do that, but it is you and I were responsible for going on being filled with the Spirit. We must not grieve the Spirit, we must not quench the Spirit, we must give obedience to the Spirit, and as long as we do that we shall go on being filled with the Spirit, but this is different. This is the Spirit being poured out upon us until we are filled to overflowing. The Spirit's Work in Filling Us Now, the Holy Spirit is responsible. The third person in the Trinity, is responsible for taking the finished work of Christ on the cross and applying it worldwide. That is the work given in the Trinity, the work given to the Holy Spirit of God, and He does it very well. For 20 centuries He has made certain that the unconverted elect in every generation are brought from death to life. That Jesus's name is the most famous on planet Earth in every generation, that's the Spirit's work, and He sees to it, but He does that in two different rhythms or patterns, I could say. And what I'm going to say in this sermon today is there are the ordinary ministries of the Spirit and the extraordinary ministries of the Spirit, and both of them are essential for the journey that the Lord has the Church on until His work is finished in this world. Some folks, including Martyn Lloyd-Jones, call the extraordinary ministries of the Spirit the Baptism of the Spirit. I think that's wrong. It's a wrong name for a true experience. Today, I want to talk about the Baptism of the Spirit happening to all Christians, every Christian, at the beginning of their Christian life. And then the filling of the Spirit, in ordinary and extraordinary measures. So I'm going to just lay my cards on the table. I believe that Baptism in the Spirit happens to every single genuinely-born again person, and it happens once and never needs to be repeated again. It happens at conversion. Pentecostals and other charismatics who say that you should seek the Baptism of the Spirit are not following a biblical pattern, for there are no such commands in the New Testament. There are no commands to seek the Baptism of the Spirit. The filling of the Spirit happens again and again in the Christian life. And it empowers Christians to make progress in the two journeys that we talk about so much in this church; the internal journey of sanctification, of holiness, and the external journey of gospel advancement, evangelism. Ephesians 5:18 is a command to us that we should seek the filling of the Spirit. We're going to talk about that. The filling of the Spirit, as I've said, comes in both ordinary and extraordinary measures. The ordinary filling of the Spirit has been, and continues to be sufficient to make overwhelming progress that the Lord wants us to make and it should not in any way be denigrated. But the extraordinary filling of the Spirit, sometimes called revival, is also awesome and wonderful and powerful and should be sought through prayer. And it should not be in any way minimized either. Neither should it be over-emphasized as though until we get a revival, nothing will happen. That is not helpful. So therefore, a healthy Christian should see both the ordinary ministries of the Spirit and the extraordinary ministries of the Spirit as beneficial for the spread of the Gospel and growth and holiness. So there's the sermon. I would advise you to continue to listen after that, but you got it in a nutshell now. And so I want to talk about these things, and we need to begin with the terminology; Baptism. Baptism of the Spirit. What is the Baptism of the Spirit? John the Baptist Now baptism itself began in the Bible with John the Baptist. You do not see baptism at all in the Old Testaments, it's not an Old Testament thing. The word from the Greek, “baptizo”, means to immerse or plunge something, to plunge an object, or a person, in a vat or a container or a large amount of liquid. Now, that's how the word is used. So, we Baptists, who believe in complete immersion, all we're saying is we believe in complete baptism. Alright? So a baptism sprinkling, those things don't make any sense. The word means to immerse or plunge. So John the Baptist came along, the habit had been n between the Old Testament and New Testament period, intertestamental period, as Jews have been scattered because of the judgments of God from Palestine to that region of the world, more and more Gentiles became what was known as God-fearers, and wanted to become Jews, they wanted to become monotheists in the Jewish patterns. And so they were accepted in after certain rituals, the men had to be circumcised and both of them had to be bathed, they had to have a bath. They were immersed in water to cleanse them of their pagan ways. This isn't commanded anywhere in the Bible, it was just something that the Jewish leaders did. Well, along comes John the Baptist, and he is preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, "Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." And he was baptizing Jews, this was shocking, but he was effectively saying by immersing Jews in the Jordan River, he was saying, “You're no better than pagans. You're no better than the Gentiles, you are following the same idolatrous patterns, and you need the same cleansing.” He was predicted in Isaiah 40, “the voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.” That was John the Baptist. And Jewish people were just powerfully attracted to his bold preaching, and they came and they received this immersion, this plunging in water by John. They were confessing their sins. Now, the central work of John was to prepare the way for Jesus, to get the people ready for Jesus. And he did this by heightening expectations of this one who was going to come. Jesus said of John the Baptist, he was the greatest man who had ever lived up to that point. “Among those born of women, none had risen greater than John the Baptist.” Jesus' Baptisms: Holy Spirit or Eternal Fire But listen to what John said about Jesus, "I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor, gathering up the weed into His barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire." So there John said Jesus would baptize the people in a greater baptism than he did. He will baptize them in the Holy Spirit and in fire. Now, the unquenchable fire that John the Baptist speaks of is an interpretive key to his thinking. “Unquenchable fire,” to me, must refer to Hell, it must refer to the Lake of Fire. The word baptize means to plunge. And He said that Jesus has the power, the authority to plunge people into unquenchable fire, and this He will do at the end of the world when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, He will gather all the nations before Him, and He will separate them, one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He'll put the sheep on his right, and the goats on His left. And the sheep represent those that are redeemed and lived a Godly life by the power of the Holy Spirit, but the goats represent the unregenerate. “And He will say to those on his left, ‘depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’” Jesus has the power to do that, the authority to do it, and it will happen. However, Jesus will never both plunge someone in the Holy Spirit and in unquenchable fire. It's an either/or proposition. We must understand, therefore, that John is speaking to a mixed group. Some of them he called the brood of vipers, the Pharisees and Sadducees and the religious leaders, but others were just humbly confessing their sins, so he's speaking to a mixed group. And I think we, therefore, need to understand Jesus will either baptize you in the Holy Spirit, or He will baptize you in eternal fire, that's the greatness of Jesus. John only baptizes in water, it's a symbol. Jesus does the real baptism. Baptism of the Spirit Happens at Conversion So what is this Baptism of the Spirit? Well, the Baptism of the Spirit happens by Jesus to genuinely converted persons. It happens at conversion. Look at the text that Jim just read for us, 1 Corinthians 12:13, "We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greek, slave or free, and we were all given the one Spirit to drink." So when does the Baptism of the Spirit happen? First of all, notice it happens to all of us. We were all baptized. There's not a group of people that are Christians, but not yet baptized in the Spirit, and so all Christians are baptized in the Spirit. When does it happen? According to the verse, it happens when we were made members of the Body of Christ. It is by the Baptism of the Spirit that you become a member of the Body of Christ, when you are converted. That's when it happens. So the immersion that we have, the spiritual immersion we have at conversion is positional language. We have been plunged into a spiritual ocean of God, of grace, and in that we live and move and have our being once we are converted. And it never needs to happen again, we are immersed in the Holy Spirit. We have been rescued from Satan's filthy, cesspool of sin, and we have been plunged into grace and into the cleansing. And we stand in that grace forever, that's true of every single Christian all over the world, Jews and Greeks, slave and free. So ethnicity doesn't matter, socio-economic doesn't matter, what matters is are you born again? Have you trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior? If so, you have been baptized by the Spirit into this one body, the Body of Christ. Now, but beyond this, once for all, plunging into the ocean of Christ's cleansing Spirit or grace by the Spirit. We're also given the text that says one spirit to drink. We have the freedom to drink of the Holy Spirit. This drinking, I believe, refers to an ongoing experience of refreshment that we have through the Holy Spirit in Christ. It reminds me of two magnificent texts in John's Gospel. The first is the statement He made to the Samaritan woman at the well, remember? How she was very proud of the well that Jacob, their father, their ancestor, had given to them. And Jesus said, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who's speaking to you, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” She's intrigued, she says, “Well who are you? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us this well and he drank from it himself, as did also his flocks and herds.” Jesus said this, “Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I give him shall never thirst, indeed the water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” In other words, you can drink from that whenever you want. It's an internal heart experience of drinking the living water. John chapter 4. A few chapters later, John 7, this happened at the assembly of the Jews at the Feast of the Booths, and they were all assembled there, and in the last and greatest day of the feast Jesus stood and cried out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. Up to that time, the Spirit had not been given since Jesus had not yet been glorified. So you have that same kind of image, the image of living water. Three Observations from John Piper Now, John Piper commenting on this, John 7 text, said some very important things. First, he says, the gift of water is free. The condition you must meet is need. “Is anyone thirsty?” Well, that's the condition, and the action you must take is to drink, receive the gift. There's no thought here of earning or meriting. Anyone who knows his own thirst is invited. Are you thirsty? Come. Secondly, the human soul has thirst. We know He's not talking about physical thirst, that's clear, but what He is saying is that the soul has something like physical thirst. When you go without water, your body gets thirsty, and the soul when it goes without God, gets thirsty. Your body was made to live on water, your soul was made to live on God. That's the most important thing you need to know about yourself, you were made to live on God, you have a soul, you have a spirit, there is a you that's more than body, and that is your soul. If it does not drink from the greatness, and wisdom, and power, and goodness, and justice, and holiness, and love of God, you will die of thirst. Third, implied in the word thirst is that what Jesus offers is satisfying, it is refreshing. The aim of all theology, of all study, all Biblical learning, all preaching is to spread the satisfying banquet for you to eat with joy and to protect the kitchen from poison. The aim of cooking is eating, the aim of digging wells and clearing out Springs is drinking. Everything Jesus came to do and to teach is aimed at providing the soul with food and drink that will satisfy forever. Now to come to Jesus and drink is the same as believing in Him. John 7 says, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” So, John Piper says, “So be done forever with the sad notion that saving faith, that believing in Jesus is a mere decision to ascent to facts. No, it is a coming to Him as to a feast, it is a recognizing of a treasure, it is a banquet, a spring in the desert when we are dying of thirst.” The Effects of the Living Water Now what will happen to you when you come? John 7:38 says, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Literally it says out of his belly. The point is our inner being, call it your belly, your heart, soul, spirit. What does that mean? What it means is when you come to Jesus to drink, you don't just get a single drink, you get a spring, you get a fountain, you get a well, you get Jesus. Rivers of living water will flow within you because He is a river maker. And that's inside you. That's the point, you'll never have to search again for some source of satisfaction for your soul. Every river that needs to flow for the joy of your soul is within you, if you're a Christian. And that's what I think it means in verse 13 of our text today. 1 Corinthians 12:13, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greek, slave or free and listen, we were all given of the one Spirit to drink.” So what that means is, your soul is going to experience a perpetual cycle of satisfaction and thirst, satisfaction and thirst. You're going to get thirsty, come to Jesus and drink again. And if you're a Christian, the spring of water is already inside you, it wells up to eternal life, and you can drink of him any time you want. Now the devil is there standing offering you poison. Sweet, addictive poison, but it will kill your soul. Well, it will seem satisfying, but it really isn't. It's addictive and it doesn't satisfy. You were meant to get thirsty, to feel your need for God again and again and to drink from Jesus. Now water baptism, which we do regularly back here, is just an outward, visible symbol of the real baptism Jesus, we hope, we trust, has already done in that person. As a Baptist church, we will not do the water baptism if we don't have signs, evidence, that Jesus has already baptized that person in the Spirit, does that make sense? So we're just looking for evidence. They'll talk a certain way, they're living a certain way, it's the beginning of the Christian life, they don't have to be mature at all. Like the Ethiopian eunuch, you can be baptized right there and then. You have to talk like a disciple, you have to talk about your past sins like a disciple, you have to speak like a converted person and then we'll baptize you, because that's the evidence that we have that Jesus has already baptized you into the Body of Christ. Alright, well, what about the other outpourings of the Spirit? The Other Outpourings of the Spirit Pentecostal and Charismatic churches have used the phrase Baptism of the Spirit to speak of a second experience of grace, or third, or fourth, or whatever, experience of grace. It happens separate from conversion. They press in on individuals and say you need to seek the Baptism of the Spirit. This needs to happen to you. The problem I have is that there are no such scriptures that give us the right to press that on other people. There are no commands like that. They also tend, some of them anyway, to link it to pursuit of holiness as though there tends to be like a silver bullet for all the sin patterns in your life, and you receive this second work of grace that then kills that sin pattern, and that's just not the way the Bible teaches sanctification. Now Martyn Lloyd-Jones uses the expression, “Baptism of the Spirit” to speak of an individual or group transformation that comes as, to some degree, Heaven is open and that person has an overwhelming, powerful experience of God that was unlike anything they've ever had before, and maybe they'll never have one like that again, and it changed their entire approach to life. And it can happen to groups, and the word generally given to that is revival. I think the only error that Lloyd-Jones had is calling it baptism. I just think that's not helpful, but other than that it's a real thing, and it's beneficial. And he would say, it's a repeat of the day of Pentecost and you have evidence for that scripturally. If you look at Acts chapter 4, don't turn there. But just, you know, how Peter and John were arrested, and then they were hauled in and they were threatened, and they were let go, and they go back to the church, and the church gathers to pray. I've talked about it I think even last week. And there in Acts 4:31, it says after they were praying, the place with their meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God boldly. That seems like a miniature second day Pentecost. Without in any way minimizing the uniqueness of the day of Pentecost that will never be repeated again. Yet there is some degree of re-enactment. So that the two cycles, the two cycles that I talked about that are essential of dying and rising again so that fruit can come, and of the Spirit poured out on people who don't do enough or much out of fear or selfishness, until the Spirit comes, both of those get re-enacted again and again. What Does it Mean to be Filled with the Spirit? The Command in Ephesians 5:18 Alright, so let's zero in on the ordinary ministry. Ordinary ministries of the Spirit. What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? Turn in your Bibles, if you would, to Ephesians 5:18. We're going to look at that, that's a key passage on this, Ephesians 5:18. As I said, there is no command anywhere that you should seek the Baptism of the Spirit, but there is most certainly a command that you should be filled with the Holy Spirit. And it's in a section of Ephesians where Paul is telling them that they should “live a life worthy of the calling they have received,” Ephesians 4:1. Live a Christian life. What does that mean? Many things. But there in Ephesians 5:18, he says this, “Do not be drunk with wine or get drunk on wine instead. Which leads to debauchery, instead be filled with the Spirit.” So once we have been baptized by the Spirit at conversion, we now begin the daily Christian life. It's a life of, as I've said, of two journeys; the internal journey of holiness, of becoming more and more like Christ, the external journey of evangelism, missions of leading lost people to saving faith in Christ. That's what we were left here on Earth do. And it's only by the power of the Spirit that we make progress in those two journeys. Now, Ephesians 5:18 is a fascinating thing grammatically. It is what's known as a passive imperative. Passive imperative. So imperative is a command; You must, something you must do. Passive is you must have something done to you, so you must have something done to you. So what is it we have to have done? You must be being filled with the Holy Spirit, that's something that has to happen to you in an ongoing sense. So since the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost as wind and fire. Think of those images. Wind, think of the old tall ships, the clipper ships, remember? With all that sail. And then the wind would come and the sails would luff and billow, and then they would be fat with wind and the ship would start to move. So you're filled with the third person of the Trinity. He is filling your mind, he's filling your soul filling your heart, your emotions, you're filled with the Spirit, that feeling like a wind, and the ship just moves. Your ship, the Church's ship just moves in a certain direction where the Spirit causes him to go. Or what about the fire, the image of fire? Comes in tongues of fire. Here, I'm not talking about something that's fake dear friends. I'm not talking about a painted fire, or one of those fake cellophane orange plastic things that blows with a fan. You know? It's like we're deceived by this, and these little tongues that dance and all that. That's not a fire. A two-year-old could say that. So we're not talking about a fire painted on a wall or fake, I'm talking about a supernatural fire that comes and fills your soul with heat and light because God is there. You think about the burning bush, the supernaturally burning bush that caused Moses to turn aside and see this wonder. Why the bush is burning, but it is not burned up. Or think about Elijah and Mount Carmel, and fire came from Heaven and burned up that sacrifice. I'm talking about a supernatural fire that fills you. The Continual Need for the Spirit's Filling Now, we need to be filled with the Spirit. It's a continual need. Baptism happens only once, but we can lose the filling of the Spirit. How does that happen? Well, there are two different kind of ways, I think, that that happens. One of them I don't necessarily even know that we have lost. The filling of the Spirit, just has to do with the wisdom of the Spirit and the way he deals with us. Imagine that you have a really phenomenally Spirit-filled Tuesday. You're just so filled with a sense of God's love for you. I'm going to talk about what the Spirit does in a spirit filled person in a moment. But you just had a spiritual day, but then you went to bed and you woke up. And maybe you're a morning person, and especially, maybe you're not, and you don't feel right now, what you felt yesterday. Does that ever happen to you? I'm not in any way saying you've sinned at all, you just don't feel what you felt last night. Doesn't mean you've done anything. What it means is the Spirit wisely steps back and says, "Follow me, come after me, pursue me." So you have that morning quiet time, you get in the word. You seek Him, you drink and drink until you are filled with the Spirit, so that's just normal. You haven't done anything wrong, it's just He is urging you to pursue Him. So many Psalms are like that. Why do you stand far off, why are you not here? Why do I not feel you close right now? He's just saying, come, come and seek me. Christ is saying through the Spirit. And so, imagine back in the days of the clipper ships and all that, the ship is off a few points from optimal direction for the wind. So the ship's captain then will turn you a few points towards the wind, and then suddenly those sails are filled again. So again, there's no sin involved in that case. Alright? But then there's the other case in which, friends, you grieve the Holy Spirit because you sinned, you violated your conscience, you violated the Word of God, and you know what you did. Or if you don't, you just know the Spirit is gone but you need to find out why. And so you go to Him and you say, "Search me, oh God, and know my heart, and show me, and show me what I've done wrong." Psalm 139:23-24. And lead me in the way of everlasting. And then He convicts you of sin, and then you are aware, and you confess your sin. And you ask to be filled again with the Holy Spirit and because it's a command from God, you can turn it around and make it a promise. “You commanded me to be be being filled with the Spirit. Now, fill me, Oh Lord, fill me.” We need to do that the rest of our lives. Now, at that point then the ordinary ministries of the Spirit kick in. They've already been at work, but let me say what they are. The Effects of the Spirit's Filling Look at Ephesians 5, what happens? When you are filled with the Spirit, you're going to speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Horizontally, you're going to be talking the scripture to other people. You're going to be encouraging other people with the scripture. You're going to be “singing in your heart, making music in your heart to the Lord.” You're just happy in Jesus, there's a song in your heart, you're filled with the spirit. It's the ordinary ministry. And the Spirit also is going to mount you up and dress you and get you ready for battle with your temptations. It says in Romans 8:13, "If you, by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." He's going to get you ready for battle, He's going to cause you to fight your temptations, He's going to cause you to fight sin, that's what it means to be filled the Spirit. You're going to see the fruit of the Spirit in your life. Galatians 5 says, “fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.” These attributes, look at each one, it's a package. You don't get some of them and not others. Like Tuesday is the first three fruits of the Spirit. You get the whole thing. When you're filled with the Spirit, these things characterize you. So it's a good diagnostic test. At any moment you just stop and say, "Are these things characterizing me right now?" And if they're not, you're not filled with the Spirit. Pursue Him, go after Him, fruit of the Spirit. Energetic service happens when you're filled with the Spirit. You just serve the Lord. You do good works that God wants you to do, as it says in Romans 7:6, "We serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code." So you serve Him, you do good works. You witness boldly. Filled with the Spirit. Spirit-filled people are fearless like Peter and John before the Sanhedrin. I love their boldness, they are unafraid. “‘He is the stone, you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven, given to men, by which we must be saved." Complete boldness there. No fear of death at all. Bold witness when you're Spirit-filled. What else? What Are the Ordinary Ministries of the Spirit? Communications of God's Love Well the Spirit will communicate God's love to you. Ordinary ministry of the Spirit, He will communicate, He will tell you that God loves you. “The Spirit will testify with your spirit that you are a child of God”, Romans 8:16. Romans 5:5 says that the Spirit pours God's love into our hearts. And that's some of these transcendent experiences that people have. It can go up, and I'm getting into the extraordinary ministry, but I don't want to do that right now. I'll get to that in a second. But you can have such a sense that God loves you and imagine just pursuing that and saying Lord, I don't really sense that you love me, I don't feel like I should that you love me. But the Spirit, ordinarily just says it. Let me say something about ordinary/extraordinary. Okay, let me just say that everything the Spirit does is supernatural. So the things that He does in the Spirit-filled life, they are supernatural, but for the Christian, they can and should be ordinary, can experience them every day. We'll get to the extraordinary in just a moment. Illumination of the Scriptures What else does the Spirit do? He illuminates the Scriptures. You sit down, have your quiet time, the Spirit moves. You say, "Open my eyes, Lord, that I may see wonderful things in your law." Psalm 119:18. Like Jesus did with His disciples. Then He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit illuminates the Scriptures to you and makes them clear. The Holy Spirit convicts you of sin. Like I said, Psalm 139; Search me, oh God, and know me. You just say, "God, show me, show me where there are flaws, where there are sins, things I haven't seen, things that are hurting my walk with you. Show me." He'll convict you of sin. He will also guide you and direct you which way to go. Like Isaiah 30:21 says, "Your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk in it.'" We have clear examples of this in the book of Acts where Paul and Silas didn't where to go, and the Holy Spirit said, "Not there, not there." And then they got the vision from the man of Macedonia and went over to Greece. The Holy Spirit will guide you, He'll direct you in patterns of ministry. The Holy Spirit, as we've been seeing in 1 Corinthians 12, gifts you for spiritual gift ministry. So that you can do your spiritual gifts and build the Body up. And He will unite us, we are to “keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” So, in a healthy church, He makes us one in the Spirit, loving each other and delighting in each other. Conviction of Sin What does He do to non-Christians? Well, He gives them, He delivers enough information to them for them to be saved. He gets the message of the Gospel to them, and then He “convicts the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and the judgment to come.” John 16. And if they are elect and if today is the day, He'll convert them. He converts them, as it says in Ezekiel 36, “I will give you a new heart, and I'll put a new Spirit in you, and I'll remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Alright, so, friends, those are the ordinary ministries of the Holy Spirit. Can you see why I'm saying that we should not denigrate them or say unless a revival comes, God's doing nothing? That is just not true. He's doing all of these things every day in countless hundreds of millions around the world. Extraordinary Ministries of the Spirit? Ecstatic Experiences in Individuals But now let's talk about the extraordinary ministries of the Spirit. I could begin with ecstatic experiences in individuals, and I could give you lots of examples of this, but let me zero in on a man named D.L. Moody. D.L. Moody was a pastor of a significant church in Chicago. He preached the Gospel clearly, people were being converted, he was satisfied with his ministry, but two women sitting right in the front pew were not satisfied. And they were fervently praying during the whole service. Finally, he was curious, and he went up, and to talk to these two women. “What are you doing?” “Well, we're praying for you.” And I wonder what was going on in inside his heart. Actually, I don't wonder too much. He said, "Why don't you pray for the people?" They said, "Because you need the power of the Spirit." He said, "I need the power. Why? I have the largest congregation in Chicago and there are many conversions week after week." But the women would not be deterred, they kept on praying for the Holy Spirit to be poured out on D.L. Moody. Soon after that encounter, the Great Chicago Fire came. Devastating. Swept away much of the city, including the building where they had been meeting. Destroyed completely by fire. Moody thought in his mind about these two women, and he went back to that, and he began to cry out in his heart for the Holy Spirit. This is actually what Moody said, "I began to cry, as never before, for a greater blessing from God. The hunger increased, I really felt that I did not want to live any longer. I kept on crying all the time, that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York. Oh, what a day? I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it. It is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for 14 years. I can only say God revealed Himself to me and I had such an experience of His love, that I had to ask Him to stay His hand." This is an overwhelming outpouring of God's presence into a man who was already fruitful and faithfully walking with him. He never had that experience again. Let me continue the quote. "I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went back to preaching again. The sermons themselves were not different, I did not present any new truths, and yet now, hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should offer me all the world, it would be to me as the small dust on the scales." After that experience, DL Moody began his work as an itinerant evangelist in England, Ireland, Wales, and the US. From 1871 to 1899, he preached so effectively that hundreds of thousands and maybe millions were converted through his preaching ministry. He traced that level of fruitfulness back to that experience in New York. But that can also happen to groups. Revivals: The Outpouring on Groups As groups meet together to pray and they seek the face of the Lord. Just like Acts 4:31, they're all meeting to pray and the place where they're meeting is shaken. There are experiences like that as well. John Wesley right before the first grade awakening, spoke of this prayer time that he had with a man named Hall Ingham. George Whitefield was there, Hutching and Charles Wesley, his brother. He said, "We're present at our love feast in Fetter Lane with about 60 of our brethren." Listen to this. "About three in the morning, while we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us insomuch that many cried out for exulting joy and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from the awe and amazement at the presence of His majesty, we broke out with one voice, 'We praise Thee, O God. We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.'" And God does this kind of thing powerfully. Now, 125 years later, Charles Spurgeon was preaching, and he prayed on a particular Tuesday evening, January 4th, 1859. He was speaking to a vast gathering that was convened at Exeter Hall. Spurgeon at that point was 24 years old, a preaching prodigy, the most famous preacher probably in the world, at that point. But that meant nothing to him, he was not in any way satisfied with his ministry. This is what he said, "We must confess that just now we have not the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that we could wish. Oh, if the Spirit of God should come upon those assembled here tonight and upon all the assemblies of the saints, what an effect would be produced? We seek not for extraordinary excitements, those spurious attendants of genuine revivals, but we do seek for the pouring out of the Spirit of God. The spirit is blowing upon our churches now with His genial breath, but it is a soft evening breeze. Oh, that there would come a rushing mighty wind that should carry everything before it. This is the lack of our times, the great want of our country." Well, Spurgeon's desire was fulfilled. That year, 1859, was the greatest, most effective year of his entire ministry. In the spring of 1859, a widespread awakening began in Northern Ireland and spread to Wales. By the end of that year, Spurgeon could write, "The times of refreshing have come at last from the presence of the Lord, they have at last dawned upon our land". Spurgeon on God's Mighty Acts In one of Spurgeon's most powerful sermons during that year of revival, a sermon entitled "The Story of God's mighty acts." Let me tell you, you can listen to someone reading that sermon on YouTube. I listened to it as I was driving in, part of it. I would recommend it. I'd rather hear Spurgeon preach it, but that would be weird at this point, but there's a guy reading it, and it's very effective. He was preaching on Psalm 44:1. The text says; “We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what you did in their days in days long ago”. Spurgeon catalogued the mighty acts of God across, at that point, 18 centuries of Church history. He traced out the spectacular advance of the gospel over the first 100 years after the death of Christ, how the Gospel spread rapidly across Europe into Asia for 100 years, and how heathens were baptized in huge numbers, sometimes even thousands in rivers. Spurgeon said this, "The first spread of the Gospel is a miracle never to be eclipsed. Whatever God may have done at the Red Sea, He did still more within 100 years after the time when Christ first came into the world. It seemed as if a fire from Heaven, ran along the ground." I picture a molten lava. Hot, red, igniting everything in its way. Hundred years after Christ ascended into heaven, it's true, there were congregations in northern Britannia, in Germania and other places in the Roman Empire. The Gospel was spreading powerfully, it's incredible. Spurgeon in that sermon traced out other examples of mighty outpourings; the Reformation, Luther's courage in facing the Medieval Roman Catholic Church, and then the first great awakening, 125 years before that, under Whitefield and Wesley. Spurgeon said this, "Within a few years from the preaching of those two men, England was permeated with Evangelical truth. The Word of God, was known in every town and there was scarcely a hamlet into which the Methodists had not penetrated. In those days of the slow coach, when Christianity seemed to have brought up the old wagons in which our fathers once traveled, where business runs along with steam." Now, you need to understand, in Spurgeon's day, steam was a new thing. So I thought about translating this into the digital age, but I'll just read what he wrote. "Where business flies along with steam, it seems the Gospel creeps along with a horse drawn cart. Yet the things that we notice what God did, the wondrous things that God did in olden times by His grace, we trust He will yet do again." Spurgeon said this, "The old stagers in our church believe that things must grow gently by degrees. We must go step-by-step onward. Concentrated action, continued labor, they say, will ultimately bring success. But the marvel is all of God's mightiest works have been sudden. When Peter stood up to preach, it did not take six weeks to convert the 3,000. They were converted at once and baptized that very day. They were that hour turned to God. So it is in all revivals. God's work has been done suddenly as with a clap of thunder, God has descended from on high, not slowly, but suddenly." Seek the Extraordinary Outpouring Today Friends, this is the extraordinary ministry of the Holy Spirit. God can still do that in our day. And Spurgeon made the point as did Lloyd-Jones, that it always starts with extraordinary thirst an extraordinary prayer. It starts with individuals, maybe you, maybe you, maybe you, maybe me, not okay with the status quo. You look at your life and you're not okay with your level of sanctification, you're not satisfied with the progress you're making. You look at the church and you're not okay with the number of people that we've baptized. You're not okay with the impact First Baptist Church has on Durham and Raleigh and Chapel Hill. You're not okay with it. The status quo is not enough. And you begin to pray. As Jeremy Lanphier did two years before the revival in Great Britain, 1857, he started a businessmen's revival in New York City that started with one man, him, praying. By the end of that hour, the last 10 minutes, there was no one paying, just him, for 50 minutes. Then at the end of the hour, five other people came and joined him to pray. Terrible economic reversals happened, a fear of Civil War, which was soon to come in the United States. Many other things. Those are human factors, but really what happened is the Holy Spirit was poured out. And within several months, a quarter of a million people in the New York area were converted, very rapidly. I think it was Spurgeon thought about that and said, "Why can't something like that happen here?" And began praying. So it could start. Start that way with some of you. Maybe two people who sit in the front pew and pray for the pastor, that he would have the Holy Spirit. I don't know if D.L. Moody felt offended at that point. I promise you, as best I can, I will not feel offended if you pray for me to have the Holy Spirit because I'm not satisfied. I've been here for 21 years. I'm not satisfied with the holiness level of my life, I'm not satisfied with the fruitfulness in our church, and I'm asking God to work a revival in our church, in our lives, that begins with extraordinary prayer. I don't know who's going to start it. I don't care. And frankly, I don't even care if it starts with our church. I just want to see God move mightily and powerfully in our area. Friends, Repent and Do Not Harden Your Hearts Let me say one last thing, and I'll be done. There may be some of you that are here today that came in here unconverted. I want to tell you something, a regret that D.L. Moody took with him to his death bed. Before the Chicago Fire came, he preached the Gospel and preached it powerfully. He made it very, very clear that Christ had died for sinners, that He had been risen from the dead, and that salvation was available. But what he didn't do, is he said, "I'm not going to tell you what you individually need to do about this. Come back next week and I'll tell you then." The Chicago fire happened the very next day. D.L. Moody said, I never saw those people again, that congregation. Maybe there were individuals he saw, but that assembly was wiped out by the fire. And he regretted not pressing on the consciences of his hearers the need to flee to Christ while there was time. Friends, you don't know if you'll be alive tomorrow. You've heard the Gospel today. You've heard that Christ died for sinners, you know that you're a sinner, you know that you're outside of Christ. Don't leave this place still outside of Christ. You don't need to get up or come forward to do anything, you just need to call on the name of the Lord and you'll be saved. God will forgive you of your sins today. “If you hear His voice, don't harden your hearts.” Prayer Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time we've had to study. Sometimes I fear that my words in my own heart and in the lives of many here are like a painted fire, that they don't have a real effectiveness. Lord, I pray that you would please overwhelm all of that by the moving of your Spirit. I pray that you would pour out the Spirit in influence and in power on me and on my brothers and sisters here and on everyone assembled here. I pray that 2020 would be the greatest year of evangelistic fruitfulness this church has ever known. I pray that you would give us a sense of the presence of the Spirit in this that we have never had before. And I pray it would begin with extraordinary prayer, that we would realize that we are weak and feeble until the Holy Spirit is poured out from on high. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Do you remember the story of the Count of Monte Cristo? A young man, falsely imprisoned by his jealous friend, escapes and uses a hidden treasure to exact his revenge? Dantes and Fernand were best of friends. Whenever one would act in a heroic way or win the upper hand, the other would throw the king piece of a chess board to the other and say, "Kings to you" while the other says, "Kings to me". This probably went on their whole life until...Until human greed and jealousy and all the rest of the ugly stuff of un-kingly like behavior got to one of them. Fernand double-crossed his friend Dantes. Dantes spent years in prison planning an escape and revenge. Neither of them acted like kings to me. So what should a king be like? Isaiah gives us a picture of a king who is coming that will be unlike all finite human kings. Isaiah has prophesied that this One is coming as a child, in human form so that he can, for a brief moment in time, relate to us and so we can relate to him. As Dorothy Sayers said, he understands us because, "He took his own medicine". Isaiah also says, this One is also the shoot, the tender green shoot that grows out of a disaster, the felling of an entire forest. He is hopefulness to a fallen hopeless world. Now we find in Isaiah 42 and in 49, he is a king like no other. He does not exact revenge. This king is different. It's the kind of king we can desperately need. It's the kind of king we all want to be like. This Christmas, believe that God has sent this king for you. Todd

In today's episode, our emphasis is Peace, Clarity and Focus. Sometimes we just have to concentrate our hearts and minds on these things when life gives so many opportunities to lose our peace and focus. Being distracted by worry and fear can cause us to lose our peace and focus. We often need to take a step back and take control of our own Peace and Focus. Like Isaiah 26:3 says you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Jesus says in John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. Finding God’s peace in our lives bring rest. Together, Giving Jesus, -Lana

Like Isaiah, we too are living in a time of rapidly growing sin. We have knowledge of a shelter to protect now and in the future. If we don’t carry out the Great Commission: WHO WILL?????? The Muslims are making great inroads The JW have people on the streets every day Yoga posing as exercise is a pagan idol worship Prosperity preachers are selling false shelters

Here I am send me. Leadership requires response. Say Yes to No conditional, Reckless, Recalculating, Partnered, World changing.

Rev. Braun Campbell, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Alexandria, Virginia, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 6. Chapter 6 goes back to the beginning of Isaiah’s ministry, when he was first called to serve as a prophet. He has a glorious vision of God’s exalted robe, His flowing robe, and His fiery angel attendants serving in the Temple. The first five chapters of shown us though that God’s glory is to be feared: as the angels sing “Holy, holy, holy,” Isaiah nearly loses his life. God tells him to speak words of condemning law; repentance would only come after the Assyrian devastation. When we sing “Holy, holy, holy” in church, the glory of God comes into our midst, hidden by the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. Like Isaiah, we should feel holy fear as we approach God’s presence. The bread taken from the altar purges the sin from our lips like a burning coal, commissioning us to speak for God, fearful prospect. How long? Come, Lord Jesus!

We will not be immobilized by the constant barrage of negativity and division.  Like Isaiah we will look upon the destruction caused by such hatred and be reminded of God’s promise to create a new heaven and a new earth.  

Join Host, Donna Ghanney and Co-Host(s) Spencer Tyler and Minister Belinda McKenzie on Kingdom Mandate as they take a deep dive into the: Topic: The End Times - What Will It Be Like? - ISAIAH 2 - Continued March 9, 2019 at 11:00 AM EST Call in @ 1 (646) 668-2413 USA or join us LIVE ONLINE! Follow us on BlogTalkRadio.com/KingdomEmpowermentInc Follow us on Facebook and Twitter: @KEIFM_Radio Learn more about Kingdom Empowerment Inc Radio: https://www.keifm.com Sponsored by: Jewelry4AQueen Collection of Fine and Fashion Jewelry  

Join Host, Donna Ghanney and Co-Host Spencer Tyler on Kingdom Mandate as they take a deep dive into the: Topic: The End Times - *What Will It Be Like? - ISAIAH 2*  March 2, 2019 at 11:00 AM EST Call in @ 1 (646) 668-2413 USA or join us LIVE ONLINE! Follow us on BlogTalkRadio.com/KingdomEmpowermentInc Follow us on Facebook and Twitter: @KEIFM_Radio Learn more about Kingdom Empowerment Inc Radio: https://www.keifm.com Sponsored by: Jewelry4AQueen Collection of Fine and Fashion Jewelry  

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time God's calls to us often come as thoughts, just simple thoughts.  It's easy to miss them if we're not paying attention, or (if you're like me) you reason yourself out of them.  But God calls us every day, in little moments, to reach out to others, to pray for others, to share our experiences of the Lord.  Like Isaiah and Peter in our readings today, we might not feel like we're the best fit for the job, we won't know what following a call will actually entail.  But like Isaiah and Peter, when we hear these calls of God during our day, these simple thoughts and tugs of the heart, let's go for it and unleash more of God's life into this world bit by bit!

“I will not keep silent.  I will not stop talking, proclaiming or preaching…. I will not pause.  I will not rest, for the sake of the precious city God loved and left, and I will keep this up until every nation and king can see that Jerusalem has been declared innocent and lifted up to a place of glory and honor.”  (Working Preacher, Anathea Portier-Young)   These are the words of the prophet Isaiah as he boldly acts as intercessor for Jerusalem.  Following the exile, the Babylonians may have been defeated, but when the Jewish people returned to their land, they found it decimated.  It looked rather like a desert.  The restoration and rebuilding of Jerusalem met countless obstacles and delays.  The people had been full of hope, but now they are battling deteriorating morale caused by broken dreams and crumbling faith.  Their very identity had been battered by loss and they could no longer understand that God delighted in them.  They felt God had turned away in indifference.           So, the prophet Isaiah laments and boldly protests, interceding on their behalf.  Seeking justice for his people, Isaiah will not remain silent as he holds God accountable.  Now, the notion of “holding God accountable” probably tends to make many of us squeamish.  But, the prophets did this.  Elie Wiesel, in “The Trial of God,” accuses God of being absent from the horrific genocide of the Holocaust.  And, the biblical writings we have been given suggest that what the Jewish people had experienced was something like the Holocaust.  In the depth of their despair, a place where they deeply feel the absence of God, the prophet speaks.  He names their despair and holds God accountable.  Then, the prophet promises newness, transformation and even new names signaling joyful union for Jerusalem and all the land around her.  He proclaims the dream of God for his people and promises there will be change and transformation.  The prophet proclaims the abundant life God desires for the people and says God will rejoice over you! In today’s gospel reading, John gives us a story that presents significant need and emptiness in the midst of what is to be a grand party.  Jesus and the disciples are attending a wedding.  And, on the third day of the festivities, over in the corner of the room a nervous silence sets in.  There is the alarming discovery that the wine has run out.  Wine was a vital component of any wedding in that day, the sign of the harvest and the sign of God’s abundance for God’s people.  But, the wine has run out and the party is far from over!!  There are still four days of partying left to go!!  We can imagine the tension in the air.  For the groom’s family, this is not just an embarrassing situation, this is a major social faux pas.            Well, Jesus’ mother sizes up the situation and swings into action.  And, like the prophet Isaiah, she will not remain silent.  She tells her son about it.  The implicit command is: “Fix it!”  Mary is a prophet who will not take no for an answer.  In fact, she says to the servants, “Do whatever my son tells you.”  Mary speaks and acts as intercessor for the wedding party and all the guests.  In Mary’s persistence, she provides the leadership for the miraculous sign that takes place in this story by observing the problem, naming it, and taking action to help.   Then, when his mother tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says, Jesus performs one of the most understated, yet mighty acts in John’s gospel.   There were six large jars for water to be used for washing according to various Jewish purification rites, each jar holding 20-30 gallons of water.  Jesus tells the servants to fill them to the brim and then he tells them to draw some out and take it to the man in charge of the feast.  When the steward tastes the wine, it turns out to be the best wine at the party.  Not only is it the best, but there is an abundance of wine, an amount equal to an additional thousand bottles of wine!  People, in Jesus, Immanuel – God with us, God made flesh, there is abundance.  On the third day, a reference by the way to the resurrection, Jesus provides abundance.  And, in this first miracle in the gospel of John, Jesus provides more wine, joy, and blessings than the people could possibly have imagined or deserved.  As we gather today for worship, I am very aware of the reality of deep need and despair in our world, even within our own country.  Many in the world go hungry.  Many in our own community go hungry.  And, as we gather together on this day, we cannot ignore what is happening in our present culture, the growing need people are experiencing from this government shutdown, and the growing need and pain of refugees seeking asylum.  We need a tangible miracle of God’s abundance.  In light of today’s gospel reading, we cannot help but come face to face with the creative word of a living God and we do not take no as an answer.  Today’s reading invites us to trust so much in God’s generosity and abundance that we, like the prophets of old and like Jesus’ mother, nudge God with our observation and our protest:  they have no wine!  Like Mary, and in the face of insurmountable need by so many people around this world, we too cry out and lift our voices in intercession for the hurting and powerless as we say to God, “Fix it; heal this land and bring comfort to the people!”   In the words of scripture, we find words that address the timelessness of human need and human tragedy.  And, we also discover that we, like Mary, can become God’s servants as God uses us to help fill the needs of the hurting.  Quite frankly, when we pray such a prayer, we are also called to action, which is something we are doing as we take noisy offerings to help those who are furloughed, to help any who are now without necessary government assistance, and to help our refugee project. On this weekend, we celebrate the life of another prophet who would not remain silent, Martin Luther King, Jr.  He would not remain silent in the depth of people’s despair.  And, his speaking out brought about change.  Speaking out and seeking justice is a form of prayer.  As we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. and remember the many prophets who have gone before him, we too, as people of faith, are called to cry out to God as we seek justice and change and renewal in our lives and this land.  That form of prayer also causes us to respond and act in ways that help bring about the newness of God’s promises and dream for all people.  Like Isaiah, like Mary and like Martin Luther King, Jr., we cannot remain silent in the face of injustice.  As we remember and celebrate King’s life and work, one of the best ways we can honor him is by remembering what he proclaimed as he called the church to work for justice.   In fact, he said, “A Church that has lost its voice for justice is a Church that has lost its relevance in the world.”            On the third day, when the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother, like Isaiah and like Martin Luther King, Jr., would not keep quiet.  Jesus addresses the problem and he turns scarcity into abundance.  In Jesus, the one who provides enough for all people, we see a God who is deeply responsive to human need.   In Jesus, we experience a God who is so responsive to human suffering that he entered the very depth of our need to suffer with us, even to the point of being nailed to a cross.  And then, on the third day, hope was born, and the new wine flowed freely!   Hope is deeply embedded in the Resurrection.  May we, like the prophets, continue to cry out and work for justice, and live into the hope of God’s dream for all people!

Sermon Notes • Preacher: Jeremiah Fyffe • 1. THE LORD ON THE THRONE 2. ISAIAH REPENTS 3. THE LORD CLEANSES 4. THE LORD SENDS CRADLE | Sentimentalized CROSS | Trivialized CROWN | Forgotten Isaiah 1:11–12 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Isaiah 1:16–17 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. Isaiah 1:18 Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. 2 Chronicles 26:15 And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong. 2 Chronicles 26:16 But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. Robert Webber Unfortunately, we frequently fail to see what Isaiah saw. We allow the goals, ambitions, and everyday responsibilities of life to be so central to our thoughts that we fail to shut down and center on the Holy One, the Creator, the one who is high and lifted up above all that is. Isaiah saw above the details of his own life and the issues of his nation. By faith he went to the very heart of human existence itself. Like Isaiah we need to get beyond the form of our worship. We need to experience the presence of the one who stands over us to judge us, heal us, and restore us to life.

On this episode, we sit down with Isaiah Wafer, an up and coming DJ and producer. He started off at Clarkson University as a history major, but left halfway to pursue his dreams in music. Like Isaiah, many millennials secretly aspire to make art-related fields their primary focus in life. The greatest challenge, I think, is creating a stable source of income out of it. Isaiah talks to us about how he dealt with this, as well as other obstacles he has faced in chasing his passions. His journey in music, though, began in a sort of unconventional manner.

What is your vision of God? What is your response when you are in His presence? What was Isaiah's response when he encountered the presence of God? In this sermon by Pastor Seth Winterhalter we see both God's utter holiness and Isaiah's realization of his own unholiness. Yet, when Isaiah's sin is atoned for, his sense of "Woe is me!" turns immediately to, "Here am I! Send me!" Like Isaiah, as our sin is atoned for by Jesus Christ, we too are sent out to fulfill God's mission.

Like Isaiah, each of us is a sharp-edged sword concealed in the shadow of God’s arm

If you were asked to describe God, how would you answer? Listen to this lesson to learn that Psalm 139 gives an excellent description of His traits, including His knowledge of everything in heaven and on earth. Find out what it means to be a “God-fearer” as well as a number of verses about fearing God. See that the fear of God should be a guide to all our relationships in life. Like Isaiah when he was awed in the presence of God, we should be struck with God’s majesty and sovereignty as we worship Him.

How can we prepare ourselves to worship God more fully? Listen to this message to learn ways we can learn to focus on God and His astounding majesty. Hear about three distinct categories of angels and their constant awe and veneration of God. Begin a study of Isaiah who entered into the presence of God and saw some of the angels worshipping Him. Like Isaiah, we need to realize that no matter how terrible conditions may be around us, we can be assured that God is always in control and caring for us.

In the second sermon of our 2018 All In series, we looked at Isaiah’s response to his encounter with the Holy presence of God. Like Isaiah, when we encounter the presence of God, it leads us to repentance and surrender. We surrender our deep, desperate situation to Jesus, as the only hope we have of being rescued. The redemptive rescue of Jesus leads to the mission of Jesus. Everyone who has been saved by Jesus has also been called to His mission. God calls us to engage and invest in the same mission through which He saved us. Have you truly surrendered your life to Jesus through faith and repentance? Have you surrendered your life to the call God has for you to engage in the mission of Jesus?

In the second sermon of our 2018 All In series, we looked at Isaiah’s response to his encounter with the Holy presence of God. Like Isaiah, when we encounter the presence of God, it leads us to repentance and surrender. We surrender our deep...

While the other three gospels all start with some variant of birth story, the gospel of Mark requires us to wrestle with a wild man in the desert before we are allowed to see Jesus up close. And what does the wild man want? Like Isaiah, he tells us to prepare a way for the God of righteousness and justice to work. So Kris gets into Mark 1:1-8 and three ways we prepare for God to show up in our world: personally, locally, and regionally. With an axe and a shower scene thrown in for good measure.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lamb of God! Like Isaiah, we see You, Lord! We see that You are the God of all creation! You are holy and good! We stand in awe of You! As the angels cry out in praise to You, we join in the song going on and on forever! Holy is the Lord! The whole earth is filled with His glory! *Recorded live at Catch the Fire Worship Center, Raleigh, NC. Soaking led by Susan Valles and Steve Massengale.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lamb of God! Like Isaiah, we see You, Lord! We see that You are the God of all creation! You are holy and good! We stand in awe of You! As the angels cry out in praise to You, we join in the song going on and on forever! Holy is the Lord! The whole earth is filled with His glory! *Recorded live at Catch the Fire Worship Center, Raleigh, NC. Soaking led by Susan Valles and Steve Massengale.

This is the introduction to our series on the attributes of God. Knowing what is God like gives you discernment. If we don’t know how God responds, (how He acts; who He is) it’s hard to determine what is from God and what isn’t.

Surprisingly, throughout the world, dignity, health, joy, and love are not universally a part of every child’s life. Messiah stands with Tom Eggum and his worldwide outreach to address these basic four pillars of hope—Hope4Kids. The power of prayer and willing people make miracles possible: education, nutrition, clean water wells, medical care, and safe structures for living and worship. These are fueled by short-term mission trips, generous donations, and monthly child sponsorships. May we share with Tom in this daily prayer: Loving God, thank you for your mercy and grace. Thank you for the cross and the resurrection of Jesus. This is all we have. Thank you for another day to serve you. Like Isaiah who heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” May we say, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 5:8)

Do you agree with me that our world is in bad shape? Seems like things are bad and getting worse. I couldn’t help but think of our present condition when I was reading chapter 64. Isaiah, in verses 1 and 2 said: Why don't you tear the sky open and come down? The mountains would see you and shake with fear. They would tremble like water boiling over a hot fire. Come and reveal your power to your enemies, and make the nations tremble at your presence! Wouldn’t that be an awesome thing? I think so. If the world could see what God is like, perhaps they would begin to honor Him and He could begin a healing of the things that are so wrong around the globe. Because, let’s face it, most of the world denies Him and does whatever seems right to them. And those of us who love Him, if we are honest, would have to agree with Isaiah when he said in verse 6: All of us have been sinful; even our best actions are filthy through and through. Come on. Let’s be honest. We fail God every day. All of us do. So what is the answer? Look at the beginning of verse 7. Isaiah says: No one turns to you in prayer; no one goes to you for help. You have hidden yourself from us and have abandoned us because of our sins. We don’t pray, friends. Oh sure. We say grace over meals. We say cursory prayers now and then when we’re sick or in trouble or need something. But do we really take hold of God on a regular basis and really talk to God as if He were a real and powerful and involved Person? Do we make it a daily priority? Do we talk to Him, expecting to honestly touch Him and to hear from Him in response to us? If God is far from us, who moved? If God doesn’t hear us, is that His fault or ours? If we truly want Him to heal our land, why would we think that anything less than a total devotion to prayer would bring that about? We as a people need to return to him with contrite hearts and a commitment to seeking His face. We need to hold onto Him as if our lives and our nation and our world depends on it, because it is true! We will not see change unless we fully devote ourselves to this critical mission. We need to cry out to Him and ask Him to change us into the people He wants us to be. Like Isaiah prayed in verses 8 and 9, we say: But you are our father, Lord. We are like clay, and you are like the potter. You created us, 9so do not be too angry with us or hold our sins against us forever. We are your people; be merciful to us.

If we are going to be bold in our evangelism, that means we will have to step out on faith. The question is not as much about what we are to do, but about who we are doing it for. Listen in as we look at what makes Isaiah's actions 'bold!'

Incredible Section of the Book of Isaiah Well, before I get going, let me just tell you where we're heading in terms of the preaching ministry of the church. This is my last sermon in Isaiah for a while. I hope if God opens the door, if God makes you willing to return because there's still good things in Isaiah 56 through 66, and God may well lead us back. And I would like that, I would love that, but this is it for Isaiah for now, for the foreseeable future. Next week, we're going to begin a four-week series in 1 Corinthians 15, focused on the resurrection leading right up to Easter of course, and I'll preach two of those four sermons culminating Easter Sunday in a look at 1 Corinthians 15. It's going to be a marvelous time. And then I will be God willing, going to Ephesians and starting in that book. So I'm looking forward very much to that. So that's where we're heading. So again, and not in any way saying there's not more wonderful things in Isaiah, there is, but I'm just eager to get on to some other things as well. So. Just by way of introduction, this morning, let's just get some context of where we've been in Isaiah, Isaiah 53-55, is just an incredible, beautiful section of Scripture. There's so much in there. And we saw in Isaiah 53, probably the most significant and clearest predictive prophecy of Christ there is in the Old Testament. Very, very powerful and clear and how we saw in Isaiah 53, without a doubt how the Lord through Isaiah, seven centuries before Jesus was born, clearly predicted the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. How he died in our place as a sacrifice for sins and how he by his work on the cross justifies all who believe in him. And that is so plainly seen in Isaiah 53. So plainly seen in words like this, Isaiah 53:5-6, "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." This is the Gospel message, this is the center piece of the Gospel. Christ the Son of God died in our place and was buried in a rich man's tomb and was raised to new life and will spend eternity looking on his spiritual descendants and rejoicing in them. Isaiah 53. And then we saw in Isaiah 54, so beautifully how this Gospel message, this work of the suffering servant, of Christ on the cross, is going to go worldwide it's going to go to the ends of the earth, the Gospel is going to spread out to the ends of the Earth, and as a result, Zion, the city of God, the people of God, the tent of God, so to speak, is going to have to get really, really big. It's going to get really big. And so we saw in Isaiah 54:2-3, God speaking to Zion, "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back, lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out to the right and to the left and your descendants will dis-possess nations and settle in their desolate cities." Isaiah 54. Missions. It's going to get really, really big. So then in Isaiah 55, we come to this incredible chapter. This is our third week in Isaiah 55. And here we have the invitation of Almighty God to the banquet, the banqueting table of salvation in Christ. So, two weeks ago in verses 1-5 of Isaiah 55, we spoke of this incredible banquet this feast of salvation to which Almighty God is calling us sinners. And we saw the liquids that were served there, water and milk and wine. Water, the symbol of eternal life. How if we don't get it we'll die. And where we're parched and then we drink this water, this living water, which is Christ and we will live forever. And then milk the picture of spiritual nourishment how we get all the nutrients that we need, at this banqueting table. Everything that we'll need for life and godliness I given us through this banqueting table, through Christ. And then wine in the Bible a symbol of just joyful celebration. The desire we all have to just cut loose and be free in joy. And how through the ministry of the Spirit not getting drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery, but instead, filled with the Spirit, we sing and worship, and rejoice. And that's what God is calling us sinners to do. We are invited to this feast, we who are thirsty. Look at verse 1-3. "Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fair. Give ear and come to me, hear me that your soul may live." So God is calling on sinners who have nothing to offer, who have no money with which they can buy anything or who have resources but who are wasting, squandering their resources on what does not satisfy. Who are living for things that do not, that will never satisfy. He calls on sinners to this banqueting table. And last week in verses 6-9, we saw the way by which we respond to this incredible invitation. And how these verses 6-9 call on us to respond with urgency to this invitation, to respond with brokenness and repentance over our sins. Look at verses 6 and 7, "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man, his thoughts, let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly, freely pardon." And so the time is now we saw that last week. Today is the day of salvation. There's a window of opportunity, there's a door opened on the Ark, but it's going to close sometime. And when God decides it's over, it's over, but today is the day of salvation. And so, we should seek the Lord while he may be found, while there's still an opportunity, there's an urgency to this. And we should forsake our evil ways and our wicked thoughts and we should turn to God in repentance, and brokenness and find salvation in Christ. And if we do this, he will freely, completely, richly pardon us for all our sins. The very King that we have spent years rebelling against, violating his laws, transgressing his commands, this very King is willing to forgive us and to sit at banquet table with us in Christ. And why should we repent, why should we turn away from our wicked ways and our evil thoughts? Because God the King is different from us, he says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." So how is he different? Well we saw last week in two ways. First of all, he's just different in holiness. The call has gone to the wicked to turn away from his wicked ways and his evil thoughts. And so he says, "For my ways are not your ways, and my thoughts not your thoughts." So, he's different from us in that we're wicked and evil and he's not. He's infinitely pure and holy, as the heavens are higher than the earth. So much higher is he than us in holiness and purity. He is perfect light and in him there is no darkness at all. So we should repent because he's so different from us. That's the first logical connection in holiness. But looking a little more deeply, more immediately. If you look at the link between verse 7 and 8, we saw this last time, he says, "Let him turn to the Lord…for he will freely pardon. For my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts…" So the immediate link there is mercy and forgiveness. God is inviting us to come to him in repentance and brokenness over sin, because he forgives in ways we can scarcely imagine. He is just so lavish in his forgiveness. He's so good at it. He's so really, really good at forgiveness, he loves to forgive. A picture of that, as we've said, Luke 15, and Daniel alluded, the father of the prodigal son, what a beautiful, beautiful picture of God that is. Remember how Jesus said, "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate." That is just how good God is at forgiveness, how lavishly willing he is to forgive and to have a feast with us when we genuinely repent of our wicked ways. I think these two themes are so vital. We can't choose the one or the other. We should repent because God's perfectly holy and his ways are not our ways. And we should be pure, and we're not, and so we need to repent because God is, God is light, and in him, there's no darkness at all. I've often said, I think there are two images of God we must keep together all the time in our minds. And the first comes from Hebrews 12. "Our God is a consuming fire." And the second image is the father of the prodigal son running down the driveway and embracing his repentant son with tears. And people tend to emphasize the one or the other. We just can't. You just have to have both up in your mind all the time. God is holy and pure and hates sin. And God is merciful and loving and loves sinners and welcomes them. And you gotta have both. And so that's what I think the link between verse 6 and 7, and then verse 8, and 9 gives us the picture of both and not one or the other. I. God’s Purpose for His Word: Be Effective as the Rain (vs. 10-11) Now, Isaiah 55, picks right up where we left off, this lofty God who sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth, whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts, who yearns to call us in from the cold of sin to a warm, rich, well, lavishly appointed banquet, is sending forth this powerful force to bring about what he wants, which is a full banqueting hall. He wants his tables filled with people. And so he's sending forth a sovereign power to make it happen and that is His Word. His effective sovereign Word, he sends it out into the world to make certain that his eternal banqueting hall is filled with people. Look at verses 10-13, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, so is my Word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." That's what he's saying, he's sending forth His Word. And he has a purpose in all of this, and we're going to look at God's purpose, we're going to look at God's purpose for His Word and how he wants it to be as effective as the rain verses 10 through 11. God's purpose for us is to rescue us and give us joy and peace in Verse 12. God's purpose for creation is triumphant deliverance from the curse, verses 12-13. And God's ultimate purpose for himself is everlasting glory in all of this, verse 13. So let's begin with God's purpose for his Word. And so, we're looking this morning at God's irresistible force, his words, sent forth from Heaven to compel the elect to come to the feast of salvation in Christ. Verses 10-11, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth, making it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my Word that comes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." So God rolls out the power here. The irresistible force by which this feast is going to be well populated. Now, the attendees to the feast are locked up in Satan's dark dungeon, they're locked up in chains there. Verse 7 makes this plain, "Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts." So Satan holds his prisoners in check, holds them in prisons of wickedness and sin and they need to be rescued, they need to be delivered from the wickedness of their hearts. Colossians 1:13 says, "He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us over into the kingdom of his beloved son." Later in that same chapter, Colossians 1 he says, "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior." Think about those words. Minds. Behavior. So reverse it, behavior, mind. "Let the wicked forsake his way", that's behavior. "And the evil man his thoughts," that's his thinking patterns. It's the same thing in Colossians 1. "You were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds as displayed by your wicked behavior." That's what he's saying. And so, we're locked up, we're in chains, we can't get out, we can't set ourselves free. So how do such people get delivered, how do they get rescued from their own wicked ways, and their evil thoughts? Only by God's sovereign Word, it's the only thing that will do it. Verse 11. "So is my Word that goes out from my mouth." So God focuses on his Word. The same power by which He created the physical universe. It says in Psalm 33:6, "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made. Their starry host by the breath of his mouth." So that's how God made the universe, you know in Genesis 1:3. "God said, Let there be light and there was light." And throughout Genesis 1, God said let this happen, and it happened, let that happen. By the Word of God, we have creation. God Likens His Word to Rain and Snow So God then likens his Word to rain and snow. Verse 10, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, so is my Word that goes forth from my mouth." So he's trying to help us to understand how his Word acts in the world. The heavenly origin, it starts from God, it starts in his mind and it goes forth from his mouth. So you got this movement from heaven down to earth, that's the movement here. So God's Word starts in his mind goes out of his mouth and comes down heaven to earth like the rain. So if God doesn't initiate salvation, not one of us will ever be saved, it all starts with God. All life depends on rain for its continued existence. God gives the rain that sustains both plant and animal life. Rain is an amazing gift from God. It really is. Job 5:8-10, Job said this. "As for me I would seek God, and I would place my because before God who does great and unsearchable things. Wonders without number. He gives rain on the Earth and sends water on the fields." Well, think about that. Job 5 calls rain a great and unsearchable thing that God does. Some time ago I read a meditation on this by John Piper which I thought was amazing, helpful. He said this. Is rain a great and unsearchable wonder wrought by God? Picture yourself as a farmer in the Near East, far from any lake or stream. A few wells keep the family and animals supplied with water. But if the crops are to grow and the family is to be fed from month to month, water has to come on the fields from another source. From where? Well, the sky. The sky? Water will come out of the clear blue sky? Well, not exactly. Water will have to be carried in the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, over several hundred miles and then be poured out from the sky onto the fields. Carried? How much does it weigh? Well, if one inch of rain falls on one square mile of farmland during the night, that would be 27,878,400 cubic feet of water, which is 206,300,160 gallons, which is 1,650,501,280 pounds of water. That's heavy. So how does it get up in the sky and stay up there if it's so heavy? Well, it gets up there by evaporation. Really? That's a nice word. What's it mean? It means that the water sort of stops being water for a while so it can go up and not down. I see. Then how does it get down? Well, condensation happens. What's that? The water starts becoming water again by gathering around little dust particles between .00001 and .0001 centimeters wide. That's small. What about the salt? Salt? Yes, the Mediterranean Sea is salt water. That would kill the crops. What about the salt? Well, the salt has to be taken out. Oh. So the sky picks up a billion pounds of water from the sea and takes out the salt and then carries it for three hundred miles and then dumps it on the farm? Well it doesn't dump it. If it dumped a billion pounds of water on the farm, the wheat would be crushed. So the sky dribbles the billion pounds water down in little drops. And they have to be big enough to fall for one mile or so without evaporating, and small enough to keep from crushing the wheat stalks. How do all these microscopic specks of water that weigh a billion pounds get heavy enough to fall (if that's the way to ask the question)? Well, it's called coalescence. What's that? It means the specks of water start bumping into each other and join up and get bigger. And when they are big enough, they fall. Just like that? Well, not exactly, because they would just bounce off each other instead of joining up, if there were no electric field present. What? Never mind. Take my word for it. I think, instead, I will just take Job's word for it. I still don't see why drops ever get to the ground, because if they start falling as soon as they are heavier than air, they would be too small not to evaporate on the way down, but if they wait to come down, what holds them up till they are big enough not to evaporate? Yes, I am sure there is a name for that too. But I am satisfied now that, by any name, this is a great and unsearchable thing that God has done. – John Piper God's gift of rain is a gift of life. It's a clear display of his power and his goodness. Job 36:27 and following says, "He draws up the drops of water which distill as rain down to the streams. The clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind. Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion. See how he scatters his lightning about him bathing the depths of the sea. This is the way he governs the nations and provides food in abundance." Matthew 5:45, Jesus said, "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." I just would submit to you as a Christian whenever it precipitates, you should set aside time and thank God for it. Thank God for it. Non-Christians aren't going to do it. "Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him." It's your job when it rains to thank him for it, because he is sustaining your life. But rain makes a round trip doesn't it? As we've seen, a round trip. The verse highlights the circularity, a round-trip of rain, it comes down in showers, goes back up in evaporation, it's a big circle. But before it goes back up, he says it accomplishes the reason why God sent it. God’s Word Accomplishes His Purposes So is God's Word coming from his mouth. It goes out and then comes back having achieved the purpose. So God's purpose in rain and snow, he says, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth making it bud, and flourish, so, it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater." So God sends rain for a good purpose, it enriches the Earth, it waters the Earth, it makes it, it says bud and flourish. So, the plants soak in this rainwater and they produce buds. And if you thought the whole rain thing was complicated, how the water produces buds in plants is vastly more complicated, but God does this. Now, the buds eventually become beautiful fragrant flowers or succulent fruit or growing vegetation and within the fruit, then you have seed for the sower, it says, so that the whole thing can continue going on. This is a whole system of agriculture that God has figured out to keep us alive. Everything's ready, the genetic code of the flowers and the fruits and the grains are ready, the root systems in place, all that's needed is rain. Rain. And God sends it. So life, the rest of life, animal life, depends on the plants staying alive and the plants depend on rain and the rain comes when God sends it. That's what this text is saying. Well, now, let's look at the analogy with the Word. "So is my Word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." So the Word has a round trip too. It goes out from his mouth, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the apostles and prophets who wrote it down. Long time ago. And then by the Spirit, he moves evangelists and missionaries, and pastors, and teachers, to deliver the Word to His people, so that they hear it. He's sending out his Word in this way. And then it goes back to God in praise and honor and glory where he gets credit for what he's done and worshiped, ultimately worshiped, that's the harvest. And so Romans 1:36, has this whole thing summarized. "For from him and through him", and I like to say back to him, "are all things." You see the circularity of it. From him, through him, they're sustained and then back to him they go, are all things. To him be the glory forever. And he says, 100% of the time, the Word achieves the reason, the purpose for which he sent it. Now, here's where it gets pretty troublesome. Here's where it gets difficult. He says it doesn't return to God empty, it doesn't return, some translations say void, a failure. You can't imagine the Word of God personified coming back and saying to the Father, "I'm sorry I couldn't do what you sent me to do, I tried, but it just didn't work." You know who the Word of God personified is, don't you, it's Jesus. Can you imagine Jesus, the Word, coming back to heaven saying, I couldn't do what you sent me to do. I can't imagine that. So God's sovereign Word trumps every card in the human deck, it trumps all of man's will and man's power and man's purpose and man's plans. As Isaiah 14:26-27 said, "This is the plan determined for the whole world, this is the hand stretched out over all nations. For the Lord Almighty has purposed and who can thwart him. His hand is stretched out and who can turn it back." Same is true of the Word, God's Word wins, every time it wins. Always. Well, in order to make sense of this as we see actually what happens when the Word is preached, when the Gospel is preached, when sermons are preached, when we see actually what happens, we might be troubled by the statement of 100% achievement. So we have to look a little deeper to see what God's purposes might be. And I think God has both a purpose for the elect, and a purpose for the non-elect. And this is meat and not everyone has teeth to chew it, but it's just how the Bible reveals it. We have to understand. God's purpose for the elect is salvation, eternal salvation, and his Word always achieves it, it never fails to bring in one of those that God chose from before the foundation of the world. They 100% get saved and no one gets lost. And so when God sends forth the Gospel in his good time, in his purpose, in his ways at the right time, in the fullness of time, for that individual, they repent and believe. And he doesn't lose any of them. But he also has a purpose for the non-elect, what the Scripture calls a reprobate. And his purpose for them is to harden them. And so the Word goes out, and actually has a hardening effect on some people. They hear the Gospel and their hearts are harder toward God and they're more angry at God and more hostile toward God and they've been hardened by it. This is the absolute sovereignty of God. It's central. Without it we'll not make sense of this 100% success rate for the Word. Hundred percent of the elect will repent and come to Christ. John 6:37, "All that the Father gives me will come to me." And 100% of the non-elect will be hardened into judgment. As it says in Romans 9:18, "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wills to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wills to harden." This happens every time the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached. Some hear and repent and come to salvation through faith in Christ. Others hear the exact same message, and their hearts are hardened and they're more hostile and they refuse to come. The Apostle Paul talked about this in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16, he's talking about his ministry in evangelism and missions. He says, "We", we the evangelists, we the missionaries, "We are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death and to the other we are the fragrance of life." Exact same message, sometimes the fragrance of life and sometimes the stench of death. So God's Word accomplishes everything he sends it to do. It will not return to him empty. So, sometime you may go out as an evangelist and share faithfully the Gospel and use good illustrations and answer whatever questions come up and the person refuses to believe. And if in the end you find out... Now we don't know, they might be elect and coming to faith in Christ a year from now, two years from now. We're always full of good hope, always. But if in the end, it turns out they were goats, they were weeds and not wheat etcetera, you didn't waste your time there, you were sent by God to go share a message that had a hardening effect and that was what God intended. II. God’s Purpose for Us: Rescue, Joy, and Peace (vs. 12) Now we are always yearning, aren't we, always and should be yearning for salvation. We go out with joy, and led forth with peace to see people saved and that's what we yearn for. So we see in verse 12, God's purpose for us, the elect, his children, and that is rescue, joy and peace. "You'll go out in joy and be led forth in peace, the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. And instead of the thorn bush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers, the myrtle will grow." So for the believers, God's purpose is astonishingly sweet. First, he speaks of rescue. You will go out, he says. You'll be led forth. This is Exodus language, do you hear it? They're going out from their slavery. We could see it in terms of the post-exile, go out from bondage and Babylon. You're going to go out from slavery. You're going to go out from sin, you're going to be led forth. You're going to go out from Babylon, and go back to the Promised Land. You're going to go out, earlier, go out from slavery in Egypt, you're going to go live in a beautiful land flowing with milk and honey. You're going to go out from sin from Satan's kingdom. I'm going to break the chains of wickedness and sin and death. I'm going to set you free. I'm going to set you free from death. I'm going to speak your name when you're in the grave and you're going to come out with joy into resurrection. You're going to go out of the grave into a resurrection body and into a resurrected world and you're going to see the beauty and rejoice. You're going to go out with joy and be led forth in peace. And we see the joy, the Gospel comes, you're going to go out with joy, you're going to be filled with elation through the Holy Spirit, your hearts are going to be filled with joy. Foretaste now through the ministry of the Word through the Holy Spirit we get a down payment of joy, the fruit of the Spirit is joy. But then on that resurrection day, what kind of joy will you have when you're free from death, mourning, crying, and pain, for ever. And you're going to be led forth with peace. Peace is a right relationship with God. Having been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And a feeling, a sense of peacefulness in the hear. Again, the gift of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, guarding your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. Yes, but how great will be your peace in Heaven? Can we even imagine what that peacefulness will feel like in heaven, when there are no more enemies, when all of it is done and we are free forever. No more enemies to torment us and to torture us. Sin and Satan, the world and the flesh, the devil, done. And then death, it says in 1 Corinthians 15, the final enemy, we'll talk about that in due time, in the next few weeks. 1 Corinthians 15, death has been destroyed, death has died and we're free from it, and great will be our joy and our peace and we'll celebrate. III. God’s Purpose for Creation: Triumphant Deliverance from the Curse (vs. 12-13) We see in verse 12 and 13 also, God's purpose for creation. And this is triumphant deliverance from the curse. Look what it says, "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow." Friend, salvation is primarily in the Bible focused on what it does for human beings. It's the center piece of his saving work, but it's not all that he's doing, it's not all the saving work of God. What do I mean by that? Well, you know that in Adam, when Adam sinned, as a result of Adam's sin, God cursed the earth. There's a link between Adam and the ground from which he was taken. So God cursed the earth, because of Adam's sin. Remember in Genesis 3:17-19 to Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'you must not eat of it', cursed is the ground because of you. Do you hear those words? "Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil you'll eat of it all the days of your life." Listen, "it will produce thorns and thistles for you." Now, the thorns and thistles represent God's curse on the Earth. It represents crop failure, you see that? I mean you didn't intend thorns and thistles and that's what you got. All your labor produced vanity and emptiness, you didn't get what you thought you would get. It's disappointment, crop failure. So whatever reason, locusts, an early frost, and hail storms, and drought and blights and mildew and all of that. Hurricanes destroys the crops. But the agony goes beyond just thorns and thistles. That's just a symbol of all the convulsions of the earth that have been going on since Adam's sin. I'm talking about earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes and mud slides and tornadoes and all of those natural disasters that just take tens of thousands of human lives. Therefore, in Christ, the curse is removed, and that's symbolized by the fact that when Jesus died, he had a crown of thorns woven together by the Roman soldiers in mockery. But I think in direct symbolic fulfillment of how in Christ, or literally through the blood of Christ, the curse is removed. So here, these thorns are put on his scalp, and then they took a rod and smashed it into his head into his scalp, and they just cut in and just blood starts streaming down his face and that blood removes the curse, it removes the thorns and thistles from the earth. And so we have very plainly said for us in Romans 8, the extent of this saving work on ecology, on nature, on the Earth. It says in Romans 8:19-23, "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility. Not by its own choice, but by the will of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Now, we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time, Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Do you hear that? The physical earth, the creation, is waiting for us to get our resurrection bodies. It's waiting for us to receive our full adoption as sons, in the language of Romans 8. It's waiting for our resurrection. And with that, a new Earth is going to come and it's going to be lavishly beautiful. And in that new world, we're going to go out... I imagine at that point, going out means going out of the New Jerusalem into the New Heaven and the New Earth, and just exploring it and we're going to go out in that new world with joy, and be led forth in peace. And the mountains and the hills are going to burst into song before us. I don't know if they're literally going to sing. That'd be kind of cool. Kind of like mall music or something. I don't know whether it's just worship songs." Where's that coming from?" "I think it's the hills." "The hills are alive", that's terrible, that's really bad. But that just the singing that comes, that's not my gift. We'll let Daniel close us in song in a minute or two. But it's just going to be a happy, rich, full world free from decay and bondage. There's some things I will be glad to never see again. But there's some other things that I would love to see perfected. You know what I'm talking about? You go to some of these national parks, Acadia, the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, just the colors, the sounds. The rolling grassy hills of South Dakota, seen similar in Western China. The spectacular Alps mountains. The beauty of it. Just picture in your mind the most beautiful scenes of nature you've ever seen, and we're not going to kiss it goodbye, we're going to get to live in it, only perfected, better. Not radically different, like some weird sci-fi kind of world, but the world we know, but just free from bondage to decay. And the world, the physical creation is waiting for us to finish getting saved. Us being the elect, waiting for the elect to come to faith in Christ and come into our resurrection body, so it can be liberated from bondage to decay. And it's going to happen. That's God's purpose. IV. God’s Purpose for Himself: Everlasting Glory (vs. 13) And God's purpose for himself in all of this is everlasting glory. Look at verse 13. This is... By the way, people question, "Are we talking about the millennium, here?" Like Isaiah 11, the wolf will lie down with the lamb, and the calf and the lion, the yearling together and all that, and they say this is the millennium. Look, can I just tell you simply, I don't know about the millennium, but 1000 years is not long enough. It's not long enough. Look at verse 13, "This will be for the Lord's renown…" For what? "An everlasting sign which will not be destroyed." That sounds like eternity to me. An eternally blessed world, not a millennium, a thousand years, but eternally blessed. Now the millennium may be well a robust foretaste of it. And I think that's what it is. But God's purpose for himself is to give himself glory. "This will be for the Lord's renown, for his fame. Kings conquering kings build monuments to themselves. Arrogant people build monuments to themselves. Think about the citizens of Babel who said, "Come, let's build a tower that will reach up to the heavens so we can make a name for ourselves." Or I think Saul did that too, remember in 1 Samuel 15. "Saul has gone to Carmel, there he set up a monument in his own honor." Oh boy, that's bad. Absalom did it too. Absalom went and set up in the King's Valley a monument to himself. Alexander The Great is probably the worst of this. Alexander the Great founded city after city, after he conquered the ancient Near East, as many as 70 cities, but at least 20 he named after himself, such as Alexandria. One after the next, the most famous is in Egypt, but there are lots of them at least 20 Alexandrias. That's sick. But God, it's not, it's completely right for God to do this to make a name for himself, an everlasting renown monument that will never be cut off. What is it, though? What will be for the Lord's renown? Salvation. His children coming into their resurrection bodies, the world coming into its full glory. This, all of this will be for the Lord's renown, for an everlasting memorial that will never be cut off. So everywhere we look, in the New Heaven and the New Earth, and the New Jerusalem, we'll see the glory of God radiating and we'll say "To God be the glory for this salvation." V. Applications So application as well. This is the final sermon in Isaiah for a while and the sweet invitation in this chapter, we should hear one more time. Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come buy and eat without money, without price, come buy Salvation. Price has been paid already. Look to Christ crucified and resurrected. Trust in Him for the forgiveness of your sins. Don't miss this banquet. And you believers who should be embracing, robustly embracing evangelism, start here. I want you, the lost person, I want you to be at the banquet table with me, I want to tell you how you can get there. There's a yearning that we have for lost people to be saved. A yearning we have that they would come into the joy that we've found in Christ, forgiveness of sins. So, let's flee to Christ now while there's still time. And let's see there's an urgency in all of this to believe. This is the day of salvation, this is the time we have. We don't know how much longer we'll be alive, we don't know when the door of our lives will shut and we don't know when the door of all human history will end, when it's going to close. So we have to seek the Lord while He may be found and call on him. While he is near. And we Christians, we need to live an ongoing life of repentance and faith. We need to see where our ways are wicked and our thoughts are evil. And we can't imagine saying, We have no wicked ways and no evil thoughts, it's just not true. We sin every day. Every day. There's not a single day that goes by that I don't violate in some way, a law of God. I don't love him with all my heart or love my neighbor as myself. And just... The Christian life is one of continual repentance and going to God, whose ways are not our ways, and thoughts are not our thoughts. Fourthly, let's understand the sovereign power of God's Word. Let's have full confidence that this Word is enough to build a healthy church. This Word is enough. We don't need techniques, gizmos, we don't need anything else, we need this Word. This is the center-piece of what the elders want to do to build a healthy church in this community, it's the center-piece. Everything we do, all of the songs that we sing, the counseling we do, the strategies we have for reaching, all of it is based on our confidence that the Word will not return empty. This is what we trust in, we put all of our eggs in this one basket. We're confident that the Word will have its purpose and so therefore, we trust it and we tremble before it. We say, "God work in us and in this community." Fifth, I want you to let the hope of this chapter, fill you with present joy. Just read these things and be happy now. Be filled with joy and peace now. The Holy Spirit is the foretaste, the down payment, let's go and get a stipend check from our incredible inheritance and let's feed on it now and be happy now, and joyful, now. Let's be so imbued with hope that non-Christians want to know, "What is it you have that I don't have?" And let's minister that hope to each other. So many in our church are suffering the curse of disease and pain and death and that's a hard race to run friends, that's a hard race to run. You may have forgotten about so and so who was diagnosed with cancer, like 18 months ago or six months ago, whatever. They haven't forgotten. They fight it every single day, and sometimes their knees get weak and their arms get weak and they need brothers and sisters to stand alongside them and strengthen them. Take these ideas and feed them to our brothers and sisters. And one final thing, evangelism and missions. Look again at verse 11 and 12. "So is my Word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return to me empty, but will achieve what I desire, accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace." I really believe the home base of this is our deliverance from sin. But isn't it okay to think of this in terms of evangelism and missions? We'll go out into the lost world as evangelists with joy. And we're going to be led forth by the Holy Spirit with peace. And creation is going to be really excited about our mission. And just... We can almost hear as a foretaste the mountains and the hills clapping and rejoicing as we go out to share the Gospel. Because this is the very thing that's going to liberate them from the bondage to decay. And so let's be bold in evangelism. We've got four weeks till Easter, and then as many weeks as God wants to give us after. Evangelism works both sides of Easter. Just so you know. I know you know that. Anyway, let's just go out with joy and be led forth with peace and find lost people who need this kind of joy and forgiveness. Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 52:13-53:3. The main subject of the sermon is the incredible suffering Christ endures for His people. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - Introduction: The Great Metropolis of Scripture So I don't know that I've been as excited to preach a sermon as I am right now. I am just crackling with energy and joy. I don't know how to say that, I've been feeling that all day. We come to just one of the great, great passages of Scripture in the Bible as we come Isaiah 53, and I'm just so thrilled to be able to do that. I'm praying that God would be able to just unleash this chapter in our hearts line by line as we contemplate it. On March 15th, 1859, the greatest preacher in England during the 19th century, Charles Spurgeon, preached a sermon entitled Christ Precious to Sinners, and in that he told a story. The story went something like this: "A young man had been preaching in the presence of a venerable divine, and after he had done he went to the old minister, and said, "What do you think of my sermon?" "A very poor sermon indeed," said he. "A poor sermon?" said the young man, "it took me a long time to study it." "Ay, no doubt of it." "Why, did you not think my explanation of the text a very good one?" "Oh, yes," said the old preacher, "very good indeed." "Well, then, why do you say it is a poor sermon? Didn't you think the metaphors were appropriate and the arguments conclusive?" "Yes, they were very good as far as that goes, but still it was a very poor sermon." "Will you tell me why you think it a poor sermon?" "Because," said he, "there was no Christ in it." "Well," said the young man, "Christ was not in the text; we are not to be preaching Christ always, we must preach what is in the text." So the old man said, "Don't you know young man that from every town, and every village, and every little hamlet in England, wherever it may be, there is a road to London?" "Yes," said the young man. "Ah!" said the old divine "and so form every text in Scripture, there is a road to the metropolis of the Scriptures, that is Christ. And my dear brother, your business in when you get to a text, to say, 'Now what is the road to Christ?' and then preach a sermon, running along the road towards the great metropolis—Christ. And," said he, "I have never yet found a text that had not got a road to Christ in it, and if I ever do find one that has not a road to Christ in it, I will make one; I will go over hedge and ditch but I would get at my Master, for the sermon cannot do any good unless there is a savour of Christ in it." Well, I can testify, sometimes it actually is hard to find that road to Christ, but not today. Actually, I think there's an eight-lane super highway from Isaiah 53 to the great metropolis of Scripture that is Christ. There's not merely a savor of Christ, there is a Thanksgiving banquet from the kitchen, just the aromas are going to fill our hearts and our minds as we study this incredible chapter, Isaiah 53. 1 Corinthians 15 says that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. It says there in verse 3 and 4, "For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance. That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures." It is vital for us as Christians to embrace the centrality of prophecy in our faith, when it comes to the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our salvation is based on the unshakable rock of fulfilled prophecy. Now this should not surprise us, as we've been going carefully chapter by chapter through the Book of Isaiah. We've seen this again and again, that God proclaims his unique ability to foretell the future. He's the only one that can do it. We've seen this in Isaiah 46, in verse 10. There God says, "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, 'My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please." And then again in Isaiah 44, in verse 26, "The Lord carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers." No prophecy of Scripture is as important as this one. This was the central point of it all, this was why God raised up Abraham and from Abraham the Jewish nation. This was why God restored the Jewish nation back to the promised land after the exile to Babylon. This was the whole point of the Bible, this is it. Salvation for sinners to the ends of the earth. This is the whole point of it all. In Isaiah 53, we come to the most brilliantly shining star in the cosmos of the written Word of God, predictive prophecy, the clearest prophecy of the death and resurrection of Jesus, of his substitutionary atonement for our sins. Christ’s Forty-Day Seminary Now after Christ had died and rose from the dead on the third day, he had the equivalent of a 40-day seminary with his apostles, and with his disciples concerning Scriptures testimony to him. They talked about other things, but especially that. It began with those two disciples on the road to Emmaus. You remember that whole encounter? And Jesus was, in some way, incognito to people who knew him well, but there's just mysteries around his resurrection and he's walking falls and step along with these two disciples who are downcast, they're depressed, they're discouraged as they're walking with the resurrected Christ. Isn't that us? We're depressed and discouraged when we ought not to be, and they're moaning and groaning and saying, "We had hoped that he was going to be the one who was going to redeem Israel," all those kind of thing. "And now our women have confused us because there's some report of an empty tomb and we can't make sense of any of it." And Jesus says, "How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he showed them what was written in there about himself." Any chance you think he went to Isaiah 53? I think absolutely. Or, again, think about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch where the Holy Spirit told Philip, to run up to a chariot where there's this Ethiopian official, and he is reading a scroll of prophecy, happened to be Isaiah 53 and he can't make sense of it. And the Holy Spirit told him to go and stand and come alongside that Chariot. And the eunuch invited him in and he was reading this passage of Scripture, "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before it's shearer is silence, so He did not open his mouth, and his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who will relate to His generation, for his life was removed from the earth." The eunuch answered Philip and said, "Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?" Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him. Isaiah 53 is about Jesus and no one else. There's never been any other fulfillment of these words. There was never an immediate fulfillment and then a later fulfillment, it's only ever been about Jesus of Nazareth. Modern Tendency to Find Other Explanations Now there's a modern tendency to find other explanations. Some will tell you that Isaiah 53 is about the sufferings of the Jewish nation, how the Jewish nation plays the role of the suffering servant in history, human history. Others ascribe Isaiah 53 to some individual, Isaiah himself or Jeremiah or another of the prophets or even strangers, some mysterious unknown person. No one knows who this individual is, but despite the fact that the text says this person is going to be very famous and the whole world will know about him. It doesn't make any sense. First of all, can we just set aside, there is no way Isaiah 53 is talking about the Jewish nation. No way. Why would I say that? Well simply put, the chapter presents the suffering servant as clearly innocent, guiltless, blameless. Do you get the sense from Isaiah the prophet that he thinks the nation of Jews was innocent, guiltless and blameless? Not at all, from the very beginning of the book, chapter after chapter he's laying out the sins of his people. Even stranger, look at Isaiah 53:8, Isaiah 53:8 says, "For He," whoever we're talking about, the suffering servant, "Was cut off from the land of the living," he died, "For the transgression of my people, he was punished." Well, wait a minute, okay, who are Isaiah's people? When he says, "My people," who would you think he's talking about? That verse makes no sense of the suffering servant as Israel. How can Israel die for the sins of Israel except in judgment and punishment, certainly not redemptively. Israel was looking for a redeemer, one who would pay the price, to rescue Israel from sin and Isaiah 53 says who paid the price for Israel's sin, and it is Jesus. So here we come to the Mount Everest of predictive prophecy, what is our strategy going to be for scaling it? First of all, we're not doing it in one sermon. I hope you know that. There's no chance, unless you want to be here for hours, which you don't, neither do I. I'll run out of energy. But this week, what we're going to do is take a quick overview of the whole chapter. Division of the chapter into five sub-sections of three verses each. We're going to focus on the central doctrine of this chapter, which is the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, the son of God, for us, for our sins, and that by faith in him, we are forgiven, we are justified. That's the central message, it's the gospel. We're going to go carefully today through, God willing, the first two sub-sections, and we're going to seek to apply those verses to our lives. Then over the next two weeks, God willing, we're going to go through the rest of the sub-sections and seek to apply them. Now, if I can just say... And I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus here, but Isaiah 52-53, is the worst chapter subdivision in the entire Bible. Okay, Isaiah 52 verses 13-15 should have been included in Isaiah 53. So I'm giving them the honorary status of Isaiah 53 today, is that okay? Can we just call them Isaiah 53, early version, something like that? Actually, John Calvin called it a dismemberment. I think that's pretty humorous. It's like you picture an arm lying on a sidewalk. So we're just going to roll right through from Isaiah 52 into 53 and treat it all as what it should have been, one chapter, agreed? Okay, we're going to do that. I. A Four Part Outline of the Chapter(s) Alright, now five sub-divisions of this section, first, Christ repulsive, but redemptive, then exalted. That's 52:13-15. Second sub-section will title this way, Christ the arm of the Lord, but human and despised," verses one through three. Third subsection, Christ rejected, but our atoning substitute, verses four through six. Fourth subsection, Christ innocent, but willing to be slaughtered, verses seven through nine. And then the final subsection, Christ crushed so we could be justified, verses 10 through 12. So those are just some titles we could give to those. The central doctrine of Isaiah 53 is the substitutionary atonement. The idea that someone could die in our place, that sinners like us might be justified by faith in him. That's the central doctrine, really, of the whole Bible. So, let's go briefly over the... All these sub-sections. First, Christ repulsive but redemptive then exiled, chapter 52:13-15. So Christ is presented as one who will be successful then raised up, lifted up, highly exalted, verse 13. Yet we're also told he's going to be appalling to look at, he's going to be so disfigured so badly that he will be barely recognizable as a human being. Verse 14, but this disfigurement of the servant and the Lord is the way by which he's actually going to sprinkle many nations. We're going to talk about that. The word sprinkle we're going to discuss, but it means cleansing them from sin, making them pure in God's sight. This is the very one who's going to be proclaimed even to kings and they're going to shut their mouths because of him, because they're suddenly going to hear about him, they're going to hear this message, and they're going to believe in him, first subsection. The second subsection, Christ the “Arm of the Lord,” But Human and Despised, verses 1-3. So the next two subsections trace out simply the biography of Jesus Christ, just trace out the events of his life. It begins with an assertion though, that the message must be believed, that the suffering servant must be revealed by God or you will never see him. I could preach a thousand sermons on Isaiah 53 and if God does not reveal Jesus to you, you'll never see him as glorious. You will not see him properly. "The message must be believed, that the suffering servant must be revealed by God or you will never see him. I could preach a thousand sermons on Isaiah 53 and if God does not reveal Jesus to you, you'll never see him as glorious." He is revealed here as the arm of the Lord, the mighty power of God for the salvation of sinners. He will work for the deliverance, and redemption and salvation of his people. But then he is portrayed as human, he grew up before the Lord out of dry ground, he's a root growing up in dry ground. So not only is he human, he is unimpressive, he is weak, he's unattractive, he has nothing in his appearance that would make people follow him, still less worship him as God. He is despised and rejected, despised means thought little of, and rejected effectively by the will of people, they will say, "No," to him. People will be horrified by his appearance, he'll be held in low esteem. Verses 4-6, Christ rejected but he is our atoning substitute, this is the theological center of the Bible, this idea of substitutionary atonement. Christ takes up our pain, he dies for our sins. He was pierced for our transgressions, he's crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. Jesus thus gives health to diseased people, dying people. He gives health to them and life, and he gives peace to wicked rebels who are in rebellion against God, the King. And he does all of this at the cost of his own life. Verse six, "All we like sheep have gone astray," each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Fourth sub-section, Christ is innocent, but willing to be slaughtered. Verses seven through nine, Isaiah unfolds a shocking truth and that is the ultimate... The limitation and ultimate end of the animal sacrificial system. The essence of sin was willfulness. We willingly rebelled, we were not forced to sin, we chose to sin. An animal cannot atone for that willful sin, because it has no choice but to die. But Christ by his willingness to die in our place is able to atone for our sins. So this suffering man was exactly like a sheep led to the slaughter, in that he died. The killers led and Jesus meekly followed. But unlike the sheep that were led to the slaughter, Jesus knew exactly where he was going. It says in John's gospel, "Jesus knowing all things that were about to happen to him went forth." He's very well aware of what's happening, and he's willingly laying down his life. He's completely innocent, there's no violence in his actions, there's no wickedness in his speech, he was a perfect man, sinless, but dead in our place. The prophetic details here are significant. You have words like pierced, he dies by piercing. Not everyone has... Actually most people don't die by piercing, but Jesus did, he died by piercing. And it says he was buried in a rich man's tomb. That's not true of everyone. As a matter of fact, it's true of very few people in the world. Most people die as poor people because most people are poor. But Jesus was pierced, and buried in a rich man's tomb. Christ finally in the fifth sub-section was crushed so we could be justified, verses 10 through 12. It was God's will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer. All of this was done according to an amazing, and eternal plan crafted by Almighty God from before the foundation of the world. It was God's pleasure to do this. God delighted, in a mysterious way delighted to crush His son and cause Him to suffer? Not because he loved his son suffering. No, not at all. But for the joy that was set before both of them, he endured that. He was delighted in that suffering in terms of what it would produce. And His finished work, verse 11 says it all, Christ's resurrection completes our salvation and by his finished work many are justified, declared not guilty of their sins in God's sight. How amazing is all of this? That it was written seven centuries before Jesus was born. We're going to talk more next week about the miraculous aspect of this, so I'll just set that idea aside. We are the sheep constantly going astray are we not? We are the sheep. We are the wicked rebels, we are the ones made sick by our sin, and we are the ones at war with God. And before all nations, God lays bare His holy arm in the form amazingly of his frail, unimpressive-looking son, whom we as a race despised and rejected. This one carried our infinitely heavy load. He died under the infinitely fierce wrath of God, He was buried uniquely in a rich man's tomb, this same one rose from the dead, and now enjoys looking at his spiritual offspring for all eternity, from every nation on Earth. That's Isaiah 53. II. Christ Repulsive, But Redemptive, then Exalted (52:13-15) Alright, now let's look in details at the first two sub-sections. That's just an overview, we'll probably do it again next week. So Isaiah 52, as I've said is the beginning of 53, we'll start at verse 13 with the words, "Behold," most translations retain the word behold. And I love the word behold, "Behold my servant." So it's like Jesus just unveiled, like a curtain moving back, "Behold, my servant." This is the fourth of the servant songs in Isaiah. This is the fourth and last one. We've seen this idea, my servant before, this is the fourth. Isaiah 42:1-4 was the first one. It presented the servant and the Lord as one with a mission to the nations. You remember that was the "Bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he'll not snuff out"? He's the gentle King, who's going to go advance from victory to victory through gentleness, he's going to build a kingdom through gentleness. The first servant song Isaiah 42. The second was Isaiah 49, where it is told to Jesus by the father, "It's too small a thing for you to be my servant, to save the people of Israel. I'll make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." Isaiah 49 that was the second of the servant songs. The third... By the way, in that second one, he's presented as someone who's going to have difficulties in advancing but he's going to overcome. It's going to be somewhat discouraging but he's going to overcome that. Now Isaiah 50 versus four through nine, the third of the servant songs presents in great detail some of the sufferings this servant will have to go through. And there he speaks for himself, he speaks in the first person, and he speaks of his willingness to be abused for the will of the Lord, he didn't hide his face from mocking and spitting, he didn't stop people from shredding his back. Yet, in that text, no reason is given for this abuse. Now, when we get to the fourth servant song now we get the reason, it's substitutionary atonement. He's dying for our sins, he's dying that we might be justified. And so all of it comes together. This is the fourth of the servant song. So Jesus is the servant of the Lord, he's a servant of God, he came down not to do his own will, but to do the will of him who sent him. He was the servant of God. And we're told here right away in verse 13, "Behold, my Servant will prosper greatly; he shall rise, and be exalted, and be lifted up exceedingly." Just like Isaiah 42, this predicts the success of the servant. He's going to succeed, he's going to do very well. The Hebrew word translated prosper greatly here is often used of David or other heroes, whose success is in some way linked to their wisdom. So sometimes you get, "My servant will act wisely." You get sometimes that translation. It's prosperity through wisdom, success through wisdom, dealing prudently. Because of his wisdom, he's going to be exalted to exceeding heights. Isaiah uses three verbs to talk about how highly exalted Jesus will be, he will raised and lifted up and highly exalted. It's just not enough. Any one word is just isn't enough for how exalted he's going to be. The text will describe and we're about to get into it, the great humiliation of Jesus. As a matter of fact, that's going to be most of the journey the rest of the way. How degraded, how appalling was his appearance. But he will not stay humiliated. In the end, he's going to be exalted and raised and lifted up. I can't help but think of Philippians 2:9-11: "Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father." I get that even in this, "My servant… will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted." No one is more highly exalted than Jesus Christ, and no one deserves it more. Because there was no one who was more humbled and humiliated, and degraded than Jesus. Jesus is at the right hand of Almighty God, right now with a 100 million angels worshipping him. With Seraphim, the burning ones covering their own faces, because he dwells in unapproachable light. That's how highly exalted Jesus is. The Stunning Degradation of the Servant of the Lord So, from this initial assertion of Jesus final victory and exaltation, the next many verses unlock, unfold, the lowliness, and degradation and humiliation of Jesus, and begins in verse 14. "Just as there were many who were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind." So it's interesting he puts in the second person there, not every translation picks it up, but he addresses the servant. Like Isaiah can't stay out of it, he wants to talk to him or maybe God the Father. And here we have the watching world looking on in horror. Many who are astonished at Jesus, astonished at his appearance, it's disgusting, it's degrading. As a matter of fact, his appearance will be so completely degraded that it will get to the point where he's barely recognizable even as a human being. The onlookers will not wonder, "Is this the servant?" They'll wonder, "Is this human? Is it even human?" Well, I think this is clearly fulfilled at the very end of Jesus' life when the flogging had shredded his back. The 39 lashes, and the beatings that he took around the face had puffed it up with horrible bruises and lacerations. What did his face look like? They smashed, they put that crown of thorns on him, and they smashed his head, the thorns into His scalp, and they beat him about the face and it must have been puffy and bruised and blood all over. It was repulsive. Barely recognizable as human at that point. And he had nails that were pulverizing his hands, and his feet, and on the cross, he's making this disgusting convulsive effort to breathe, as he pushes up on the nails in His feet, so he can just gulp for breath and then sinks back down, and pushes back up and gulps for breath and sinks back down. It's like you can't even look at it. It's hard to describe it. Total physical degradation, like one from whom men hide their faces, nobody wants to see that. In verse 15, we have the reason for this degradation and that is atonement. We're going to get it again and again. Isaiah is going to be so clear about all this. In verse 15, it says, "Even so" through that degradation, through the crushing of the servant, "Even so that is how he will sprinkle many nations." So there's a linking between verse 14 and 15. The crushing leads to the sprinkling, that's the way he will sprinkle the nations. Now, what does this word, "Sprinkle," mean? How do we understand it? Again these specific words can't be explained away. Sprinkled, pierced, rich man's tomb. These things just don't go away, they don't line up with the nation of Israel at all. So how does he sprinkle many nations? Well, this is an atoning word, very important in the animal sacrificial system, very important in the Levitical priesthood. All things were cleansed by the shedding of blood, it says in the Book of Hebrews, and so you've got this blood being sprinkled all over the tabernacle, and sprinkled on every... Sprinkled on Aaron when he's in his in priestly vestments. It's sprinkled everywhere, it's just used to cleanse from sin. The implication is everything we touched is defiled with sin, and the only way to be cleanses by the atoning blood of the sacrifice, that's the clear image of the animal sacrificial system. So in the book of Leviticus chapter 14 it talks about lepers, for example, how are they cleansed and made ceremonially clean? How does that happen? It says, "This shall be the law of the leprous person for the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest... and the priest shall sacrifice a bird and he shall sprinkle the blood seven times on the one to be cleansed of the leprous disease and he shall be pronounced clean." Same Hebrew word, sprinkled. We are spiritually lepers in the sight of God, repulsive, disgusting, defiled. But the good news of the Gospel is that we can... We are made clean by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. By this sprinkling we are made cleansed, by this sprinkling we are atoned for. And who does it say that he's going to sprinkle here? Many nations. This one event in Jewish history, this one Jewish man is not the savior for the Jews, alone, but for the Gentiles too to the ends of the earth, many nations. So, we have in Revelation 5:9, so beautifully that image from Heaven and they're praising the lamb who is slain. It says, "You were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God, from every tribe and language and people and nation." So just putting it together, we could say the same thing. You were slain, and with your blood, you sprinkled men for God from every tribe, language, people, and nation. Next, it talks about the worship of kings. Kings are going to hear about this, they're going to hear about Jesus from missionaries and they will shut their mouth in astonishment about him. Look at verse 15, "Kings will shut their mouths because of him for what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand." Jesus is the glorious king of kings, even better, he's the savior of kings, Amen. He saves kings from their sins. Now, not many are wise, not many are influential, not many of noble birth, not many kings get saved, but some do. That's why in 1 Timothy 2, we should pray for kings and those in authority, because they actually might get saved. They actually might be saved. So I think about stories from missions history here I could just go on and on about the number of times messengers of the gospel, have come to a community and the first person they get dragged in front of is the king. And they have to make an account, they have to give a presentation to the king, and sometimes God gives grace to their king and they get saved, and with him the whole village, the whole community, it happens again and again. Look up the story of Columba with King Bridei of the Picts, great story. Columba, the king wouldn't let him in. He's forced to stay outside the city gates. So he sits there and prays for days and it's getting embarrassing. So finally, Bridei invites Columba in and he preaches the Gospel comes to faith in Christ. Awesome story. The Picts in Scotland. Again and again, kings are going to hear this thing, and they're going to see and understand through proclamation. III. Christ the “Arm of the Lord,” But Human and Despised (53:1-3) That brings us immediately to the next section verses one through three. Christ is the arm of the Lord, but he is human and despised. First of all, right away in verse one, we have this assertion that this message is hard to be believed but it must be believed. It's hard to believe this, it's hard to accept all this. Look at verse one, "Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Again, we've got the clear idea here of a message, a report, words being delivered by messengers even to the ends of the earth. So, some report's going to go out. And we know from Romans 10:17, it says that faith comes by hearing the report of Christ. That's one translation. So faith comes when you hear this message proclaimed if God gives you the grace of faith. Then justification comes when faith has come. When you hear this message proclaimed and then God gives you repentance and faith, God sees the very repentance of faith, he just gave you and then He justifies you, forgives you, declares you not guilty of all your sins. That's how sinners are saved. And notice it says, "Who has believed our message?" There's a plural there. Now, there are different ways to understand that plural. Let's start with a simple one. He's thinking about the nation of Israel. And so, the our would be God plus Isaiah. So it's almost like the prophet is saying back, "God who's going to believe this? Our message, the message you've entrusted to me, it's our message, who has believed our message?" And then after that the church is collective proclaim messages. This is our report, our message. Now this message is going to be very difficult to accept. Very difficult to believe. Only as Christ is revealed, by God the Father, through the Spirit will anyone believe this message, look again in verse 1, "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Unveiled, unveiled. We all have this veil in front of us and someone comes and preaches if God doesn't sovereignly pull the veil back from the eyes of your heart, you will never ever believe this. God must work on you or you won't believe this. So there's a joint effort, a cooperation here between the prophet representing human messengers, so missionaries, pastors, friends, co-workers, evangelists, our message and God revealing the arm of the Lord. It's a complete cooperation, the message must be proclaimed by human messengers, plus revealed by the Spirit of God or you will not get saved. This is justification by faith alone, apart from works. Now, Christ is the arm of the Lord. This is the shocker. Christ is clearly human and we'll get into that more and more as we unfold the chapter, but he is called here the arm of the Lord. He is sent by God to save us in our wretchedness and sinfulness and disease and suffering in warfare and rebellion and death. He is the power of God for saving sinners like us, he's the arm of the Lord, the omnipotence of the Lord. He is it. Now, we already had a mention of the arm of the Lord in Isaiah 52:10. Look back maybe just a couple of verses, and it says, Isaiah 52:10, "The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God." Well, the arm of the Lord is Jesus. He is God's power for salvation for sinners like us. And how delightful is that? But what we got was not some awesome display of omnipotence. You got Jesus, you got the one on... He's the lamb of God, what's a lamb like? You've got the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, and landing on him. This is a picture of a lamb with a dove on it. I'm thinking, gentleness. I'm thinking someone who sinners feel attracted to and they're willing to come and be with and talk to and they feel confident telling their sins to him because they know that he's a friend for sinners. Children, I get the picture of children just climbing all over him and sitting in his lap, and he's putting his hands on them and praying for them, and they just love being with him. You can't fool kids, kids get scared easily, and they weren't scared of Jesus. And so how was he, this human being, the arm of the Lord, for the power of God in the world? But he was, gentle with sinners, but claiming to be God in the flesh, and this was the very stumbling block of Christ. The arm of the Lord had to be revealed or no one would see it. He'll be human, definitely human, and that's something Jesus' enemies could not accept that he could be human and God. At one point, his enemies were picking up stones to kill him. And Jesus said, "I've shown you many good works from the Father, for which of these are you stoning me?" "We are not stoning you for any work, but for blasphemy because you a mere man, claim to be God." That's a stumbling block. How could a human be God? As a matter of fact, this is exactly what they nailed him on. And his trial before the Jews... Before the high priest, they weren't getting anywhere with their false witnesses, they didn't have enough time to throw it together and do it well, and they did it very badly in the middle of the night. And the stories weren't corroborating, it was bad. So finally the high priest breaking every rule of Jewish jurisprudence directly addressed the accused and says, "Tell us under oath by the living God are you the Son of God." And Jesus answered, "I am." And the high priest shouted, "Blasphemy," and he tore his robs. That's what convicted him, that's what... It was for blasphemy that he was killed because He claimed to be God. Now without the arm of the Lord being revealed, you'll never see Jesus as God. Only by the Father's will, through the Spirit does this happen, like it happened to Simon Peter, at Caesarea Philippi, he said, "What about you…who do you say that I am?" Peter said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And then Jesus said, "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood but by my Father in Heaven." If the father doesn't reveal all this to you, you'll never see it, never. But you'll have to hear it like you're hearing it now and you've heard it now. I've said it probably seven times, I said the Gospel already probably seven times. I might say it seven more. You've heard though. Question is, has the arm on the Lord been revealed to you? That's the question. It says in 1 Corinthians 12:3, "No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit," that's the only way it's going to happen. Now, we have in verse 2, the unimpressive origin and appearance of Christ. Verse 2, "He grew up before Him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him." So this brings us to the humanity of Christ. He sprang up out of the stump of the tree of Jesse, Isaiah 11. The Jewish nation was an enslaved people. They're dominated by Rome. No Davidic king had reined since the exile to Babylon. So it's just a sterile Jewish history, a sterile Jewish life at that point. No power, no strength, they're dominated enslaved people. The Davidic lineage is like an honorary title that meant nothing. Joseph was called "The Son of David," by the angel. It doesn't mean much he was a carpenter. It didn't get him much to be a son of David. So there's nothing there. He grew up like a tender shoot out of dry ground, nothing going on. He was conceived supernaturally with a human mother Mary, but he had no human Father. God was his father, but he was born in the ordinary way, a very normal ordinary appearance into the world. Now, it was an unusual circumstance he's there in a barn I guess, a cave maybe where some animals were. But other than some unusual things like the angel appearing and the star and all that, it just was a normal birth. He was fully human, he was born in the normal way. And if you'd been there it'd be like, "Yeah, this is God?" I'm sure Mary even wondered that. I mean, she knew what had happened in her body but just the wonder of it. It was just hard to accept because you just look like a normal baby. And then he grew up as babies do. And he was a toddler, Jesus, the toddler. It's hard to think of it but there he was. And it says in Luke 2:52, "And He grew in wisdom, and stature and favor with God and men." It means he just progressed in the normal way with one big difference. I know, you veteran parents, you know, the one big difference he never sinned. He never sinned. How would you like to be Jesus' younger brother? "Why can't you be like your older brother? He's never caused us any trouble except that one time when he was 12 and he was behind in his father's house, but other than that that wasn't really his fault, that was us." So no sin. But despite Gnostic Gospels and the weirdness there, he didn't do any miracles. His first miracle was the changing of the water into wine, wedding at Cana in Galilee. So you don't have... You just have a normal human growth and that's hard to accept that he was God. They struggled with this, "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary? Aren't his brothers, James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?" They took offense at him. He had a human body, a true human body, all of its weakness. There was nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Now, on the mountain of transfiguration he pulled back the veil just briefly, so Peter, James, and John could see the heavenly glory flowing through Jesus, radiant glory, but then he shut it down again. Just in everyday life, he just looked like a normal human being. And I would say even within this humanity, there was nothing extraordinary about him. Like remember Saul, King Saul, he was a head taller than any of his other fellows. It was like, "Oh this guy he's going to be the king." There was nothing about that with Jesus, very average looking I think, like anybody else, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. If you lived back then, and you'd seen him even if you saw the miracles, even if you saw Lazarus raised from the dead, you wouldn't believe in him except that God revealed him to you, it's the only way. Scripture is clear about this. None of his miracles, or words, or deeds, or any of it would have converted you unless the Father had revealed Christ to your heart. Jesus was designed to be ordinary-looking. He was not especially handsome or tall or powerfully built, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Verse three, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we held him in low-esteem." So far from being attracted to Jesus by looking at him, his own people, despised and rejected him. "None of [Jesus]his miracles, or words, or deeds, or any of it would have converted you unless the Father had revealed Christ to your heart" The Servant Despised and Rejected Now, the word despise does not mean so much hated here, he was hated, but it meant they thought little of him, they underestimated Jesus. They put him lower than he really was. But beyond that they rejected him, they listened to his words, they saw his works, and they rejected him, "Not this man, but Barabbas," they said. They rejected him. He's also called here, a man of sorrows, an amazing title for the Son of God, the Lord of glory. Do you realize that Jesus is redeeming us to bring us into the presence of a perfectly 100% all the time Happy God? Isn't that awesome? We're going to a perfectly happy place. Psalm 16 says, "In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." That's who God is, he's a pleasure being all the time. And yet his son is called the man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. So he left all of that perfect joy behind to become a man of sorrows and well, well acquainted with pain. And by his perfect compassion, he felt acutely the miseries of the people he came to save. His heart's moved with compassion again, and again. He sucked miseries, out of life, the way a hiker sucks rattlesnake poison out of the bite in the leg of a friend who's dying. He sucked it out. People would come up and he would draw their misery and their sorrow and suffering and pain and grief and disease into himself, so that they could be healed and at peace and forgiven and restored. So he was a man of sorrows, and well-acquainted with suffering. His education in suffering, He learned obedience through what He suffered, his education in suffering reached its pinnacle at the cross, that's where he learned ultimate suffering there. He would die a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering like one from whom men hide their faces. IV. Applications So what application can we take of these first two sub-sections? Well, begin with this, "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Have you believed this message? Have you believed that this Jesus of Nazareth really is God? He really is glorious, up at the right hand of God? Have you believed that you are a sinner, that you are broken and crushed by your sin, that you need a savior, and Jesus is the only one there is? There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Can I just plead with you, call on the name of the Lord to be saved. Don't leave here unconverted. Don't leave here lost. Plead with God to reveal Christ to you. I've been praying for this, I've been praying for this moment that you would hear and believe, hear with faith. I have to believe there are people here listening to me, that are still on the outside looking in, they're lost, you're lost. And if you don't believe this report you will be condemned eternally, to hell. Jesus came to drink hell in for you so you wouldn't have to suffer it, trust in Jesus, please. Secondly, marvel at the miracle of Scripture. I'm going to talk more about this at the beginning of next week's sermon, but just marvel at this book, this book is a miracle. These words were 700 years, written 700 years before Jesus was born, marvel at it. Thirdly, exalt Christ higher than you do. I'm talking to Christians now. He's still too low in your estimation, you still think too little of Jesus. In that sense, you still despise him, you don't esteem him properly, even as a Christian. And so I don't think there's anything wrong, everything right with you going to God and say, "Pour out your spirit on me so I'd have a greater estimation of Jesus than I ever did before. I just want to see the greatness of Christ. I want to be able to worship him better than I ever have in my life. I want to labor on my worship, my life of worship, I don't worship him, like I should, I honestly don't. And I want to." Fourthly, meditate on Christ's immeasurable suffering for you in this chapter, meditate on it, think about his suffering. Think about what he went through for you. Never... If you're a Christian, or a child of God never, ever feel unloved again by God, ever, he has loved you with a perfect love by pouring out his wrath on his Son. He loves you. It's immeasurable. God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Meditate on the sufferings of Christ. Now, I'm not saying as a medieval mystic would meditate on the five wounds of Jesus, and they did weird things with... I'm not saying all that, but just go over the words of Isaiah 53, and think about what he did for you, think about his piercing, think about the blood he shed for you, cling to it. Meditate on that as a measurement of Christ's love for you. If you're going through suffering right now, whatever it may be, I don't know, there are all different types of suffering, but if you're going through suffering right now, and you're tempted to think God doesn't love you, see in the wounds of the cross, the way to stop that kind of thinking. Joseph Hart in his hymn, "Come ye sinners, poor and needy," put it in these words, "View him prostrate in the garden. On the ground your maker lies, on the bloody tree behold him. Sinner, will this not suffice? Isn't that enough for you?" Behold, him on the bloody tree by faith and ask... Hear Joseph Hart's question, "Sinner, will this not suffice? Is this enough?" Is it enough for you? Is it enough for your guilty conscience? Is it enough for your extreme trial and your misery, your diagnosis? Is it enough for your future? Enough for your financial troubles? Is it enough to satisfy you? God loves you, the Christ loves you with a love that cannot be measured. Keep in mind that the Apostle John saw Jesus in heaven looking like a lamb that was slain. Jesus maintained the emblems of his suffering, and he will have for all eternity. Let a healthy meditation on the sufferings of Christ in Isaiah 53 calm you and assure you of God's love for you. Fifth, Lord, who has believed our message? Feed your faith with this book. I'm speaking to Christians, feed on this. Be in the word every single day, don't miss a day. Feed your faith by... It doesn't just have to be Isaiah 53 but feed your faith with the word of God. If you are not seeing Christ in the eyes of your heart, like you should is because you're not in the Word. So get in the Word, feed on it. Six, do not judge the progress of Christ's Kingdom by mere appearance. It doesn't look like as glorious as it will be. Just like Jesus, you can't judge him by mere appearance, you can't judge the church by mere appearance either. The church is going to be awesome, it's going to be radiant and glorious. Right now, it looks down trodden, oppressed, small, insignificant, doesn't seem like much is happening, but don't be deceived just as Jesus cannot be seen by mere appearance, so also the work of Christ cannot. And so therefore, pastors, elders, church leaders need to trust the clear proclamation of Christ crucified and resurrected to do the work of the ministry. We don't need gimmicks, we don't need... We don't need to measure by externals and all that. Let's trust that the proclamation of this message will build the church and don't judge by mere appearance. Seventh, feel the ministry of Christ as a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering and imitate him. We just want to be safe and secure and protected. Jesus left security and protection and honor to become a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. We're like, "Well, I'm glad he did it for me," but are you willing to do it for others? Are you willing to get out of your comfort zone and go become more familiar with suffering, than you've ever become before? So that you can suck the poison of sin and suffering out of people's lives by a clear ministry of the Word of God. Close with me in prayer.

Evolution of the God Concept Among the Hebrews (1062.1) 97:0.1 THE spiritual leaders of the Hebrews did what no others before them had ever succeeded in doing — they deanthropomorphized their God concept without converting it into an abstraction of Deity comprehensible only to philosophers. Even common people were able to regard the matured concept of Yahweh as a Father, if not of the individual, at least of the race. (1062.2) 97:0.2 The concept of the personality of God, while clearly taught at Salem in the days of Melchizedek, was vague and hazy at the time of the flight from Egypt and only gradually evolved in the Hebraic mind from generation to generation in response to the teaching of the spiritual leaders. The perception of Yahweh’s personality was much more continuous in its progressive evolution than was that of many other of the Deity attributes. From Moses to Malachi there occurred an almost unbroken ideational growth of the personality of God in the Hebrew mind, and this concept was eventually heightened and glorified by the teachings of Jesus about the Father in heaven. 1. Samuel — First of the Hebrew Prophets (1062.3) 97:1.1 Hostile pressure of the surrounding peoples in Palestine soon taught the Hebrew sheiks they could not hope to survive unless they confederated their tribal organizations into a centralized government. And this centralization of administrative authority afforded a better opportunity for Samuel to function as a teacher and reformer. (1062.4) 97:1.2 Samuel sprang from a long line of the Salem teachers who had persisted in maintaining the truths of Melchizedek as a part of their worship forms. This teacher was a virile and resolute man. Only his great devotion, coupled with his extraordinary determination, enabled him to withstand the almost universal opposition which he encountered when he started out to turn all Israel back to the worship of the supreme Yahweh of Mosaic times. And even then he was only partially successful; he won back to the service of the higher concept of Yahweh only the more intelligent half of the Hebrews; the other half continued in the worship of the tribal gods of the country and in the baser conception of Yahweh. (1062.5) 97:1.3 Samuel was a rough-and-ready type of man, a practical reformer who could go out in one day with his associates and overthrow a score of Baal sites. The progress he made was by sheer force of compulsion; he did little preaching, less teaching, but he did act. One day he was mocking the priest of Baal; the next, chopping in pieces a captive king. He devotedly believed in the one God, and he had a clear concept of that one God as creator of heaven and earth: “The pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he has set the world upon them.” (1063.1) 97:1.4 But the great contribution which Samuel made to the development of the concept of Deity was his ringing pronouncement that Yahweh was changeless, forever the same embodiment of unerring perfection and divinity. In these times Yahweh was conceived to be a fitful God of jealous whims, always regretting that he had done thus and so; but now, for the first time since the Hebrews sallied forth from Egypt, they heard these startling words, “The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for he is not a man, that he should repent.” Stability in dealing with Divinity was proclaimed. Samuel reiterated the Melchizedek covenant with Abraham and declared that the Lord God of Israel was the source of all truth, stability, and constancy. Always had the Hebrews looked upon their God as a man, a superman, an exalted spirit of unknown origin; but now they heard the onetime spirit of Horeb exalted as an unchanging God of creator perfection. Samuel was aiding the evolving God concept to ascend to heights above the changing state of men’s minds and the vicissitudes of mortal existence. Under his teaching, the God of the Hebrews was beginning the ascent from an idea on the order of the tribal gods to the ideal of an all-powerful and changeless Creator and Supervisor of all creation. (1063.2) 97:1.5 And he preached anew the story of God’s sincerity, his covenant-keeping reliability. Said Samuel: “The Lord will not forsake his people.” “He has made with us an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.” And so, throughout all Palestine there sounded the call back to the worship of the supreme Yahweh. Ever this energetic teacher proclaimed, “You are great, O Lord God, for there is none like you, neither is there any God beside you.” (1063.3) 97:1.6 Theretofore the Hebrews had regarded the favor of Yahweh mainly in terms of material prosperity. It was a great shock to Israel, and almost cost Samuel his life, when he dared to proclaim: “The Lord enriches and impoverishes; he debases and exalts. He raises the poor out of the dust and lifts up the beggars to set them among princes to make them inherit the throne of glory.” Not since Moses had such comforting promises for the humble and the less fortunate been proclaimed, and thousands of despairing among the poor began to take hope that they could improve their spiritual status. (1063.4) 97:1.7 But Samuel did not progress very far beyond the concept of a tribal god. He proclaimed a Yahweh who made all men but was occupied chiefly with the Hebrews, his chosen people. Even so, as in the days of Moses, once more the God concept portrayed a Deity who is holy and upright. “There is none as holy as the Lord. Who can be compared to this holy Lord God?” (1063.5) 97:1.8 As the years passed, the grizzled old leader progressed in the understanding of God, for he declared: “The Lord is a God of knowledge, and actions are weighed by him. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth, showing mercy to the merciful, and with the upright man he will also be upright.” Even here is the dawn of mercy, albeit it is limited to those who are merciful. Later he went one step further when, in their adversity, he exhorted his people: “Let us fall now into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great.” “There is no restraint upon the Lord to save many or few.” (1063.6) 97:1.9 And this gradual development of the concept of the character of Yahweh continued under the ministry of Samuel’s successors. They attempted to present Yahweh as a covenant-keeping God but hardly maintained the pace set by Samuel; they failed to develop the idea of the mercy of God as Samuel had later conceived it. There was a steady drift back toward the recognition of other gods, despite the maintenance that Yahweh was above all. “Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.” (1064.1) 97:1.10 The keynote of this era was divine power; the prophets of this age preached a religion designed to foster the king upon the Hebrew throne. “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty. In your hand is power and might, and you are able to make great and to give strength to all.” And this was the status of the God concept during the time of Samuel and his immediate successors. 2. Elijah and Elisha (1064.2) 97:2.1 In the tenth century before Christ the Hebrew nation became divided into two kingdoms. In both of these political divisions many truth teachers endeavored to stem the reactionary tide of spiritual decadence that had set in, and which continued disastrously after the war of separation. But these efforts to advance the Hebraic religion did not prosper until that determined and fearless warrior for righteousness, Elijah, began his teaching. Elijah restored to the northern kingdom a concept of God comparable with that held in the days of Samuel. Elijah had little opportunity to present an advanced concept of God; he was kept busy, as Samuel had been before him, overthrowing the altars of Baal and demolishing the idols of false gods. And he carried forward his reforms in the face of the opposition of an idolatrous monarch; his task was even more gigantic and difficult than that which Samuel had faced. (1064.3) 97:2.2 When Elijah was called away, Elisha, his faithful associate, took up his work and, with the invaluable assistance of the little-known Micaiah, kept the light of truth alive in Palestine. (1064.4) 97:2.3 But these were not times of progress in the concept of Deity. Not yet had the Hebrews ascended even to the Mosaic ideal. The era of Elijah and Elisha closed with the better classes returning to the worship of the supreme Yahweh and witnessed the restoration of the idea of the Universal Creator to about that place where Samuel had left it. 3. Yahweh and Baal (1064.5) 97:3.1 The long-drawn-out controversy between the believers in Yahweh and the followers of Baal was a socioeconomic clash of ideologies rather than a difference in religious beliefs. (1064.6) 97:3.2 The inhabitants of Palestine differed in their attitude toward private ownership of land. The southern or wandering Arabian tribes (the Yahwehites) looked upon land as an inalienable — as a gift of Deity to the clan. They held that land could not be sold or mortgaged. “Yahweh spoke, saying, ‘The land shall not be sold, for the land is mine.’” (1064.7) 97:3.3 The northern and more settled Canaanites (the Baalites) freely bought, sold, and mortgaged their lands. The word Baal means owner. The Baal cult was founded on two major doctrines: First, the validation of property exchange, contracts, and covenants — the right to buy and sell land. Second, Baal was supposed to send rain — he was a god of fertility of the soil. Good crops depended on the favor of Baal. The cult was largely concerned with land, its ownership and fertility. (1065.1) 97:3.4 In general, the Baalites owned houses, lands, and slaves. They were the aristocratic landlords and lived in the cities. Each Baal had a sacred place, a priesthood, and the “holy women,” the ritual prostitutes. (1065.2) 97:3.5 Out of this basic difference in the regard for land, there evolved the bitter antagonisms of social, economic, moral, and religious attitudes exhibited by the Canaanites and the Hebrews. This socioeconomic controversy did not become a definite religious issue until the times of Elijah. From the days of this aggressive prophet the issue was fought out on more strictly religious lines — Yahweh vs. Baal — and it ended in the triumph of Yahweh and the subsequent drive toward monotheism. (1065.3) 97:3.6 Elijah shifted the Yahweh-Baal controversy from the land issue to the religious aspect of Hebrew and Canaanite ideologies. When Ahab murdered the Naboths in the intrigue to get possession of their land, Elijah made a moral issue out of the olden land mores and launched his vigorous campaign against the Baalites. This was also a fight of the country folk against domination by the cities. It was chiefly under Elijah that Yahweh became Elohim. The prophet began as an agrarian reformer and ended up by exalting Deity. Baals were many, Yahweh was one — monotheism won over polytheism. 4. Amos and Hosea (1065.4) 97:4.1 A great step in the transition of the tribal god — the god who had so long been served with sacrifices and ceremonies, the Yahweh of the earlier Hebrews — to a God who would punish crime and immorality among even his own people, was taken by Amos, who appeared from among the southern hills to denounce the criminality, drunkenness, oppression, and immorality of the northern tribes. Not since the times of Moses had such ringing truths been proclaimed in Palestine. (1065.5) 97:4.2 Amos was not merely a restorer or reformer; he was a discoverer of new concepts of Deity. He proclaimed much about God that had been announced by his predecessors and courageously attacked the belief in a Divine Being who would countenance sin among his so-called chosen people. For the first time since the days of Melchizedek the ears of man heard the denunciation of the double standard of national justice and morality. For the first time in their history Hebrew ears heard that their own God, Yahweh, would no more tolerate crime and sin in their lives than he would among any other people. Amos envisioned the stern and just God of Samuel and Elijah, but he also saw a God who thought no differently of the Hebrews than of any other nation when it came to the punishment of wrongdoing. This was a direct attack on the egoistic doctrine of the “chosen people,” and many Hebrews of those days bitterly resented it. (1065.6) 97:4.3 Said Amos: “He who formed the mountains and created the wind, seek him who formed the seven stars and Orion, who turns the shadow of death into the morning and makes the day dark as night.” And in denouncing his half-religious, timeserving, and sometimes immoral fellows, he sought to portray the inexorable justice of an unchanging Yahweh when he said of the evildoers: “Though they dig into hell, thence shall I take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down.” “And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I direct the sword of justice, and it shall slay them.” Amos further startled his hearers when, pointing a reproving and accusing finger at them, he declared in the name of Yahweh: “Surely I will never forget any of your works.” “And I will sift the house of Israel among all nations as wheat is sifted in a sieve.” (1066.1) 97:4.4 Amos proclaimed Yahweh the “God of all nations” and warned the Israelites that ritual must not take the place of righteousness. And before this courageous teacher was stoned to death, he had spread enough leaven of truth to save the doctrine of the supreme Yahweh; he had insured the further evolution of the Melchizedek revelation. (1066.2) 97:4.5 Hosea followed Amos and his doctrine of a universal God of justice by the resurrection of the Mosaic concept of a God of love. Hosea preached forgiveness through repentance, not by sacrifice. He proclaimed a gospel of loving-kindness and divine mercy, saying: “I will betroth you to me forever; yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and judgment and in loving-kindness and in mercies. I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness.” “I will love them freely, for my anger is turned away.” (1066.3) 97:4.6 Hosea faithfully continued the moral warnings of Amos, saying of God, “It is my desire that I chastise them.” But the Israelites regarded it as cruelty bordering on treason when he said: “I will say to those who were not my people, ‘you are my people’; and they will say, ‘you are our God.’” He continued to preach repentance and forgiveness, saying, “I will heal their backsliding; I will love them freely, for my anger is turned away.” Always Hosea proclaimed hope and forgiveness. The burden of his message ever was: “I will have mercy upon my people. They shall know no God but me, for there is no savior beside me.” (1066.4) 97:4.7 Amos quickened the national conscience of the Hebrews to the recognition that Yahweh would not condone crime and sin among them because they were supposedly the chosen people, while Hosea struck the opening notes in the later merciful chords of divine compassion and loving-kindness which were so exquisitely sung by Isaiah and his associates. 5. The First Isaiah (1066.5) 97:5.1 These were the times when some were proclaiming threatenings of punishment against personal sins and national crime among the northern clans while others predicted calamity in retribution for the transgressions of the southern kingdom. It was in the wake of this arousal of conscience and consciousness in the Hebrew nations that the first Isaiah made his appearance. (1066.6) 97:5.2 Isaiah went on to preach the eternal nature of God, his infinite wisdom, his unchanging perfection of reliability. He represented the God of Israel as saying: “Judgment also will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet.” “The Lord will give you rest from your sorrow and from your fear and from the hard bondage wherein man has been made to serve.” “And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘this is the way, walk in it.’” “Behold God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord is my strength and my song.” “‘Come now and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like the crimson, they shall be as wool.’” (1066.7) 97:5.3 Speaking to the fear-ridden and soul-hungry Hebrews, this prophet said: “Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and has covered me with his robe of righteousness.” “In all their afflictions he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them.” (1067.1) 97:5.4 This Isaiah was followed by Micah and Obadiah, who confirmed and embellished his soul-satisfying gospel. And these two brave messengers boldly denounced the priest-ridden ritual of the Hebrews and fearlessly attacked the whole sacrificial system. (1067.2) 97:5.5 Micah denounced “the rulers who judge for reward and the priests who teach for hire and the prophets who divine for money.” He taught of a day of freedom from superstition and priestcraft, saying: “But every man shall sit under his own vine, and no one shall make him afraid, for all people will live, each one according to his understanding of God.” (1067.3) 97:5.6 Ever the burden of Micah’s message was: “Shall I come before God with burnt offerings? Will the Lord be pleased with a thousand rams or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown me, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” And it was a great age; these were indeed stirring times when mortal man heard, and some even believed, such emancipating messages more than two and a half millenniums ago. And but for the stubborn resistance of the priests, these teachers would have overthrown the whole bloody ceremonial of the Hebrew ritual of worship. 6. Jeremiah the Fearless (1067.4) 97:6.1 While several teachers continued to expound the gospel of Isaiah, it remained for Jeremiah to take the next bold step in the internationalization of Yahweh, God of the Hebrews. (1067.5) 97:6.2 Jeremiah fearlessly declared that Yahweh was not on the side of the Hebrews in their military struggles with other nations. He asserted that Yahweh was God of all the earth, of all nations and of all peoples. Jeremiah’s teaching was the crescendo of the rising wave of the internationalization of the God of Israel; finally and forever did this intrepid preacher proclaim that Yahweh was God of all nations, and that there was no Osiris for the Egyptians, Bel for the Babylonians, Ashur for the Assyrians, or Dagon for the Philistines. And thus did the religion of the Hebrews share in that renaissance of monotheism throughout the world at about and following this time; at last the concept of Yahweh had ascended to a Deity level of planetary and even cosmic dignity. But many of Jeremiah’s associates found it difficult to conceive of Yahweh apart from the Hebrew nation. (1067.6) 97:6.3 Jeremiah also preached of the just and loving God described by Isaiah, declaring: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you.” “For he does not afflict willingly the children of men.” (1067.7) 97:6.4 Said this fearless prophet: “Righteous is our Lord, great in counsel and mighty in work. His eyes are open upon all the ways of all the sons of men, to give every one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.” But it was considered blasphemous treason when, during the siege of Jerusalem, he said: “And now have I given these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant.” And when Jeremiah counseled the surrender of the city, the priests and civil rulers cast him into the miry pit of a dismal dungeon. 7. The Second Isaiah (1068.1) 97:7.1 The destruction of the Hebrew nation and their captivity in Mesopotamia would have proved of great benefit to their expanding theology had it not been for the determined action of their priesthood. Their nation had fallen before the armies of Babylon, and their nationalistic Yahweh had suffered from the international preachments of the spiritual leaders. It was resentment of the loss of their national god that led the Jewish priests to go to such lengths in the invention of fables and the multiplication of miraculous appearing events in Hebrew history in an effort to restore the Jews as the chosen people of even the new and expanded idea of an internationalized God of all nations. (1068.2) 97:7.2 During the captivity the Jews were much influenced by Babylonian traditions and legends, although it should be noted that they unfailingly improved the moral tone and spiritual significance of the Chaldean stories which they adopted, notwithstanding that they invariably distorted these legends to reflect honor and glory upon the ancestry and history of Israel. (1068.3) 97:7.3 These Hebrew priests and scribes had a single idea in their minds, and that was the rehabilitation of the Jewish nation, the glorification of Hebrew traditions, and the exaltation of their racial history. If there is resentment of the fact that these priests have fastened their erroneous ideas upon such a large part of the Occidental world, it should be remembered that they did not intentionally do this; they did not claim to be writing by inspiration; they made no profession to be writing a sacred book. They were merely preparing a textbook designed to bolster up the dwindling courage of their fellows in captivity. They were definitely aiming at improving the national spirit and morale of their compatriots. It remained for later-day men to assemble these and other writings into a guide book of supposedly infallible teachings. (1068.4) 97:7.4 The Jewish priesthood made liberal use of these writings subsequent to the captivity, but they were greatly hindered in their influence over their fellow captives by the presence of a young and indomitable prophet, Isaiah the second, who was a full convert to the elder Isaiah’s God of justice, love, righteousness, and mercy. He also believed with Jeremiah that Yahweh had become the God of all nations. He preached these theories of the nature of God with such telling effect that he made converts equally among the Jews and their captors. And this young preacher left on record his teachings, which the hostile and unforgiving priests sought to divorce from all association with him, although sheer respect for their beauty and grandeur led to their incorporation among the writings of the earlier Isaiah. And thus may be found the writings of this second Isaiah in the book of that name, embracing chapters forty to fifty-five inclusive. (1068.5) 97:7.5 No prophet or religious teacher from Machiventa to the time of Jesus attained the high concept of God that Isaiah the second proclaimed during these days of the captivity. It was no small, anthropomorphic, man-made God that this spiritual leader proclaimed. “Behold he takes up the isles as a very little thing.” “And as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (1069.1) 97:7.6 At last Machiventa Melchizedek beheld human teachers proclaiming a real God to mortal man. Like Isaiah the first, this leader preached a God of universal creation and upholding. “I have made the earth and put man upon it. I have created it not in vain; I formed it to be inhabited.” “I am the first and the last; there is no God beside me.” Speaking for the Lord God of Israel, this new prophet said: “The heavens may vanish and the earth wax old, but my righteousness shall endure forever and my salvation from generation to generation.” “Fear you not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.” “There is no God beside me — a just God and a Savior.” (1069.2) 97:7.7 And it comforted the Jewish captives, as it has thousands upon thousands ever since, to hear such words as: “Thus says the Lord, ‘I have created you, I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine.’” “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you since you are precious in my sight.” “Can a woman forget her suckling child that she should not have compassion on her son? Yes, she may forget, yet will I not forget my children, for behold I have graven them upon the palms of my hands; I have even covered them with the shadow of my hands.” “Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” (1069.3) 97:7.8 Listen again to the gospel of this new revelation of the God of Salem: “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom. He gives power to the faint, and to those who have no might he increases strength. Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (1069.4) 97:7.9 This Isaiah conducted a far-flung propaganda of the gospel of the enlarging concept of a supreme Yahweh. He vied with Moses in the eloquence with which he portrayed the Lord God of Israel as the Universal Creator. He was poetic in his portrayal of the infinite attributes of the Universal Father. No more beautiful pronouncements about the heavenly Father have ever been made. Like the Psalms, the writings of Isaiah are among the most sublime and true presentations of the spiritual concept of God ever to greet the ears of mortal man prior to the arrival of Michael on Urantia. Listen to his portrayal of Deity: “I am the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity.” “I am the first and the last, and beside me there is no other God.” “And the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear.” And it was a new doctrine in Jewry when this benign but commanding prophet persisted in the preachment of divine constancy, God’s faithfulness. He declared that “God would not forget, would not forsake.” (1069.5) 97:7.10 This daring teacher proclaimed that man was very closely related to God, saying: “Every one who is called by my name I have created for my glory, and they shall show forth my praise. I, even I, am he who blots out their transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember their sins.” (1069.6) 97:7.11 Hear this great Hebrew demolish the concept of a national God while in glory he proclaims the divinity of the Universal Father, of whom he says, “The heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” And Isaiah’s God was none the less holy, majestic, just, and unsearchable. The concept of the angry, vengeful, and jealous Yahweh of the desert Bedouins has almost vanished. A new concept of the supreme and universal Yahweh has appeared in the mind of mortal man, never to be lost to human view. The realization of divine justice has begun the destruction of primitive magic and biologic fear. At last, man is introduced to a universe of law and order and to a universal God of dependable and final attributes. (1070.1) 97:7.12 And this preacher of a supernal God never ceased to proclaim this God of love. “I dwell in the high and holy place, also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit.” And still further words of comfort did this great teacher speak to his contemporaries: “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your soul. You shall be like a watered garden and like a spring whose waters fail not. And if the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a defense against him.” And once again did the fear-destroying gospel of Melchizedek and the trust-breeding religion of Salem shine forth for the blessing of mankind. (1070.2) 97:7.13 The farseeing and courageous Isaiah effectively eclipsed the nationalistic Yahweh by his sublime portraiture of the majesty and universal omnipotence of the supreme Yahweh, God of love, ruler of the universe, and affectionate Father of all mankind. Ever since those eventful days the highest God concept in the Occident has embraced universal justice, divine mercy, and eternal righteousness. In superb language and with matchless grace this great teacher portrayed the all-powerful Creator as the all-loving Father. (1070.3) 97:7.14 This prophet of the captivity preached to his people and to those of many nations as they listened by the river in Babylon. And this second Isaiah did much to counteract the many wrong and racially egoistic concepts of the mission of the promised Messiah. But in this effort he was not wholly successful. Had the priests not dedicated themselves to the work of building up a misconceived nationalism, the teachings of the two Isaiahs would have prepared the way for the recognition and reception of the promised Messiah. 8. Sacred and Profane History (1070.4) 97:8.1 The custom of looking upon the record of the experiences of the Hebrews as sacred history and upon the transactions of the rest of the world as profane history is responsible for much of the confusion existing in the human mind as to the interpretation of history. And this difficulty arises because there is no secular history of the Jews. After the priests of the Babylonian exile had prepared their new record of God’s supposedly miraculous dealings with the Hebrews, the sacred history of Israel as portrayed in the Old Testament, they carefully and completely destroyed the existing records of Hebrew affairs — such books as “The Doings of the Kings of Israel” and “The Doings of the Kings of Judah,” together with several other more or less accurate records of Hebrew history. (1070.5) 97:8.2 In order to understand how the devastating pressure and the inescapable coercion of secular history so terrorized the captive and alien-ruled Jews that they attempted the complete rewriting and recasting of their history, we should briefly survey the record of their perplexing national experience. It must be remembered that the Jews failed to evolve an adequate nontheologic philosophy of life. They struggled with their original and Egyptian concept of divine rewards for righteousness coupled with dire punishments for sin. The drama of Job was something of a protest against this erroneous philosophy. The frank pessimism of Ecclesiastes was a worldly wise reaction to these overoptimistic beliefs in Providence. (1071.1) 97:8.3 But five hundred years of the overlordship of alien rulers was too much for even the patient and long-suffering Jews. The prophets and priests began to cry: “How long, O Lord, how long?” As the honest Jew searched the Scriptures, his confusion became worse confounded. An olden seer promised that God would protect and deliver his “chosen people.” Amos had threatened that God would abandon Israel unless they re-established their standards of national righteousness. The scribe of Deuteronomy had portrayed the Great Choice — as between the good and the evil, the blessing and the curse. Isaiah the first had preached a beneficent king-deliverer. Jeremiah had proclaimed an era of inner righteousness — the covenant written on the tablets of the heart. The second Isaiah talked about salvation by sacrifice and redemption. Ezekiel proclaimed deliverance through the service of devotion, and Ezra promised prosperity by adherence to the law. But in spite of all this they lingered on in bondage, and deliverance was deferred. Then Daniel presented the drama of the impending “crisis” — the smiting of the great image and the immediate establishment of the everlasting reign of righteousness, the Messianic kingdom. (1071.2) 97:8.4 And all of this false hope led to such a degree of racial disappointment and frustration that the leaders of the Jews were so confused they failed to recognize and accept the mission and ministry of a divine Son of Paradise when he presently came to them in the likeness of mortal flesh — incarnated as the Son of Man. (1071.3) 97:8.5 All modern religions have seriously blundered in the attempt to put a miraculous interpretation on certain epochs of human history. While it is true that God has many times thrust a Father’s hand of providential intervention into the stream of human affairs, it is a mistake to regard theologic dogmas and religious superstition as a supernatural sedimentation appearing by miraculous action in this stream of human history. The fact that the “Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men” does not convert secular history into so-called sacred history. (1071.4) 97:8.6 New Testament authors and later Christian writers further complicated the distortion of Hebrew history by their well-meant attempts to transcendentalize the Jewish prophets. Thus has Hebrew history been disastrously exploited by both Jewish and Christian writers. Secular Hebrew history has been thoroughly dogmatized. It has been converted into a fiction of sacred history and has become inextricably bound up with the moral concepts and religious teachings of the so-called Christian nations. (1071.5) 97:8.7 A brief recital of the high points in Hebrew history will illustrate how the facts of the record were so altered in Babylon by the Jewish priests as to turn the everyday secular history of their people into a fictitious and sacred history. 9. Hebrew History (1071.6) 97:9.1 There never were twelve tribes of the Israelites — only three or four tribes settled in Palestine. The Hebrew nation came into being as the result of the union of the so-called Israelites and the Canaanites. “And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites. And they took their daughters to be their wives and gave their daughters to the sons of the Canaanites.” The Hebrews never drove the Canaanites out of Palestine, notwithstanding that the priests’ record of these things unhesitatingly declared that they did. (1071.7) 97:9.2 The Israelitish consciousness took origin in the hill country of Ephraim; the later Jewish consciousness originated in the southern clan of Judah. The Jews (Judahites) always sought to defame and blacken the record of the northern Israelites (Ephraimites). (1072.1) 97:9.3 Pretentious Hebrew history begins with Saul’s rallying the northern clans to withstand an attack by the Ammonites upon their fellow tribesmen — the Gileadites — east of the Jordan. With an army of a little more than three thousand he defeated the enemy, and it was this exploit that led the hill tribes to make him king. When the exiled priests rewrote this story, they raised Saul’s army to 330,000 and added “Judah” to the list of tribes participating in the battle. (1072.2) 97:9.4 Immediately following the defeat of the Ammonites, Saul was made king by popular election by his troops. No priest or prophet participated in this affair. But the priests later on put it in the record that Saul was crowned king by the prophet Samuel in accordance with divine directions. This they did in order to establish a “divine line of descent” for David’s Judahite kingship. (1072.3) 97:9.5 The greatest of all distortions of Jewish history had to do with David. After Saul’s victory over the Ammonites (which he ascribed to Yahweh) the Philistines became alarmed and began attacks on the northern clans. David and Saul never could agree. David with six hundred men entered into a Philistine alliance and marched up the coast to Esdraelon. At Gath the Philistines ordered David off the field; they feared he might go over to Saul. David retired; the Philistines attacked and defeated Saul. They could not have done this had David been loyal to Israel. David’s army was a polyglot assortment of malcontents, being for the most part made up of social misfits and fugitives from justice. (1072.4) 97:9.6 Saul’s tragic defeat at Gilboa by the Philistines brought Yahweh to a low point among the gods in the eyes of the surrounding Canaanites. Ordinarily, Saul’s defeat would have been ascribed to apostasy from Yahweh, but this time the Judahite editors attributed it to ritual errors. They required the tradition of Saul and Samuel as a background for the kingship of David. (1072.5) 97:9.7 David with his small army made his headquarters at the non-Hebrew city of Hebron. Presently his compatriots proclaimed him king of the new kingdom of Judah. Judah was made up mostly of non-Hebrew elements — Kenites, Calebites, Jebusites, and other Canaanites. They were nomads — herders — and so were devoted to the Hebrew idea of land ownership. They held the ideologies of the desert clans. (1072.6) 97:9.8 The difference between sacred and profane history is well illustrated by the two differing stories concerning making David king as they are found in the Old Testament. A part of the secular story of how his immediate followers (his army) made him king was inadvertently left in the record by the priests who subsequently prepared the lengthy and prosaic account of the sacred history wherein is depicted how the prophet Samuel, by divine direction, selected David from among his brethren and proceeded formally and by elaborate and solemn ceremonies to anoint him king over the Hebrews and then to proclaim him Saul’s successor. (1072.7) 97:9.9 So many times did the priests, after preparing their fictitious narratives of God’s miraculous dealings with Israel, fail fully to delete the plain and matter-of-fact statements which already rested in the records. (1072.8) 97:9.10 David sought to build himself up politically by first marrying Saul’s daughter, then the widow of Nabal the rich Edomite, and then the daughter of Talmai, the king of Geshur. He took six wives from the women of Jebus, not to mention Bathsheba, the wife of the Hittite. (1073.1) 97:9.11 And it was by such methods and out of such people that David built up the fiction of a divine kingdom of Judah as the successor of the heritage and traditions of the vanishing northern kingdom of Ephraimite Israel. David’s cosmopolitan tribe of Judah was more gentile than Jewish; nevertheless the oppressed elders of Ephraim came down and “anointed him king of Israel.” After a military threat, David then made a compact with the Jebusites and established his capital of the united kingdom at Jebus (Jerusalem), which was a strong-walled city midway between Judah and Israel. The Philistines were aroused and soon attacked David. After a fierce battle they were defeated, and once more Yahweh was established as “The Lord God of Hosts.” (1073.2) 97:9.12 But Yahweh must, perforce, share some of this glory with the Canaanite gods, for the bulk of David’s army was non-Hebrew. And so there appears in your record (overlooked by the Judahite editors) this telltale statement: “Yahweh has broken my enemies before me. Therefore he called the name of the place Baal-Perazim.” And they did this because eighty per cent of David’s soldiers were Baalites. (1073.3) 97:9.13 David explained Saul’s defeat at Gilboa by pointing out that Saul had attacked a Canaanite city, Gibeon, whose people had a peace treaty with the Ephraimites. Because of this, Yahweh forsook him. Even in Saul’s time David had defended the Canaanite city of Keilah against the Philistines, and then he located his capital in a Canaanite city. In keeping with the policy of compromise with the Canaanites, David turned seven of Saul’s descendants over to the Gibeonites to be hanged. (1073.4) 97:9.14 After the defeat of the Philistines, David gained possession of the “ark of Yahweh,” brought it to Jerusalem, and made the worship of Yahweh official for his kingdom. He next laid heavy tribute on the neighboring tribes — the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Syrians. (1073.5) 97:9.15 David’s corrupt political machine began to get personal possession of land in the north in violation of the Hebrew mores and presently gained control of the caravan tariffs formerly collected by the Philistines. And then came a series of atrocities climaxed by the murder of Uriah. All judicial appeals were adjudicated at Jerusalem; no longer could “the elders” mete out justice. No wonder rebellion broke out. Today, Absalom might be called a demagogue; his mother was a Canaanite. There were a half dozen contenders for the throne besides the son of Bathsheba — Solomon. (1073.6) 97:9.16 After David’s death Solomon purged the political machine of all northern influences but continued all of the tyranny and taxation of his father’s regime. Solomon bankrupted the nation by his lavish court and by his elaborate building program: There was the house of Lebanon, the palace of Pharaoh’s daughter, the temple of Yahweh, the king’s palace, and the restoration of the walls of many cities. Solomon created a vast Hebrew navy, operated by Syrian sailors and trading with all the world. His harem numbered almost one thousand. (1073.7) 97:9.17 By this time Yahweh’s temple at Shiloh was discredited, and all the worship of the nation was centered at Jebus in the gorgeous royal chapel. The northern kingdom returned more to the worship of Elohim. They enjoyed the favor of the Pharaohs, who later enslaved Judah, putting the southern kingdom under tribute. (1073.8) 97:9.18 There were ups and downs — wars between Israel and Judah. After four years of civil war and three dynasties, Israel fell under the rule of city despots who began to trade in land. Even King Omri attempted to buy Shemer’s estate. But the end drew on apace when Shalmaneser III decided to control the Mediterranean coast. King Ahab of Ephraim gathered ten other groups and resisted at Karkar; the battle was a draw. The Assyrian was stopped but the allies were decimated. This great fight is not even mentioned in the Old Testament. (1074.1) 97:9.19 New trouble started when King Ahab tried to buy land from Naboth. His Phoenician wife forged Ahab’s name to papers directing that Naboth’s land be confiscated on the charge that he had blasphemed the names of “Elohim and the king.” He and his sons were promptly executed. The vigorous Elijah appeared on the scene denouncing Ahab for the murder of the Naboths. Thus Elijah, one of the greatest of the prophets, began his teaching as a defender of the old land mores as against the land-selling attitude of the Baalim, against the attempt of the cities to dominate the country. But the reform did not succeed until the country landlord Jehu joined forces with the gypsy chieftain Jehonadab to destroy the prophets (real estate agents) of Baal at Samaria. (1074.2) 97:9.20 New life appeared as Jehoash and his son Jeroboam delivered Israel from its enemies. But by this time there ruled in Samaria a gangster-nobility whose depredations rivaled those of the Davidic dynasty of olden days. State and church went along hand in hand. The attempt to suppress freedom of speech led Elijah, Amos, and Hosea to begin their secret writing, and this was the real beginning of the Jewish and Christian Bibles. (1074.3) 97:9.21 But the northern kingdom did not vanish from history until the king of Israel conspired with the king of Egypt and refused to pay further tribute to Assyria. Then began the three years’ siege followed by the total dispersion of the northern kingdom. Ephraim (Israel) thus vanished. Judah — the Jews, the “remnant of Israel” — had begun the concentration of land in the hands of the few, as Isaiah said, “Adding house to house and field to field.” Presently there was in Jerusalem a temple of Baal alongside the temple of Yahweh. This reign of terror was ended by a monotheistic revolt led by the boy king Joash, who crusaded for Yahweh for thirty-five years. (1074.4) 97:9.22 The next king, Amaziah, had trouble with the revolting tax-paying Edomites and their neighbors. After a signal victory he turned to attack his northern neighbors and was just as signally defeated. Then the rural folk revolted; they assassinated the king and put his sixteen-year-old son on the throne. This was Azariah, called Uzziah by Isaiah. After Uzziah, things went from bad to worse, and Judah existed for a hundred years by paying tribute to the kings of Assyria. Isaiah the first told them that Jerusalem, being the city of Yahweh, would never fall. But Jeremiah did not hesitate to proclaim its downfall. (1074.5) 97:9.23 The real undoing of Judah was effected by a corrupt and rich ring of politicians operating under the rule of a boy king, Manasseh. The changing economy favored the return of the worship of Baal, whose private land dealings were against the ideology of Yahweh. The fall of Assyria and the ascendancy of Egypt brought deliverance to Judah for a time, and the country folk took over. Under Josiah they destroyed the Jerusalem ring of corrupt politicians.* (1074.6) 97:9.24 But this era came to a tragic end when Josiah presumed to go out to intercept Necho’s mighty army as it moved up the coast from Egypt for the aid of Assyria against Babylon. He was wiped out, and Judah went under tribute to Egypt. The Baal political party returned to power in Jerusalem, and thus began the real Egyptian bondage. Then ensued a period in which the Baalim politicians controlled both the courts and the priesthood. Baal worship was an economic and social system dealing with property rights as well as having to do with soil fertility. (1075.1) 97:9.25 With the overthrow of Necho by Nebuchadnezzar, Judah fell under the rule of Babylon and was given ten years of grace, but soon rebelled. When Nebuchadnezzar came against them, the Judahites started social reforms, such as releasing slaves, to influence Yahweh. When the Babylonian army temporarily withdrew, the Hebrews rejoiced that their magic of reform had delivered them. It was during this period that Jeremiah told them of the impending doom, and presently Nebuchadnezzar returned. (1075.2) 97:9.26 And so the end of Judah came suddenly. The city was destroyed, and the people were carried away into Babylon. The Yahweh-Baal struggle ended with the captivity. And the captivity shocked the remnant of Israel into monotheism. (1075.3) 97:9.27 In Babylon the Jews arrived at the conclusion that they could not exist as a small group in Palestine, having their own peculiar social and economic customs, and that, if their ideologies were to prevail, they must convert the gentiles. Thus originated their new concept of destiny — the idea that the Jews must become the chosen servants of Yahweh. The Jewish religion of the Old Testament really evolved in Babylon during the captivity. (1075.4) 97:9.28 The doctrine of immortality also took form at Babylon. The Jews had thought that the idea of the future life detracted from the emphasis of their gospel of social justice. Now for the first time theology displaced sociology and economics. Religion was taking shape as a system of human thought and conduct more and more to be separated from politics, sociology, and economics. (1075.5) 97:9.29 And so does the truth about the Jewish people disclose that much which has been regarded as sacred history turns out to be little more than the chronicle of ordinary profane history. Judaism was the soil out of which Christianity grew, but the Jews were not a miraculous people. 10. The Hebrew Religion (1075.6) 97:10.1 Their leaders had taught the Israelites that they were a chosen people, not for special indulgence and monopoly of divine favor, but for the special service of carrying the truth of the one God over all to every nation. And they had promised the Jews that, if they would fulfill this destiny, they would become the spiritual leaders of all peoples, and that the coming Messiah would reign over them and all the world as the Prince of Peace. (1075.7) 97:10.2 When the Jews had been freed by the Persians, they returned to Palestine only to fall into bondage to their own priest-ridden code of laws, sacrifices, and rituals. And as the Hebrew clans rejected the wonderful story of God presented in the farewell oration of Moses for the rituals of sacrifice and penance, so did these remnants of the Hebrew nation reject the magnificent concept of the second Isaiah for the rules, regulations, and rituals of their growing priesthood. (1075.8) 97:10.3 National egotism, false faith in a misconceived promised Messiah, and the increasing bondage and tyranny of the priesthood forever silenced the voices of the spiritual leaders (excepting Daniel, Ezekiel, Haggai, and Malachi); and from that day to the time of John the Baptist all Israel experienced an increasing spiritual retrogression. But the Jews never lost the concept of the Universal Father; even to the twentieth century after Christ they have continued to follow this Deity conception. (1076.1) 97:10.4 From Moses to John the Baptist there extended an unbroken line of faithful teachers who passed the monotheistic torch of light from one generation to another while they unceasingly rebuked unscrupulous rulers, denounced commercializing priests, and ever exhorted the people to adhere to the worship of the supreme Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel. (1076.2) 97:10.5 As a nation the Jews eventually lost their political identity, but the Hebrew religion of sincere belief in the one and universal God continues to live in the hearts of the scattered exiles. And this religion survives because it has effectively functioned to conserve the highest values of its followers. The Jewish religion did preserve the ideals of a people, but it failed to foster progress and encourage philosophic creative discovery in the realms of truth. The Jewish religion had many faults — it was deficient in philosophy and almost devoid of aesthetic qualities — but it did conserve moral values; therefore it persisted. The supreme Yahweh, as compared with other concepts of Deity, was clear-cut, vivid, personal, and moral. (1076.3) 97:10.6 The Jews loved justice, wisdom, truth, and righteousness as have few peoples, but they contributed least of all peoples to the intellectual comprehension and to the spiritual understanding of these divine qualities. Though Hebrew theology refused to expand, it played an important part in the development of two other world religions, Christianity and Mohammedanism. (1076.4) 97:10.7 The Jewish religion persisted also because of its institutions. It is difficult for religion to survive as the private practice of isolated individuals. This has ever been the error of the religious leaders: Seeing the evils of institutionalized religion, they seek to destroy the technique of group functioning. In place of destroying all ritual, they would do better to reform it. In this respect Ezekiel was wiser than his contemporaries; though he joined with them in insisting on personal moral responsibility, he also set about to establish the faithful observance of a superior and purified ritual. (1076.5) 97:10.8 And thus the successive teachers of Israel accomplished the greatest feat in the evolution of religion ever to be effected on Urantia: the gradual but continuous transformation of the barbaric concept of the savage demon Yahweh, the jealous and cruel spirit god of the fulminating Sinai volcano, to the later exalted and supernal concept of the supreme Yahweh, creator of all things and the loving and merciful Father of all mankind. And this Hebraic concept of God was the highest human visualization of the Universal Father up to that time when it was further enlarged and so exquisitely amplified by the personal teachings and life example of his Son, Michael of Nebadon. (1076.6) 97:10.9 [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Galatians 6:7-10, considering that we reap what we sow and the dangers of weariness in doing good, and the importance to sow to the Spirit. I. The Danger of Weariness in Doing Good Amen. One of the greatest tragedies I think of our life in this world, this life in the flesh, is the proneness that all of us have toward boredom, toward weariness of good things. The fact that things wear off, that they don't have the same impact on us as time goes on. And that is a great grief to us. The first time I probably noticed it, and I've mentioned it before in passing, is Christmas day when I didn't have the same delight in the afternoon that I had with the toys I received in the morning. Do you remember that feeling? And it's like, I still can't believe when kids come to us and say, "I'm bored" on Christmas afternoon. How does that even happen? How do we grow weary with the good gifts of life? How is that even possible? And it's something I've seen in my own life, again and again. I remember going on a trip with my daughter Jenny, and we were in Switzerland, I'd never been there before, always wanted to go there and just felt so privileged by God to be there. And we had, from our hotel room, probably the most spectacular scenery I've ever seen in my life from a hotel room. I've been in a lot of hotel rooms, I've been to some in some places where you look out and you're not seeing that kind of scenery. And so I thought, "Boy, this is beautiful." And it was breathtaking and amazing. But as the week went on, as the week wore on, it just wore off. And it just didn't have the same impact. I thought it was beautiful and all that, but I could see how people who lived there all their lives would barely even notice it. I remember another time I flew to Southern California, I flew from Massachusetts in March, and I was to be a best man at a good friend of mine's wedding. And March in Massachusetts is among the ugliest things in God's universe. There is sand and salt all over the roads, and everyone is just so waiting for spring and it just never seems to come. And then I got off this airplane in LA, and it was 68 and a nice gentle breeze and fair weather clouds. And I said to my friend Mike, I said, "Man, the weather here is amazing." He said, "Yeah, I guess it is." He lived there, and yes, he wasn't a native of Southern California but he was just so used to it, it didn't mean anything to him. This happens to all of us. And this is something we all face. I had the privilege of being at a wedding yesterday, and it was just amazing to see the way the couple look at each other, but then just give it years and it just isn't the same. Alright? [Maybe I'm wrong in this case, I don't know, but I doubt it. It's not for the older to discourage the younger, but just to say it just isn't the same, things just wear off, it's just a different feeling. And so it is with possessions, you buy a new car, you're so excited, you can't wait to drive it. And then time wears on, and some dings, some scratches, and it just isn't the same. It is with all possessions. And I think it's just part of the life that we live in this sin-cursed world. The book of Ecclesiastes embraces this idea of the weariness that comes in life. Right at the beginning in Ecclesiastes 1, it says, "Vanity of vanities." "Vanity of vanities,' says the preacher. All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, the sun also sets and it hastens around to the place where it rises again. The wind blows to the south and it goes around to the north, around and around goes the wind. And on its circuits, the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is never full. To the place where the streams flow, there they flow again." Ecclesiastes 1:8 "All things are full of weariness, more than the tongue can tell. The eye is not satisfied with seeing and the ear is never satisfied with hearing." It's just the nature of this life that we live under the sun as it says in Ecclesiastes 1, that we get bored and we get weary of things. And the greatest grief there is in that whole topic, is when it gets applied to our walk with Christ. And it gets applied to spiritual things, that's when it's really grievous. People begin the Christian life filled with zeal, filled with energy, filled with the joy of the Lord, filled with a sense of gratitude at salvation. It's almost like you can scarcely believe it, you think about the apostles in the upper room when they're seeing the resurrected Christ, and it said, "They couldn't believe it for joy." It was like it was too good to be true that Christ had risen from the dead. New Christians are zealous and excited, and they're eager for Bible study, and they love to go to church. And they are so excited as they're witnessing to their friends, and there's all that youth and that young zeal, but then as the years wear on, the zeal tends to abate, and there's not so much excitement in the Christian life. It is in a microcosm with aspects of our Christian faith, we can try something new. A new ministry, and you're all excited, and you're going, and things are happening but then it wears off and it gets a little bit hard and it just isn't the same. We find attendance patterns at FBC like that. You have a new Bible for Life class or a new Wednesday Night, and the attendance peaks out and then drains off, the same thing happens with home fellowships. It happens even at the church generally, people come to FBC, and they're just so excited when they first come, and they love the teaching and preaching ministry, they love the music, they love the people, it's just so friendly and everything's so wonderful. And then in some cases, you hear a couple three, four years later, there's not that zeal, there's not that energy, there's a weariness that's come. And it's not so much that the church is worse or different, it's just that their own hearts have grown cold over time. We hear sometimes about the distance to travel. I find that interesting because we haven't moved, and the people haven't moved and it's the same distance that's it's always been. But it feels longer now than it did when we first came and that really is a heart state. It's got to do with their own lack of that excitement that they had when they first came, but the worst of all is just when it comes directly to your walk with God, directly to your relationship with Jesus Christ. You think about what God said to Israel speaking in poetic kind of marital language. In Jeremiah 2:2, he said, "I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you followed me in the desert." I remember how it was back then with you. And then of course in Revelation 2, Jesus says to the church at Ephesus, "I have this against you, you have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen, repent and do the things you did at first." You remember how it was in the beginning of your walk with Christ? How could it be that we grow weary with Jesus? How could that ever be that we grow weary with aspects of the Christian life, that we grow weary of the Bible or grow weary of good Christian fellowship or worship? How does that happen? And even more significantly, how can we combat it? It says in Malachi 1:13, the Jews were saying of the sacrificial system there. They were saying, "What a burden!" And they sniffed at it. And sometimes the Christian life can feel like a burden, the ministry can feel like a burden and you can sniff at it and act contemptuously toward it. And you don't realize what's really gone on is the corruption of your own heart. I really think weariness of every or any aspect of the Christian life is an act of the flesh. It's not listed there but I think that's what the flesh does, it makes us grow weary of things that we were initially really joyful and excited about. "I really think [the] weariness of every or any aspect of the Christian life is an act of the flesh." I struggled with this whole idea a year ago, as I was thinking about yet another Easter sermon, and I've been here, now I'm in my 16th year, and I was just wrestling with what new things can I say about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and I had an idea, I remember this, and then I went to the... The internet never forgets. And there it was, that idea had been unfolded before your ears seven years ago, something like that, and there's nothing I can do. And I don't think it's plagiarism for me to preach my same sermons again, but I just didn't want to do it. I know someone would say, "Hey, it was better the second time." Somebody would say something because there's just no forgetting, so I came back to that question, "What am I fighting here? Why do I have to think of something new to say about the resurrection of Christ?" And I think it had to do with this issue of weariness or boredom that we can have in the Christian life. And I started to meditate on heaven and I thought, I don't think that in heaven, God is going to be showing us infinitely, endlessly new tricks. I think we'll be cured of the boredom, Amen. We'll be cured of the boredom. And he will just show us Christ resurrected and glorified, and that will be forever enough for us. And I don't say in any way that God wouldn't or couldn't have infinite new tricks to show us, He's an infinite being, but I just don't think we'll need them, not like we do here in this weary world that we live in. Our minds wander, our hearts grow weary, and we lose interest. But it says in Isaiah 40, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary. His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak, even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall, but those who hope in Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." My prayer today, and my whole purpose in preaching this sermon, is to plead with you to not grow weary in doing good. That you will continue to do the good that's essential to your salvation. You must keep doing good in order finally to be saved. You must run this race to the end. You must not grow weary in doing good, your soul depends on it. My desire is to preach in such a way that you'll be renewed and refreshed in your journey today, that you'll be strengthened so that you can continue to run the race of salvation. Look at verse 9, that's why I'm talking about this whole topic, Paul is writing here to warn the Galatians against weariness in the Christian life, verse 9 it says, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." He warns them, really, to use the language of earlier in Galatians to keep on running the good race that they were running. Look back one chapter at Galatians 5:7, there he says, "You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?" The idea there is you're running in obedience to the truth. You're going to keep obeying the truth, keep running this race, through obeying the truth, who stopped you from that? Now, we know just from the context here who stopped them were the Judaizers, these false teachers that came in after Paul had planted this beautiful church or these churches, and they came in and were preaching a false gospel. A gospel of works righteousness, of legalism, a teaching that your sins are forgiven based on your obedience, your unaided obedience to the law. And that legalism is poison, it's not a true gospel. And Paul wrote Galatians to teach them again the basics of the Christian faith of justification by faith in Christ alone, apart from works of the law. We sinners are made right with God, we are forgiven simply by faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God crucified, dead, buried, raised on the third day. This Jesus is the Saviour for sinners like us, and all you to do is trust in Him, all you have to do is repent and believe in Him and all your sins are forgiven. You will be held to be righteous on Judgment Day, you will not be condemned, but you'll have eternal life. That's the Gospel and Paul's writing them to teach them that justification is by faith alone, not by works of the law but then now in Galatian 5 and 6 he's asking, “what kind of life will you live if you've really been justified?” We're not justified by works but what kind of life will you live? And he's been talking about this battle that we have between the indwelling Holy Spirit and the indwelling sin, the flesh, and that the true Christian life, having been justified by faith, we are given the gift of the indwelling Spirit, and we then run a race of holiness. It's a race in which we're constantly battling against the works of the flesh, and we yearn to be characterized by the fruit of the Spirit. That's what he's been talking about, and he's saying don't grow weary in doing that. Don't grow weary in sowing seeds to the Spirit. II. God Cannot Be Mocked: You Reap What You Sow Don't sow seeds to the flesh. Run this Christian race to the end for in due time, at the proper time, your labors will be done and you'll be in heaven. Run this race with endurance. That's what he's doing and that's my yearning for you is that you would walk or run by the Spirit and not gratify the desires of the flesh, Galatian 5:16. Let's start at the beginning here in verse 7, as you heard Chris read, it begins with this very striking verse. It's a very striking verse, "Do not be deceived," there it says, "God cannot be mocked, a man reaps what he sows." We come face to face here in this verse with the infinite majesty, the transcendence of Almighty God. We're looking at a God who cannot be mocked. He is an infinitely majestic transcendent being. This God who cannot be mocked, it says in Isaiah 40:22, "Sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are before him like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, He spreads them out like a tent to live in." In that same chapter, in verse 15, Isaiah 40:15, he said, "Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket. They are regarded as dust on the scales and He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust." This God is infinitely high and lifted up. He's sitting on the throne of the universe. Now as we look at this verse we think immediately, if you think about it, you might say, "I don't know that that's true. I don't know that that's true. Is it really true that God cannot be mocked? Is it really true that God cannot be blasphemed?" Like Isaiah, remember how Isaiah said, "Woe is me, I'm ruined for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips." I think that's true of us. We are of unclean lips and we are surrounded by people who mock God. It happens all the time. People are blaspheming God every moment of the day. There's a river of blasphemy that's flowing from this earth up toward God in heaven. Satan's world system pumps out God-mocking propaganda, trying to deceive us. Again, look at verse seven, "Do not be deceived about this, don't be fooled." Satan is trying to fool you, he's trying to deceive you in this matter of, "Can God be mocked?" Satan is trying to imply that God certainly can be mocked, and he continues to use his puppets to deceive us, that God can be mocked. I could give so many examples from our popular culture, talk-show hosts like Bill Maher. I tell you, this guy, if you ever want to get provoked, just watch him on any topic related to Christianity. He's an open mocker of the faith. He calls all of us who are here today idiots, fools for believing these things. You have some kind of mental deficiency that you would waste your time being here. As a matter of fact, most of the world I think believes him. I have trouble making the left-hand turn out of my neighborhood all throughout the week except on Sunday morning. I have no trouble, there's no one on the road. In one sense, I'm happy for the easy drive, in another sense, where are all the people that are thronging to the places of business on Friday morning as early as six in the morning? You almost can't make that turn. Sunday morning, no problem at all. People like Bill Maher, they have an audience and people are listening to them and they are mocking God. After that just really offensive movie called Noah with Russell Crowe (don't waste your time seeing it), my son and I saw it and walked out because of how bad it was. I expected the theology to be bad but I didn't really expect that, as Bill Maher said it, that the god… I would say the god of that movie, was a psychotic despot and that Noah was a sociopath. But that's not the truth of the Bible. But Bill Maher just goes ahead and said, "But that's what it says in the Bible. He killed the whole world by a flood, He's a psychotic despot." Well, that's mockery, that's blasphemy. To me it's utter blasphemy. Hollywood regularly pumps out movies that mock God and mock Jesus Christ, TV programs, all that. And if anyone like Matthew McConaughey should stand up when he gets an award, I think Academy award, and thanks God, he's going to get pounded in social media, which he did, by these atheists who are offended just by the mention of it. An atheist group, Freedom From Religion Foundation (not freedom of religion, freedom from religion), has a billboard campaign… Maybe you've seen some of these billboards. One of them I saw has a picture of a young man, in large Gothic letters, it says Dave 27:1, like a 27 with a colon 1, like it's a Bible verse. "Lead with your heart, not with the Bible." It's what it says on that billboard. And then there's a picture of a woman, Jen 13:1. "Praying won't help, doing will." And then this one, "No gods, no devils, no worries." This is an ad campaign, an atheistic ad campaign. Atheists are mocking God all the time. Ernest Hemingway was a world renowned author, became famous for his mockery of God and his debauched life. He openly declared that his lifestyle proved that a person could do anything they wanted without paying the consequences. He considered the doctrine of the Bible to be outdated and completely useless to the modern man. Even worse, from his perspective, it got in the way of his pleasures. He wrote a mockery of the Lord's prayer. "Our Nada, [which is Spanish for nothing], Who art in Nada." He's mocking that. But in the end, Hemingway's debauched life and his philosophies led to him putting a bullet in his brain. This is where we start coming around to understanding the verse as God meant for it to be understood. What does it mean that, "God cannot be mocked"? Well, let's start here. God isn't affected in any way by all of that blasphemy. He's not moved by it. His self-esteem isn't diminished in any way by it. He's not touched by it in any way whatsoever. It doesn't make any impact on him at all. And as a matter of fact, if He didn't have compassion for the mockers, it wouldn't move him at all. It's only because he has compassion on them. Think of what the Lord said to Saul of Tarsus, who was breathing out blasphemies against Jesus. He said, "I was a blasphemer." Paul said he was a blasphemer before he was converted. Jesus said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads." "It's not hard for me. But it's hard for you." And he has compassion on the blasphemer. But God isn't moved at all by this. It doesn't cause him to rethink his plans. It doesn't cause Him to rethink his motivations. He's not struggling with his self-image at all. As a chorus of blasphemies is going up from earth to heaven, it doesn't challenge Him at all. Deuteronomy 4:24, it says, "The Lord your God is a consuming fire." Says in 1 Timothy 6, "God, the Blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal, who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one ever has seen or can see. To Him be honor and might forever. Amen." I remember some time ago, I was counseling someone who is... This individual told me... She told me she was angry at God. And I'd never had this thought before. I've spoken it a few times in the pulpit, I'm going to say it again. Those verses I just quoted say God is a consuming fire, God dwells in unapproachable light. It gave me the idea of the sun, 93 million miles away, as a picture of God, and the human race filled with vitriolic hatred toward God like if we were angry at the sun. And I've often thought, "What could we do to it?" If the best scientists in the world got their heads together and wanted to do something to the sun, what could they do? I'll give you 10 seconds to think about it. Are you coming up with the same answer I am? There is nothing that we can do to the sun. We can't make it closer or further away. We can't make it hotter or cooler. We can't make it brighter or dimmer. There's nothing you or I can do to the sun. It [the sun] is just there, and it's a picture of God. It doesn't do anything to God for us to be angry at God. But it certainly hurts us. And so we come to the second way of understanding this. God cannot allow his glory to be mocked. That's really the way we understand that. He won't ultimately sit idly by and be mocked. He will not. Judgment day is coming. Judgment day is coming and all blasphemies and all mockeries will be addressed. All of them. Says in Deuteronomy 7:9-10, "Know therefore that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands. But those who hate Him, He will repay to their face by destruction. He will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate Him." I think that's what the verse means, "God cannot be mocked." "God cannot allow his glory to be mocked. That's really the way we understand that. He won't ultimately sit idly by and be mocked. ... Judgment day is coming and all blasphemies and all mockeries will be addressed." God will repay the mocker. Judgment Day is coming. And just because it doesn't come instantly doesn't mean it's not going to come. God is being patient with sinners. But God will repay. Deuteronomy 32:40 and following says, "I lift my hand to heaven and declare." This is God doing this. Picture the anthropomorphic idea of God lifting his hand. He is swearing. "I swear. As surely as I live forever. When I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasp it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and I will repay those who hate me." The Bible says this again and again. This is not one or two places. This is time and time again. God warns us that God cannot be mocked. That you will reap what you sow. That we all reap what we sow. Again in that same chapter, Deuteronomy 32. He says, "Have I not kept this in reserve and sealed it in my vault? It is mine to avenge. I will repay. In due time, their foot will slip. Their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them." Isaiah 2:12, "The Lord Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, and they will be humbled." Zephaniah 1:7, "Be silent before the sovereign Lord, for the Day of the Lord is near." And then Revelation 20:12, "And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books." Satan is very energetically active to try to deceive the human race about this. He's trying to deceive us and to tell us that this day doesn't exist, this Judgment Day. That because it hasn't come up 'til now, it's never going to come. Satan wants to hide the centerpiece of this verse, and that is that every person will reap what they have sowed. Satan wants to deceive us about this. He wants to tell us it doesn't matter how we live. Either he wants to lie to us and say God doesn't exist, or if he does exist, He doesn't care. I remember one enlightenment philosopher says of God, "It is is his trade to forgive." Very lighthearted. It is his métier, his trade, it's kind of what he does. Dealing very, very lightly with forgiveness. Satan wants to tell us that because God's judgment doesn't come immediately, it won't actually fall at all. It says in Psalm 50:21, "These things you have done, and I kept silent. You thought I was altogether like you." Just because I haven't answered yet, doesn't mean that I'm like you and I just overlook these things. I don't. Again, Isaiah 57:11, "Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear Me?" Okay, because God's judgment doesn't come right away, we live among people who do not fear the Lord. These are soul killing lies that there is no God or that Judgment Day will not come, or that there will not be an answer for how that we have lived. "Be not deceived," it says. "God cannot be mocked. A person will reap whatever they sow." We come then to this fundamental law of sowing and reaping. Sowing and reaping. The universe is governed by physical laws. I was just in the Apologetics Bible for Life and heard some great things. And I think we talk about laws of physics that govern the universe. Isaac Newton gave us the laws of physics, and they just cover so much of the motion and just the activity of the universe. F=MA, force equals mass times acceleration. My kids get tired of hearing me quote this, and the weird applications. It must be such a burden to have me as a father. The things that I say, like this. I'm applying one of Newton's laws of motion to their messy rooms. And I'm saying objects in motion tend to stay in motion and objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Someone messed your room. I saw it neat sometime ago and it isn't neat anymore. It didn't just happen, okay? That's an application of Newton's Laws of Motion to parenting. It can be done. Alright? But these are just laws. Chemists give us laws of Chemistry, how molecules join together and make certain compounds. We have all these physical laws. Medical science studies laws of medicine. And here we have, I think, implied laws of agriculture. What you put in the ground, the seed, the genetic code that's in that, that's what's going to spring up. From the very beginning, from Genesis chapter 1 when God made seed-bearing plants, he created this whole way, the genetic code of the plant and that's what you're going to get when you put that in the ground. It's a fundamental spiritual law then applied spiritually, you reap what you sow. You reap what you sow. The pattern of your life leads to a guaranteed spiritual outcome. That's what he's saying. "It's a fundamental spiritual law then applied spiritually, you reap what you sow. ... The pattern of your life leads to a guaranteed spiritual outcome. " This spiritual law is taught in many places in Scripture. Job 4:8, "Those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it." Proverbs 1:31 and following, "They will eat the fruit of their ways. They will be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But whoever listens to wisdom will live in safety and be at ease without fear of harm." Psalm 7:15-16 says, "He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the very pit he has made. The trouble he causes recoils on himself. His violence comes down on his own head." Hosea 8:7, "Those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind." On the other hand, Hosea 10:12 says, "Sow for yourselves righteousness. Reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground. For it is time to seek the Lord until He comes and showers righteousness on you." This is a law. This is spiritual law. Especially important in raising children. I know it's Father's Day, but fathers and mothers I think understand this law of sowing and reaping. We understand how life works and we seek to train children in light of this. One English writer put it this way. "What strikes me more and more each day is the permanence of one's early life, the identity between youth and manhood. Every habit good and bad of those early years, seems to have permanently affected my whole life. The battle is largely won or lost before it seems to begin." Parents are aware of Proverbs 22:6, which says "Train up a child according to His own way and when he is old he will not depart from it." So patterns are set early, this law of sowing and reaping very, very significant. Now, we know all of this would spell our own eternal destruction were it not for the grace of God in Christ, amen? Thank God for that. Thank God that God looks over a life of bad seeds sown and says, "This will not take place, this will not happen." Thank God for his grace. Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, thank God for his grace. In Christ, we all have our wicked harvest paid for in blood, praise God for Jesus, praise God for his grace. But we still have this law and it still stands over us. And Paul is quoting this to Christians. Now in Christ, having been justified, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit and now there are two ways to live, as we've been saying. You can either sow to the flesh or you can sow to the Spirit; these are the two different ways to live, as we've been saying. III. Two Ways to Live: Sowing to the Flesh or Sowing to the Spirit Look at verse 8, "The one who sows to please his flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction. The one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." This is a basic principle, two different ways to live; they lead to two different destinations. Now a big picture, the way of sowing consistently to the flesh is the way of the non-Christian, it's the way of the unregenerate person, that's the unregenerate life. The way of sowing to please the Spirit is the Christian life, that's the healthy Christian life. The destination of the first is destruction, eternal condemnation, hell ultimately. The destination of the second is eternal life, it's heaven. In a lesser sense, for us as Christians, this law comes into play by the quality of our life now as well. It's a lesser issue but it's related. What kind of life you're living now is related to this issue of sowing and reaping. The more you sow to the Spirit, the better life you will live now and the more fruit you'll have for the glory of God. The more you step out and sow to the flesh, the more trouble you're going to have in this life, and the more corruption and the more difficulty; it's a basic principle. Now, what do we mean by flesh and Spirit? Well the flesh, as we've said, is the indwelling sin nature, it is that part of you that remains after justification, still there, sin living in you like a nasty cancerous tumor; it's inside all of us, causing us to sin. We could say the very thing that we hate we do, but the very thing that we yearn to do we do not do. The flesh is that part of you that produces the acts of the flesh that we've seen in Galatians 5:19-21, sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. The flesh is that part of you that produces those things. That's indwelling sin. Sowing to the flesh is to yield to temptations in those areas, that's what it means, so it's a metaphor. One of those sins or others like it come at you with a temptation, Satan brings it, and you yield; you have just sowed to the flesh. Conversely, sowing to the Spirit, the Spirit is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, he lives within us after we have come to faith in Christ. He is omnipotent, he is sovereign God, he lives within you, he is the gift of the new covenant, and he dwells within the heart of every true Christian, and there's a war going on. Fighting the good fight of faith is this war that we're describing between the flesh and the Spirit. And so we have these two ways to live, like darkness and light. Jesus said, speaking of these two different ways to live in the Sermon on the Mount, "Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it." These are the two different roads that we're talking about here. Sowing to the flesh, every time you indulge the sinful nature you're sowing to the flesh. John Stott put it this way, "Every time we allow our mind to harbor a grudge, nurse a grievance, entertain an impure fancy, wallow in self-pity, we are sowing to the flesh. Every time we linger in bad company whose insidious influence we know we cannot resist, every time we lie in bed when we ought to be up praying, every time we read pornographic literature, every time we take a risk that strains our self-control, we are sowing, sowing, sowing to the flesh." On the other hand, what does it mean to sow to the Spirit? Well, every time you follow the prompting of the Spirit to worship Christ, every time you follow the prompting of the Spirit to sing a Christian song, a psalm, hymn or spiritual song, you're sowing to the Spirit. Every time you follow the prompting of the Spirit to intercede for a missionary, for an unreached people group, you're sowing to the Spirit. Every time you follow the prompting of the Spirit to give generously to missions or to the needs of the poor, you're sowing to the Spirit. Every time you follow the prompting of the Spirit to share the Gospel with a co-worker or a stranger, you're sowing to the Spirit. As you keep in step with the Spirit moment by moment, every action, every attitude of the heart that you do in submission to the leadership of the Spirit, you are sowing seeds to the Spirit; you're deepening patterns of Christ-likeness within yourself. This all comes down, dear friends, to habits; bad habits, good habits. IV. Your Salvation Depends on Continuing to Do Good Sowing to the flesh, that's the bad habits of the Christian life and we must fight them. Sowing to the Spirit, those are the good habits, the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Those that are completely characterized by sowing to the flesh are unregenerate, they're lost. Now, here's the kicker. This is the hard part for many Christians to accept. And I want you to stay with me now. Your final salvation depends on continuing to sow to the Spirit. Let me say this again. Your final salvation, going to heaven, depends on continuing to sow to the Spirit. In other words, you can't build up a lead and coast in the fourth quarter. You understand what I mean? Do you know that there are sports that have a clock and there are sports that don't? And the sports that have a clock, you can build up a big lead and then do just about nothing and you'll win the game. But then the sports that don't have a clock, like golf and tennis and baseball, you have to keep playing right till the end. You do. For example, running. You can't have a big lead in an Olympic race, the 10,000 meter, and say, "That's it." And shut it down with two laps to go. You will lose. You have to keep playing you, you have to keep fighting, you have to keep running right to the end. That's what Paul's saying here. You cannot grow weary in doing good. You have to keep sowing to the Spirit. He says in Verse 9, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." John Piper put it this way, "This is...," I'm quoting Piper now: "This is very controversial, let it sink in. What is at stake in this text is eternal life. Not merely sanctification, but also final salvation. Whether you go to heaven or whether you go to hell depends in some way on whether you grow weary in well doing or not." The text is addressed to the church. Listen carefully, note how the thought moves from verses 8-9, "He who sows to his own flesh, from the flesh will reap corruption. He who sows to the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not, therefore, grow weary in well doing, for in due season, we will reap if we do not lose heart." You will reap eternal life, if you sow to the Spirit. That is, if you don't grow weary in well doing. Because of texts like these, I understand my role as a pastor teacher to be not merely a means to your sanctification, but also a means to your salvation. Your final salvation. This text is written to help bring the Saints of Galatia to final salvation, eternal life. Therefore, a sermon from this text to the saints at [FBC] should also aim to help bring you to final salvation or eternal life. You have to keep running the race and it's my job as a pastor to feed you so you can stay strong for that race. You need energy for this, you need spiritual vitality for this race, for this sowing to the Spirit. Another key text on this is Romans 2:6-10, again, frequently misunderstood. Romans 2:6-10 says, "God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, He'll give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking, who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There'll be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, then for the gentile. But glory, honor and piece for everyone who does good, first for the Jew, then for the gentile." In other words, there are just two different ways to live and there are two different patterns of life. One of them leads to heaven, the other one to hell. And you must continue to sow to the Spirit and reap the good fruit that comes from that. That's the Christian life. Persistence in doing good. We must continue. Listen to Colossians 1:21-23, "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel." Again, the same thing, 1 Corinthians 15:1-2, "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel, you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you, otherwise you have believed in vain." Jesus said, "He who stands firm to the end will be saved." Perseverance and doing good works is not an option in the Christian life. If we are living for the flesh, we're not Christians. We cannot indulge secret sin habits and have any assurance that we're justified. Now, if you tell me that sounds legalistic, I'm not talking about legalism at all. I have not forgotten for a moment the indwelling Holy Spirit and his sovereign power in helping you to do this very thing. As a matter of fact, let me put it this way: True Christians must continue to sow to the Spirit and true Christians will continue to sow to the Spirit. Praise God. To God be the glory, but you need to know that you need to keep sowing to the Spirit and then you need to sow to the Spirit. And when you are sowing to the Spirit, give all credit and the glory to the Holy Spirit. When you see the fruit of the Spirit in your life, say, "The Spirit did this in me. Praise God." God will get all the glory for this journey, you'll get all the joy and you'll get that harvest. V. Doing Good to All People, but Especially to Believers Finally, he talks about doing good to all people, especially to believers. Look at Verse 10, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers." This is a wonderful application. It's a life rich with good works. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself, sow to the Spirit and do these good works. It's a call to benevolence ministry, it says as we have opportunity, that means as you're alive. While you're drawing breath in this earth, while you have time under the sun, that's what opportunity is, that's what time is, time equals opportunity. As you have opportunity, do good. Do those good works that God has prepared in advance for you to walk in. Give to the poor and needy. Be generous to those who need what you have. But there's a priority in this verse given to the Christians, do you see that? Let's do good to all people. That's everybody, anybody. Anybody all the time who has a need, right? You think about The Parable of The Good Samaritan? Right? And you're walking along the road and you see someone lying in a ditch bleeding. You don't stop and do a spiritual survey at that moment, okay? "Are you a Christian?" Okay. It's got nothing to do with that. The person has a need, they might die if you don't help them, you venture in and you help. But you're doing it, hoping that you might have a long term relationship with that person and lead them to Christ if they're not a Christian. There's a general priority here given to the Christian church. It is especially vital for us to look after our own. It's really important for there to be no poor, needy people among us. As it says in Acts chapter 4, "There were no needy persons among them." the early Christian church, "For from time to time, those who owned houses or land sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the Apostles' feet and it was distributed to anyone as he had need." As we have opportunity, let's do good to all people. That's urban ministry, that's reaching out, poor and needy, that's ministry of the hungry, starving. Ministry to people, whether they're Christians or not. But let's be certain that we give top priority to the family of believers, the family of God. VI. Application What application can we take from all of this? Well, first, just if you're an unbeliever here today, I just want to warn you in the spirit of this passage, God cannot be mocked. You will reap what you have sown. And if you don't have Christ as a Savior, you will reap destruction. I'm pleading with you to flee to Christ. You've heard the gospel that God sent his Son, who died on the cross in the place of sinners. Trust in Him. Trust in Him for the salvation of your soul. I was reading about a free soloist rock climber, I don't know why I read about these guys, but they just interest me, I would never do it. But this guy who set records on a half dome and all that sort of stuff and went up one of the hardest rock climbs and all that. This guy calls himself a militant atheist. And I'm thinking, "How can you be hanging from two fingers, 3,000 feet above the valley floor and be a militant atheist? Do you understand how close you are to hell right now?" It was a terrifying thing to ponder that, hanging by two or three fingers over hell. Now, you may not be a free soloist rock climber, but if you're an unbeliever, picture yourself that way. Spiritually, picture yourself that way, hanging by two or three fingers over hell. God cannot be mocked by blasphemers, by adulterers, by fornicators, by liars, he cannot be mocked. And if you don't repent, you will perish. All of us are in that same situation, but thanks be to God for Jesus. Amen. God sent his son to save sinners like you and me, and he came to rescue you from hell. Flee to Christ. Secondly, believers just... If I could urge you, be warned by this yourselves as well. Be warned by the tendency that you have to sow to the flesh. The flesh is strong, fight it. Fight it. Do not grow weary in doing that good. Sow to the Spirit. If you're weak right now in your devotional life, repent. Don't grow weary in the Christian life of doing good. Get back into daily Bible reading, get back into daily prayer, get back into confession of sin. If you're weak in your commitment to the local church, you happen to be here this one Sunday, I'm praising God you're here. Repent and be here week after week, you need like I do to be here every week for the feeding of your soul. And if you're feeling as a Christian today, weary in your Christian life, for whatever reason, you may be going through trials, we all get weary, there's so many restoration verses in the Bible, aren't there? Psalm 23, "He restores my soul." I quoted Isaiah 40, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." Even young men stumble. We all get weary. Or Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened," says Jesus "And I'll give you rest." If you're feeling weary and weak or bored in your Christian life, flee to Christ and let Him renew you and strengthen you. And then, parents, if I can urge you, fathers, praise God for you, but mothers too. Teach your kids the law of sowing and reaping. Teach them that they'll reap what they sow. Okay? Parents do what I call representational disciplines. Okay. That's a euphemism for spankings. And corporal punishments and other disciplines, getting grounded, getting fined, all of those things are representation. The real punishment for sin in this world is in this text, the law of sowing and reaping. It cannot be abrogated. You're going to reap what you sow. If you're sinning in certain areas, God may will that you will have the earthly consequences of those sins, you may go to prison, you may have a pregnancy you didn't expect, you may have your life changed in significant ways by decisions you've made, you may have an addiction, you may have an addiction to internet pornography or to alcohol or drugs and you never expected it, but you forgot the law of sowing and reaping. I'm just urging parents to teach kids this, that's the real discipline there is in this life, and teach yourself this as well. And then finally, if I can just urge the church, let's be generous in benevolent ministry. Amen? Let's be generous in giving financially. We've got the Deacon Benevolence Ministry. Every Lord's Supper, we collect money and we give it out to people who have needs in the church and in the community. Be generous and give to the poor and needy. And be generous also with our Great Commission Fund. Let's be generous throughout the year. Not just at Christmas time for missions, but throughout the year. There are people who need to hear the gospel, so be generous and give. Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank You for the time we've had to look at these incredible verses. I thank You for the power that the Word of God has to renew the weary. Strengthen us, oh Lord. Help us not grow weary in doing good. We know it, in due time we'll reap the harvest if we do not give up. In Jesus' name, amen.

sermon transcript Introduction: The Retelling of the Christmas Story is Essential to Our Faith Few Stories Told As Frequently As This One Well, Christmas season is upon us, in case you didn't know; decorations enough to tell us that. Also the lavish time of busyness, and activity, and planning, and preparation. One of my favorite aspects of Christmas are the stories that go along the Christmas season. I love reading those stories or watching movie renditions of them. Last night we watched –it’s kind of a family tradition to watch - the 1970 Scrooge presentation with Albert Finney. It was kind of a musical thing; music is a little odd for me, how people just break out into song in the middle of things. I don't tend to do that, maybe some of your families do that, but the musical aspect doesn't interfere. It's really a poignant story, and we love to watch that and the transformation of an individual from a stingy miser, a wicked miser, to a very generous, lavish person by the visitation of some ghosts. We'll get to all that later, I'll talk about that later, but that's the story, you know it well. Or the story written by O. Henry, The Gift of The Magi; you know that one, a young couple penniless, living in the city, set in I think the late 19th century, and they're trying to think of a really nice Christmas gift they can get for each other, but they don't have very much money at all. And so they each give up something very precious to them to buy a valuable gift for the other. Though the wife gives up her long hair to, I think a wig maker or something like that, she sells her hair so that she can buy a chain for his pocket watch. And then he, for his part, sells the pocket watch, so he can buy her an expensive set of combs for her hair. And so, that's how that goes. You know that story, The Gift of the Magi. And then, of course, the story of the Little Drummer Boy. I don't know that that ever really happened, but there he was, and all he had to offer was his drumming, and then “he smiled at me” and all of that. And so, you know the Claymation one, have you ever seen that one? I don't know who invented Claymation, but the guy must have been a genius. And of course, It's A Wonderful Life, and some of you have seen that, trying to find out what life would have been like without George Bailey. I have no idea what life would - I guess we all know what life would have been like without George Bailey since he was fictitious. But at any rate, Clarence, the angel, his guardian angel, shows up and shows him the value of his life. And all of these stories kind of a rich part of the tapestry of our culture. Scripture Tells It a Variety of Ways But you know, the Lord has spoken a far more poignant story in the actual birth narratives of Jesus Christ. And as you go, you deal with all of them, some of it's just straight out silliness, frankly. Some of it, very poignant, but nothing trumps actually going back and reading in Luke and in Matthew, the account, the historical account of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And by contrast, it's just so simple and profound. And it is vital for us as Christians to go over this Christmas story again and again. It's vital to our faith for us to remember the actual events of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And in Luke Chapter 2, I'm just going to read this account Verses 1-20. The value of hearing again of the birth of Christ. There it says: "In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria). And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth and Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. And he went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her first born, a son, and she wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the Inn. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown around them. And they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. And this will be assigned to you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.' Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to men on whom His favor rests.' And when the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.' So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger. And when they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child. And all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. Shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told." That's so profound, isn't it, as you look at that. And some time ago, I preached a sermon demonstrating the supernatural and natural aspects of that birth narrative. And it's good to meditate on that, some aspects of Jesus' birth are the same way every child has ever been born, and others are very unusual, supernatural even, the angelic visitations and the glory of God shining all around. And how perfect is it that there's a blending of both, because Jesus was both son of man and also Son of God. Matthew's gospel tells the story more from Joseph's point of view. It gives the genealogy of Jesus Christ, how through Joseph, through the lineage of David, Jesus had the right to be King of the Jews. And then it tells of Mary becoming pregnant through the Holy Spirit, and Joseph resolving to divorce her quietly, and then an angel appearing to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." Matthew then tells how Joseph obeyed the voice of the angel, what the angel told him to do. He married Mary, took her home as his wife, but he had no union with her until after the baby was born. Matthew 2 recounts the story of the Magi coming from a distant land to, following a star right to Bethlehem, the house where Jesus was, and how they gave him gifts of gold and incense and myrrh, and they bowed down and worshipped him, and then they returned to their country by another route. But how Herod jealous and wicked and selfish, his jealousy triggered by the visit of the Magi, unleashed the first persecution in direct connection with Jesus, and that is the slaughter of the babies in Bethlehem and its vicinity who are two years old and under. And so, we have these narratives, these birth narratives, showing that Jesus stepped into time, he stepped into history, he's an actual individual, a human being. He's not a myth, he's not a legend. We also have in the New Testament, doctrinal explanations of the birth of Christ. For example, in 1 Timothy 3:16 there it says, "Beyond all question, the mystery of Godliness is great. He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory." And then earlier in that same book, 1 Timothy 1:15, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst." I love that verse. And that just shows the purpose of Jesus being born to save sinners. Then in the Old Testament, you have all these prophetic foretellings of Jesus. The predictions through the eyes of the prophets, centuries before Jesus was even born. Like Isaiah 7:14, which is also quoted in Matthew Chapter 1, "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel". And that means God with us. The idea of the incarnation predicted there centuries before Jesus was born. Or the location of his birth in Micah 5-2, "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Easy to Become Numb and to Tune Out Well, it's easy as you hear these verses, you hear all of these things, to become numb to it. I mean, we've heard it again and again, there's nothing new. And I would hope you'd be shocked if I came up with something entirely new. Like they recently discovered a new birth narrative of Jesus. I read about it in the National Enquirer. It's awesome. And you can find all kinds of new details; I hope you would all be sharp enough to reject any new birth narratives. And in fact, God is saying, you don't need any new narratives, you don't need any new insights, you don't need anything new here. The fact that any of this could make you numb, or you could become bored, just shows your own wandering hearts. What we need to do is have the Lord do a renewing work in us so that we can hear these things and remember again the significance of the birth of Christ. The World Garbles the Christmas Message - Worse Every Year The world garbles the Christmas message year after year, we hear about it, and it gets worse every year. Materialism rises up to confuse the message of Christmas. You know, it was Jesus that said, "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Doesn't it seem like, like the retailers are trying to challenge Jesus on that point? In effect saying, yes, your life does consist in the abundance of your possessions. And so, retailers are counting on a really good Christmas to save the year, and they want you to buy, buy, buy, you know, jewelry and electronic gadgets and automobiles and other things. I bet all of you are waiting for that Lexus in the driveway with a big red bow on the top, right? The spouse is going to say, take it back, we can't afford it. But along with this comes the secular kind of winter holiday kind of thing, you know, more and more, a sense of the secularization of our country and the fact that we're losing the sense of Christ being the center of Christmas and radio stations playing that seasonal music. And we hear that year after year, and then characters like Santa Claus and the Grinch who piggybacks on Santa Claus, I guess, Frosty the Snowman in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and all of that, just diverting attention from the center of everything, and that is Christ. Even Dickens classic, how much better a story would it have been if that regeneration had been done by the Holy Spirit because someone preached the Gospel to him, wouldn't have that been better than three ghosts, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, Future? And then he just throws open all of his benevolence and generosity to the poor, because Christ has changed his heart. Somebody ought to write that story, maybe someone has, I don't know. But GK Chesterton was talking about Dickens classic, defended it as literature and having some noble themes, but he said this concerning Dickens, "We must not ask Dickens what Christmas is, for with all his heat and eloquence, he does not know." And that really is a symbol for our secular nation, they just don't seem to know what Christmas is about any more than they know what Thanksgiving is about. Thanksgiving is about God, it's about thanking God for the blessings of our lives, and Christmas is about the gift of Jesus as Savior of the world. And so for us, as Christians, we know the center, we understand what Christmas is about, but we still need to be renewed. Here: “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus…” We need our faith. Renewed faith comes by hearing, and faith is renewed by hearing about Christ, and that's what I want to do today. And I want to do it just from one verse. I want to look at 2 Corinthians 8:9, and I want to talk about how Christ, through His poverty, has made us rich. For those of you thinking, we're getting a Galatians sermon now because the title is wrong, we're not, okay? But we're going to talk today about how Christ through His poverty has enriched us. Look again at the verse, 2 Corinthians 8:9, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor, so that you, through His poverty, might become rich." And isn't it interesting how the verse begins with what you already know? You know the grace of God in Christ, you know the grace of Christ. I'm not telling you Paul says anything new. And so it is with me in this sermon today, I'm not bringing any new insights, not bringing any new thoughts about the birth of Christ. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, it's my pleasure to keep reminding you of things you already know, so you don't forget them, and they don't fade from your heart. And so, the verse begins with a sense of what it is we already know. And it is vital to our faith to keep the sense of the mystery of the Godliness, the gift of Godliness through Christ fresh. The miracle of Christmas is summed up plainly in these verses. John 1:1, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the Word was God." Verse 14, "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we have seen His glory, glory of the only begotten, from the Father, full of grace and truth." And also in these verses, in Luke Chapter 1:30-35, as the angel Gabriel appears to Mary and says, "'Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, and He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of his father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.' 'How will this be?' Mary asked the angel, 'since I'm a virgin.' The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And so, the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.'" So there's the center of the mystery of Christmas, the incarnation, Son of God, Son of man, born of a virgin, son of his father, David, but also son of the most High God. And the reason for the incarnation made plan in these verses, Luke 19:10, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." How Jesus is seeking and saving lost people even now, through the power of the Holy Spirit. And again, Matthew 20:28, "The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many." Now, our text this morning puts the incarnation of Jesus in terms of wealth and poverty, and is worthy tracing this verse out phrase by phrase to try to understand it. The Origin of Christmas: The Grace of Our Lord Jesus The Text Begins with the Concept of GRACE The origins of Christmas, according to 2 Corinthians 8:9 is the grace of Jesus. It all starts with the Grace of Jesus in that Verse. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, it says, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich." Usually, when we think of grace; we focus on the first person of the Trinity, God the Father, and the gift of Jesus is definitely display of the grace of God, but here in this verse, it focuses on the grace of Jesus. What do we mean by grace? Grace is a settled determination in the heart of God the Father, also here in this verse, the heart of Jesus to do us good. It's a determination to do you good, you who deserved infinite wrath and judgment. And so, I think you really have to put those things together, what we deserved and what we receive. And as you put those two together, you really understand Biblical grace. We deserved wrath because we were sinners, we violated the laws of God. We had sinned against Almighty God, and that's an infinite sin, and therefore we deserved infinite punishment, but instead, what do we get? We get infinite wealth. We get riches beyond all measure, and that is grace. Christmas Started in the Mind of God Before the Foundation of the World So, Christmas started in the mind of God the Father and God the Son before the foundation of the world. Listen to 2 Timothy 1:8-10, speaking there about "God who has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done, but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. But has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." So before the beginning of time, God worked out and determined to save you, and Jesus just determined in our verse to make you rich, he wanted to make you infinitely wealthy. And so this is the grace of Christ Jesus, where it all began. Before God said, Let there be light, before there were rivers or oceans or continents, before there were stars in the cosmos, before any of these things, God determined to do you good, and Jesus determined to pay the price. Christmas Started by the Grace of Christ Before He Entered the World And so, Christmas started by the grace of Christ before he entered the world. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich yet for your sakes, He became poor. Jesus was willing to leave the glory of Heaven for the suffering and death of the earth. Now, he's the only one, only human being that's ever been born, the only human being that's ever lived that made a conscious decision to enter this world. That's language that we could never use. It's what he said to Pontius Pilate. You remember when he was on trial for being King, this is the King of the Jews. Pilate said to Him, oh, so you are a king. And "Jesus said, You are right in saying that I am a king. In fact, for this reason, I was born and for this, I came into the world to testify to the truth." It's an extraordinary statement he's making there. I chose to enter the world. It says the same thing earlier in John 6:38-40, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." Where Christ Began: Infinitely Rich The Simple Assertion of the Text And so Jesus made a conscious decision to enter the world. And so Christ began before he entered the world, and the text says, infinitely rich, infinitely rich. It's a simple straightforward assertion of the text. "…the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich..." How Rich Was Christ Before He Entered the World? Alright, how rich? How rich was Jesus? How many of you have ever been to the Biltmore Hotel? Don't raise your - or is it a hotel? No, it's a house. Alright, and I've been there, gold bathtubs, jewels and the walls. Extraordinary wealth. I've actually been to the Vanderbilt summer cottage at The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island. I've been to both of their houses. And The Breakers is just extraordinary, the lavish wealth; it's like one mansion after another there in Newport, Rhode Island. That wealthy? Or how about the Bill Gates home? Have you looked into that, $157 million home. Who is he going to sell it to? When you have a home worth 157 million, I don't know who you're going to - you're going to take a loss on it, probably. $157 million home there in Medina, Washington, overlooking Lake Washington. Spectacularly beautiful. There's kind of like an online tour, if you're so inclined. It's an amazing thing, state-of-the-art home where if you come in as a guest of Bill and Melinda Gates, they're going to give you a little electronic chip and you can kind of program the heater, temperature of the room, whatever room you want, you just program ahead of time and wherever you go, it will program the room to be climate controlled. What happens if you have two guests in the room. Frequently a husband and wife, one likes it hot, a little colder, I don't know how that works. But that kind of wealth or perhaps you've seen online, someone sent this to me once, The House That Golf Built, this was Tiger Woods home on an island off the coast of Florida, where he gets to see both the sunrise and the sunset over water, and it's this incredible house with all this glass, all the like glass windows, and it's like the master bedroom overlooking water right there, and then you find out at the end that he raised it and built his own mansion at that place. That kind of wealth. Friends, there's nothing on Earth that even comes close to the wealth of Jesus before he entered the world. Nothing comes close. I don't care what mansion you've seen, Vanderbilt or The Breakers. How rich was Christ before entering the world? Well, I want to focus on those things that He left behind. There were some things that he took with them into the world because he never stopped being God, but there are some things he left behind, and so as I was making this list, I was thinking specifically about those things he left behind to enter the world. Rich in Glory Shared by the Father First, he was rich in glory shared with his father. He was radiant in glory. What do we mean by that? Well, Jesus is the radiance of God's glory. And before He entered the world, Jesus was perfectly radiating the glory of God. Well, we learned in 1 Timothy 6 that "God dwells in unapproachable light." He's so blindingly glorious, sitting on the throne of Heaven, that the seraphim in Isaiah 6, have to cover their faces. They cover their face, they've got six wings. "With two wings they cover their faces; with two, they covered their feet; and with two, they're flying." And they're crying out, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory." And then John 12:41, it says, "Isaiah said this, because he was speaking about Jesus' glory." He saw Jesus' glory and wrote about Him. And so that was Jesus' glory that radiates heaven and earth. In Revelation 1:16, after Jesus has ascended back into heaven, John has a vision of Jesus. In Revelation 1:16, it says, "… his face was like the sun shining at full strength." He couldn't look at the face of Jesus, the radiant glory shining from him. In his incarnation Jesus left this radiant glory behind. At the end of his time on Earth, he asked his father for it back. In John 17:5, he says, "And now father glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world began." That's an incredible prayer, because it says in Isaiah 42:8, Yahweh says this," I am the Lord, that is my name, I will not share my glory with another or give My praise to idols." And so God will not share His glory with another but Jesus isn't another, the mystery of the trinity, and so he had the glory of God before he entered the world. Rich in Achievements of Creation He was also rich in achievements in creation. Heaven and earth put on display the handy work of Jesus. It says in John 1:3, "Through Jesus all things were made, and without him nothing was made that has been made." Colossians 1, 16 and 17 says, "For by Him, by Jesus, all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, where the thrones, or powers, or rulers or authorities, all things were created by Him, and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Psalm 104 recounts, down here on Earth, all of nature, all of these realms of biology of animals in the sea and on land and moving through the air, and all of it displaying the glory of God. And it says in Psalm 104:31, "May the glory of the Lord endure forever. May the Lord rejoice in his works," but the Scripture teaches those are Jesus' works. He was rich in works and the heavenly hosts that were worshipping and knew that Jesus made all things, including themselves, and gave Him glory for that. Rich in Power over the Universe Thirdly, He was rich in power over the universe, directly reigning over the universe. He openly ruled over heaven and earth, his power was openly displayed and unquestioned. He ruled over stars and planets, over winds and rain, over birds and fish, over angels and men. Nebuchadnezzar said of Him, "He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth, no one can hold back his hand or say to him: 'what have you done?'" Rich in Possessions And Jesus was simply rich in possessions, he just owned a lot. As a matter of fact, he owned everything. Everything that could be owned, he owned. Psalm 95, 4 and 5 says, "In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land." I like Psalm 50, verse 10-12 says, "Every animal in the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, I know that creatures of the field they're all mine, if I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the World is mine and everything in it." He claims ownership over the nations of the Earth. In Psalm 60, 7 and 8, "Gilead is mine, Manasseh is mine. Ephraim is my helmet, Judah is my scepter, Moab is my washbasin. Upon Edom, I tossed my sandal. Over Philistia, I shout in triumph." He owned it all. He was the King of kings and Lord of lords. Rich in Angelic Worship & Service Fifth, he is rich in angelic, worship and service. He had a 100 million angels doing his bidding. 100 million. Thousands upon thousands attended Him. 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him. Only geeks like me would do the math - that's 100 million angels. 100 million ready to do His bidding, ready to obey Him. They were the ones that are crying to one another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. And sixthly and finally, he was rich in happiness and satisfaction, completely blessed in heaven. Before he took on a human body, Jesus never knew pain or suffering. Book of Hebrew says "He learned obedience by what he suffered. He had never suffered anything before that," except perhaps one thing, he saw the damage that sin had done to the universe and specifically to his chosen people, and it grieved Him, and it motivated him to leave all of that comfort and power and pleasure behind and take on a human body and enter this world. And so that's where Christ started, that's how infinitely wealthy he started. Where did he end up? Where Christ Ended: Infinitely Poor Christ’s Free Choice Well, he ended up infinitely immeasurably poor. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor." Now, this was Christ free choice, but he became perfectly poor. Daniel read these verses earlier, listen to them again in Philippians 2:6-8, "Jesus being, in very nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross." Christ’s Poverty: The Infinite Downward Journey So Jesus at the cross, I would contend, is the poorest man that ever lived Any of those things that would alleviate the suffering of life were gone from him, and he had actually infinite suffering as our sin bearer. So he became a human being, He became weak, He became beset with suffering, He became a servant. He was temptable, it says in Hebrews 2:18, "He Himself suffered when He was tempted, and he was tempted in every way, just as we are yet was without sin, able to become hungry, and tired, and thirsty, able to feel pain, able to suffer and able to die." In Isaiah 53:3, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering." He was born a baby. And at one level, this absolutely had to be because he had to fulfill the fact that it would be the seed of a woman who had crushed the serpents head, but Adam was formed from the dust of the earth, fully formed as an adult human being. So we still need to see some aspect of volition on the part of Jesus to be born so completely helpless in the normal way, absolutely helpless, stripped of all visible glory and power, needing to be swaddled like a newborn baby does by a human mother and needing to learn everything. This will just blow the circuits of your brain. How can Jesus be omniscient and need to learn things? Does anyone know the answer to that? But Jesus did. He was God, and also needed to learn everything. He was completely mute as all babies are. I know they make sounds, but those aren't words. They'll let you know and they're hungry, and tired, and have needs or in pain, they definitely do. But he couldn't talk. He had to learn how to talk. He who was the Word incarnate, couldn't say a word when he was born. When he was born, a Jew, therefore a member of a conquered people under the heel of the Romans, they were effectively slaves in their own Promised Land, and within the Jewish nation born of unusually poor parents. If you look at the actual circumstances of his birth, very few babies in the world are born into that level of poverty. Joseph and Mary were clearly Godly, but they're also poor. Because it says in Leviticus 12, 7 and 8, "These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl, if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or young pigeons, one for a burnt offering, and the other for sin offering." So they met the criteria of too poor to offer the real offering, so they had to offer the poor man's offering. And look at the poverty of the circumstances of his birth, poor people generally have better birth circumstances than Jesus did: Born in a barn, laid in a manger where animals eat their food. In many ways, they were like homeless people at that particular point, and His poverty would continue throughout His life. To one disciple who wanted to follow him, he said, remember how the disciples said, "I'll follow you wherever you go" and He said, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head." He was supported by a group of women who supported him out of their means. He was a servant of all, humble toward anyone who asked, hated and opposed by many, but the ultimate poverty was the death on the cross. The infinite downward journey was made complete when Jesus died under the wrath of God and the cross, as His clothes are being gambled for there in fulfillment of prophecy, He has no earthly possessions left, nothing, it's all gone. And then God pours out his wrath on Jesus. Our sin bearer suffering in our place, despised and rejected, hated and mocked, stripped of all possible dignity, he died, a death of an accursed man. No one ever has been as poor as Jesus was at that particular moment. Still Rich, Though! Still rich though. Still rich though. I don't like those theologies of what they call the kenosis, the emptying, how Jesus stopped being God, He would never stop being God. He was always the second person of the Trinity, and we can't quite fathom how he can be both sin bearer and also the second person of the Trinity, but the Father, the Son and the Spirit, that's eternal. It will never change. And so Jesus forever was and is God the Son. He never stopped being the son of God. He displayed supernatural power over the winds and rains, over fish, over donkeys, over people, over every illness, even over death. He displayed supernatural power. He was rich in wisdom. No one ever spoke the way he did. Supernatural knowledge, he knew people's minds and thoughts, even what they were thinking in the secrets of their hearts. And he was rich in love, his father loved him with a perfect love. It says in Hebrews 1:9, "You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions." He was perfect in His character, and so the characteristics of Jesus, the nature of Jesus, the perfections of Jesus, drew forth the affections of his father, and so he testified at his baptism, "This is my beloved Son, whom I love. With Him, I am well pleased." And he was rich in love toward others, He poured out compassion and love toward others. What Christ Accomplished: We Became Rich It Was All for Us! “For your sake…” So, what did Christ accomplish? Well, he made you rich. That's what he accomplished. We know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for our sakes, He became poor. So that through his poverty, we might become rich. It was all for us. We Were Poor, Though We Didn’t Know It Now, perhaps you didn't know that you were poor, perhaps you didn't know. There was a group of people in the Book of Revelation that didn't know either. And in Revelation 3:17, it says, "You say, I'm rich, I've acquired wealth and do not need a thing, but you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked." If you are out of fellowship with God, it doesn't matter how much money you make every year, it doesn't matter where you live, it doesn't matter what's in the bank account, you are infinitely poverty-stricken in the eyes of heaven. Everything we own will someday be taken from us, "…we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it," 1st Timothy 6:7. The Vanderbilts left their beautiful homes behind, and now they're museums. Maybe someday Bill Gates's home will be a museum too if the Lord tarries, we don't know. But you can't bring it with you. And all of our beauty, and power, and strength, and skill are temporary and fading, as it says in Isaiah 40, 6 and 7, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them." We are like grass, and you might be young and strong and vibrant and capable and skillful and healthy, but it's all temporary, because all of our human capabilities and acquisitions are temporary. And apart from Christ, we were rebellious and we were under the wrath of God, as it says in Romans 3, "There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God." And again, in Titus 3:3, "At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures, we lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. And we were powerless to resist the devil." As it says in Romans 5:6, "At that time, we were powerless. At the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." "We were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And we were dead in our transgressions and sins," Ephesians 2 says, "and we were under the death penalty, for the wages of sin is death." That's what we were. He Made Us Rich We were infinitely poverty-stricken, but Christ has made us rich, Amen. He has made us richer than your wildest dreams can imagine. Can't even imagine how wealthy we are. First and foremost, we are adopted as sons and daughters of the living God. We are heirs, as I said last week, with Abraham, heirs of the world. The meek will inherit the Earth, and if you're a child of God, you're one of those meek. If you're a son, daughter of Abraham, you're going to be named in his will and you will get some of the new heaven and new earth, infinitely rich, and death cannot take it from you, because you'll never die. You're rich in forgiveness, rich in righteousness, rich in adoption, rich in inheritance and rich in the Holy Spirit. Christ Richer Than When He Started: He Gained Us & Gets Richer Everyday (And So do We)! And Christ is richer too. What did he get? Well, he got us. Now, you would say that's not really much, but he doesn't look on it that way. We were created in the image of God and now redeemed through His blood and transformed back into the image of God, and he gained a "multitude from every tribe and language and people and nation" that will stand around the throne in white robes, holding palm branches in their hands and saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb." And he gets more and more and more of those people every day. It was a very, very good investment. He gets richer and richer every single day, as more and more of the elect come to faith in Christ. Application: How Christ’s Love Should Compel Us Receive the Gift of Grace, This is the Real Christmas Present So what application can we take from 2 Corinthians 8:9? Well, first, just receive the gift of God's grace. Receive the gift of God's grace. Perhaps you're a visitor here today, perhaps you're not a Christian, perhaps you're on the outside looking in, trust in Christ. You've heard the gospel plainly revealed this morning that God sent His son to save sinners like you. Trust in Him. You don't have to do any good works. As we've been saying in the book of Galatians, just by simple faith in Jesus, all your sins will be removed, and you will be adopted because he suffered wrath in your place. As JI Packer summed it all up in these words, “Adoption through propitiation, you are adopted as a son or daughter of the living God, because Jesus died in your place under the wrath of God.” Trust in Him. Revel in the Gift of Grace; Meditate on How Christ’s Poverty Has Made You Rich Secondly, if you've come to Christ already just revel in the gift of grace, feel your wealth, understand that you're an heir of heaven, understand this, meditate on how Christ's poverty has made you rich, and feel that. It has nothing to do with material possessions. Anything given to you this week will be, at some point, destroyed, as Isaiah 40 said, "It's grass, it's going to wither and fall." But you are rich in ways that no thief can steal from you, and no moth and rust can destroy. You are infinitely wealthy. Understand How this Grace Compels Us to Be Generous to Others And thirdly, understand how this grace compels you to act like Jesus and be gracious to the poor around you. That's the home base of 2 Corinthians 8:9, that's what it's all about. What is Paul doing in 2 Corinthians 8, he's raising money, he's raising money based on the example of the Macedonian Christians who were gracious, and despite the fact that they were really poor, gave lots of money to alleviate the poverty of Jewish Christians in Palestine. And so he's talking to the Corinthians, saying, I want you to know what the Macedonians did, you might want to think about giving. And then he talks about Jesus, and he says, "Look, Jesus is our example. You have been made rich by Jesus. Now, make others rich." Make others rich. How do we do that? Well we could start with money. Money is the beginning. Okay, we're surrounded by people who don't know the name of Jesus. They go to the ends of the earth, and we should care about unreached people groups. There are 7296 unreached people groups. We should care about them and desire to reach them with the Gospel, and money is involved in that. It takes money to send missionaries and support them on the mission field. We're about halfway to our goal, Lottie Moon. I have full confidence that this church will meet the goal, but I urge you to be sacrificial. Think about how much God has given you and be generous and have compassion on poverty-stricken people, have compassion on the poor and needy right around us and to the ends of the earth. As I was doing research for a talk I'm going to give a week from today at the cross-conference, I'm doing a talk on Mercy Ministry, lessons on Mercy Ministry throughout church history, good and bad. I can't think of a crueler topic, alright? I'm probably up to 36 pages, and they've given me 50 minutes. I think I'm going to appeal for another 50 minutes, but I don't think they're going to give it to me. I think I've got that length of time, and that's it. So now I have to go back and just get it down to these few stories. But one of the things I've learned is the incredible gap between the richest nations and the poorest nation, now it's wider than it's ever been in history. Before the industrial revolution, the gap was generally 4:1, that the wealthy nations per capita made four times as much as the poorest nations. Now, nearly half the world population, more than 3 billion people live on less $2.50 a day. The average American, $90 a day. Think about that. That's like 45:1. So what do we do with that information? What should we do with the fact that 1.3 billion people live in extreme poverty, about $1 a day, the fact that 1 billion children worldwide are living in poverty, 22,000 children die every day, directly due to poverty? What do we do with that information, the fact that more than 1 billion people lack adequate access to clean drinking water and 400 million of these are children, the fact that almost a billion people, 870 million people worldwide do not have enough food to eat, the fact that there are preventable diseases that take out the lives of people, like diarrhea even? The first human being I ever saw die, died of diarrhea in Northern Pakistan. It was a little baby, 20 days old, and the parents had ignorantly cut off that child's fluids because they thought it would solve the diarrhea problem, with exactly the opposite. And gave, by the time that we had the child, got the child, the doctor got the child, child had double pneumonia and very low pulse, low blood pressure. We couldn't get a vein. We tried to give it fluids, and it died. And it was the first person I ever saw die. But you just feel like it's eminently preventable. It could have been prevented. So what do we do with that? What should we think? Well, I don't desire to make you feel guilty. I do desire to make you feel accountable, that all of the wealth that God has given you, you're accountable, and you're going to give an account for it so I'm I. I another lesson I've learned as I prepared for this talk, the most effective Mercy Ministry is intimate connection with the poor, not just money. If all you do is fly over and drop money down on them, you actually, in many cases, going to hurt them. A key principle in doing Mercy Ministry is don't do for others what they can do for themselves. That's key principle, because if you're doing for others what they can and should be doing for themselves, you're hurting them, but there are genuinely needy people who can't do certain things for themselves, start with orphans, and others. So I guess what I would urge you to do as 2014 comes near, ask the Lord, what does he want you to do with your wealth? Don't deny that you have wealth. Think about 2 Corinthians 8, that you have been made wealthy and say, Lord, give me an outlet, and challenge yourself with the verse I consider to be most challenging on Mercy Ministry in the entire Bible. It's Isaiah 58:10, it says there, "If you spend yourself on behalf of the needy," just that phrase is enough, it's a lot easier to spend your money than to spend yourself, but it's nowhere near as effective. If you're willing to give your time and your energy to build relationships with poor people, you're going to find out what their needs really are, and then you can help them in ways that will really be life transformational. So, I challenge you concerning Lottie Moon, be sacrificial, let's meet our goal, but let's go beyond that, and let's each of us find patterns of ministry to the poor and needy in the year 2014. Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the extraordinary wealth you've given us, and I don't mean material wealth. I mean the riches of the Gospel blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Thank you for that, thank you for the gospel that sets us free from sin. How are imprisoned spirits are no longer chained to sin, and we're set free to follow Christ. Lord, we thank you also for our material blessings, but we're mindful that they come with accountability. Help us to be wise, help us to be generous to the poor and needy, but not foolish. Help us to be willing to invest ourselves, so we can find out the best way to help poor and needy right here in Durham and to the ends of the earth. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.

"When God's people compromise with the world and turn away from obeying God's righteous ways, He calls them to repent, confess their spiritual poverty and seek His face. Christ wants all churches to examine their spiritual state in the light of the New Testament and its standards. Like Isaiah, today's prophets should call for repentance, humility, tears, prayer, and fasting, rather than frivolity." (Life in the Spirit Study Bible) IT'S NOT TIME TO PARTY!

Like Isaiah, we are commissioned to speak God's truth, and the measure of success is faithfulness to the truth, not the response of the hearers.

Introduction So, we come to Isaiah 21. It’s been a fascinating week for us as we’ve looked at the ongoing struggle that our nation is having economically, which I mentioned last week. It’s fascinating to me to see people asking questions about refuge and shelter. They’re speaking financially, of course. They’re looking for a shelter for their money and for their worldly possessions, something that will last, something utterly secure, something bullet-proof. We already know, we can tell them on the authority of Jesus Christ, there is no such place. That’s why Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in to steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Mt 6:19-21) We know that, don’t we? As Christians, we know that. Don’t put your trust, said the apostle Paul, in wealth, which is so uncertain. The Book of Proverbs says “Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.” (Prov 23:5) We’ve known that. Our treasure is in heaven, amen? It’s in Jesus Christ and the imputed righteousness of Christ. There’s no thief, there’s no natural disaster that can take that away. People have been using words like “refuge” and “shelter” recently. And I think it’s a fascinating thing. They look in the future and they see a storm coming. They’re looking for a place of refuge. I think about living in the Midwest, in the Plains region, where there are tornados that come and you have tornado watches. There will be a siren that will go off and you go to your safe haven, maybe a basement, or, like in the Wizard of Oz, it’s out across the farmyard. Remember how Dorothy had to make her way across and she barely made it down in the root cellar? Then she forgot Toto and had to go out and get him, and that was it. She was then whisked away by the tornado. But she was looking for shelter. Or I think about in history, in World War II during the Blitz in London, when the Germans were bombing London night after night after night after night, an onslaught. At dusk, the siren would sound, warning of the coming of the bombers. The natives of London would flee. They would run down into the subterranean areas of the tube, as they called it, or down in the subway is what we would call it. They would spend the night there with total strangers, sometimes standing up all night, or sleeping side by side with somebody they had never met. They might drink tea together or sing songs. In this way, they had shelter from the bombing that was going on up above their heads. It’s a biblical concept as well. Think about the world as it was in the days of Noah, when there was a storm coming, a flood. For one hundred and twenty years, while the ark was being built, Noah preached that there was going to be a flood, that there was going to be a coming judgment, and that there would be a refuge, a safe place. If you entered that refuge, that ark that was growing ever larger, ever stronger, and ever clearer, right in front of their eyes, then he was preaching that they would flee from the wrath to come. But I can tell you from the scripture, from the gospel, there is no safe shelter from the true storm that is coming. The true storm that is coming is not economic, my friends. It’s not financial. It’s not military through terrorism or any other way. It’s not natural disasters. “These things may come,” said Jesus, “but the end is still to come.” They’re just birth pains. The real judgment is before Almighty God, the one who has pure eyes, holy eyes, and can tolerate no evil at all. I had a witnessing opportunity with a man on a plane. Woe to the person who sits next to me on a plane. All right? Well, I hope it’s a blessing. I’m really hoping that it would be a blessing and not a woe. I don’t force anything on anybody, especially if they’re wearing headphones. You know, you see the big, thick Bose headphones, and it’s over. All right? The witnessing opportunity is done. But this was actually a great conversation, and I felt my primary responsibility was to make judgment day vivid to this man, to give him a vivid sense of the fact that someday he will stand before God and give an account. Is he ready? Does he have a shelter for that? It was a discussion of economics that led us into that. You can get to the gospel from anywhere. What is the shelter where you can put your money and it’s going to be safe? The answer is nowhere. But where can you put your soul and it will be safe? The answer is Jesus Christ, amen? He is the refuge. He is the shelter. The problem is that human beings are always casting about for some other place. It says in the Book of Proverbs, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” (Prov 18:10) There’s your refuge. Jesus Christ. Call on the name of the Lord. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You’ll stand under the refuge of the shed blood of Christ and you will be free from sin. The real danger is the wrath of God, the judgment of God. He has, by His grace, crafted a safe haven, a refuge called Jesus Christ, Amen? Trusting in Babylon: A Devastating Mistake A Message of Warning… and Comfort… to God’s People We’re always casting about, looking for some other thing, making some other plan. The Jewish people back in Isaiah’s day were no different. So we’re in the middle of the oracles of the nations. This will be my last sermon on the oracles of the nations. When I get back from Haiti, I’ll preach one sermon on ministry to the poor, and then we’ll be going to the Gospel of Matthew. Some time in the future, if God wills, we’ll come back to the Book of Isaiah. But as we’ve looked at these oracles, one after the other, we have seen how God gives these words of judgment to the nations. He’s got a lot of things going on. One thing is He’s warning those nations of the coming judgment so they will flee to Him and be saved. But He’s also speaking these oracles to the Jewish people. Why? So that they will not trust in these nations instead of God. So that they’ll not flee to Babylon as though the Babylonians are going to save them. So it’s a message of warning and of comfort to God’s people, really. Look at Isaiah 21:10. You can see the message to the Jews right in this warning, this oracle of woe against Babylon. Look at what he says in verse 10. “O my people, crushed on the threshing floor, I tell you what I have heard from the Lord Almighty, from the God of Israel.” He’s speaking to His people, His Chosen people. He’s giving them a word of warning and of comfort. God’s people are the point of history, from God’s perspective. However, God’s people are crushed by history from the human perspective. So today, Christians are like dust on the scales. Among the movers and shakers of human history, we don’t make much of an impact. But God has a message to His people, crushed by the wheels of the nations. That crushing, I think, refers to the twofold exile. The exile that’s about to take place in Isaiah’s day is by the Assyrians. They’re going to take the northern ten tribes, and they’re gone in 722 BC. But then one hundred and thirty-six years later, the southern kingdom of Judah would be exiled to Babylon. The Babylonians would come and take them in 586 BC. God’s people were going to be crushed by the overwhelming wheels of the rise and fall of Gentile empires. They’re going to come and crush the people of God. Now, this crushing was no accident. It wasn’t that God didn’t notice what was happening. It wasn’t that God was limited in His power, that His arm was too short to save them. It was none of that. God was bringing it. He was bringing judgment on His own people for violating the covenant. And He uses here this agricultural analogy of being crushed on the threshing floor. What would happen is, at harvest, the wheat would be gathered together and they would drag a threshing sledge or cart over the grain. It would pulverize the grain. Then they would take something like a pitchfork and they’d throw it up in the air. The wind would blow the chaff away. The light weight would just blow away, but the heavier kernels would fall back down to the threshing floor. When you do this enough, all you have left, for the most part, is wheat. The wheat has been separated from the chaff. And that’s what God is doing. He’s separating the wheat from the chaff. The wheat refers to the true believers among God’s people, those that genuinely, like Abraham, are trusting in God. God is credited to them as righteousness. The chaff is those that are Jews in name only. They really have never believed in God. They are idolaters. They worship other gods and they will be blown away. So Isaiah is giving God’s people a message of encouragement and also a warning about their time under the domination of the Gentiles, under the boot of the Assyrians and the Babylonians. The encouragement is that God is sovereign over the nations. Things are not spinning out of control. Even when you go off into exile, God is still reigning. He’s still ruling and He’s going to bring back a remnant to the promised land and re-establish them. God is still sovereign. That’s the message of encouragement. What’s the message of warning? Don’t trust in Babylon for salvation. Don’t trust in the Babylonians, militarily. Setting the Context: Assyria the Threat Now what’s going on? Well, again, when Isaiah the prophet was doing his work, Assyria was the big threat. The Assyrians were evil, and King Hezekiah was against the Assyrians. Evil Assyria continued to flex its muscles in the region and to dominate those little nations. But in the east, a new power is starting to rise. There’s a city on the Euphrates called Babylon. It has an ancient history already. Through the code of Hammurabi and other things, it’s got a history. Right now, it’s a subject people, under the domination of the Assyrians. But it’s starting to become a little more powerful. There’s a young Chaldean prince under the Assyrian domination named Merodach-Baladan, son of Baladan. In Isaiah 39, the story is told of how this man, this Babylonian prince, sends envoys to King Hezekiah. Hezekiah, by this time, has seen the miraculous deliverance by an angel of the Lord, when 185,000 Assyrian troops are killed in one night. Also, because of his pride, Hezekiah was struck with a fatal illness. Isaiah told him to put his things in order; he’s gong to die. Hezekiah doesn’t accept that. He cries and prays and God graciously extends his life by fifteen years. Babylon hears about all these things. They send envoys to congratulate Hezekiah on his military victory and his healing. He was equally responsible for both, don’t you know? By faith, by the power of God, when I’m weak, then I’m strong. What did he do? He got sick and he was surrounded by almost 200,000 Assyrian troops. That’s what he did. He prayed in both cases, and God delivered. That’s how He saves sinners, friends. Call on the name of the Lord. He’ll save you. So the envoys come from Babylon, from Merodach-Baladan, and Hezekiah takes them on a tour. He shows them everything, all the gold and the silver and all the stuff accumulated there, and the military strength little Judah had. The Babylonians were impressed, very impressed. Note to self, lots of wealth in a little town called Jerusalem. Will be back later. Isaiah said they’re coming back. He gave a prophecy. He saw beyond. He saw to the day when the Babylonians would come and take Judah away into exile. This is what he said in Isaiah 39:5-7, “Hear the word of the Lord Almighty: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” It’s a dire warning of the coming exile by the Babylonians. But Isaiah sees beyond even that. Oh, he sees far beyond that! He sees the day when Babylon itself will be crushed, when Babylon itself will fall. That’s this oracle here in Isaiah 21. Babylon is going to fall. This is a message of encouragement that Babylon will not reign forever. So Isaiah’s mission here is to persuade his people, Hezekiah and the others, not to trust in Babylon. Don’t put your trust in the Babylonian uprising from the east. Babylon is going to judgment, just as he had said already concerning Egypt, in Isaiah 19 and 20, not to trust in Egypt. Don’t put your trust in these nations. Trust in the Lord because those nations, they’re all under judgment. Trust in the Lord and fear the Lord. The Lord is the one you should fear. Isaiah 8:13-14 says, “The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread and he will be a sanctuary.” What is a sanctuary but a place of refuge? That’s where you go to hide. You don’t hide in Babylon. You don’t hide in Egypt. You don’t trust in some Gentile army that you can make an alliance with. Trust in the Lord. He will be for you a sanctuary and a refuge. The Lord is the one I must trust. Again and again, Isaiah says this. In Isaiah 8:17, he says, “I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. I will put my trust in him.” I will invest in God. That’s what I’m going to trust in. I’ll put my trust in God. Or again, Isaiah 25:9 says, “In that day, they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’” By the way, the word “His” will become very, very clear on Judgment Day, in eternity-future. Amen? It was His salvation. He saved us. We trusted, but He did the saving. So He gets the glory. We get eternal joy. Isn’t that enough? I think that’s sweet. It is the future. We trust in Him. The nations, then, are nothing in God’s sight. Isaiah 40:15 says, “Surely the nations are like a drop in the bucket; they’re regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.” The nations are as nothing to God. More than that, frankly. The nations are all under God’s judgment. They’re not nothing in that sense. They’re all under God’s judgment, every one of them. Isaiah 34:2 says, “The Lord is angry with all nations; his wrath is upon all their armies. He will totally destroy them, he will give them over to slaughter.” That will be very clear when the Lord returns at the end of the world and all the nations’ armies are together against Christ to fight against Him. He will destroy them completely. Therefore, the message is: stop trusting in man. Isaiah 2:22 says, “Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?” That’s the message here. Babylon the “Desert by the Sea” Now, we’re talking about Babylon. Look at verse 1. “An oracle concerning the Desert by the Sea.” This is a bit of a tricky word game here. Isaiah was brilliant. He was a brilliant guy. He would have been in Mensa, I think. So he’s doing a little bit of a word puzzle here. You have to kind of unravel it. I wouldn’t be smart enough. I don’t know Hebrew well enough. But the commentators tell us that you unravel it and you end up with Babylon. We’re talking about Babylon here, the Desert by the Sea. Now, the people are tempted to trust in Babylon as an ally. But Isaiah says it’s actually a desert by the sea. This is a bit strange because Babylon isn’t by the sea. It’s actually a number of miles inland. But it’s called the Desert by the Sea. What is he doing? He’s saying, “there’s nothing there for you, oh people.” The desert is a place where there’s nothing. There’s no life. You can’t live there. You have to bring your water with you. You can’t survive in the desert. And the sea is very much like the desert. It’s a different kind of desert. “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.” If you’re out in a row boat, your first problem, within twelve hours, is where you’re going to get enough water. There’s no place you can survive. It’s a deserted place. Babylon is not your future. That’s what he’s saying here. Furthermore, Babylon is about to face the whirlwind of God’s judgment. Look what it says in verse 1, “Like a whirlwind sweeping through the southland, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror.” The impending destruction of Babylon, it mentions here. The language speaks of a windstorm coming from the desert. I think that’s called a sirocco, a dry sandstorm, a big one. It’s going to erase Babylon. He’s speaking about an invader coming to destroy the Babylonian empire. The Way of the World: Babylon Betrayed by its Allies This is the way of the world. Babylon will be betrayed by its allies, its partners in crime, as it were. Look at verse 2. “A dire vision has been shown to me: the traitor betrays, the looter takes loot. Elam, attack! Media, lay siege! I will bring to an end all the groaning she caused.” Isaiah calls it a dire vision. The rise and fall of the world is repulsive to watch. It’s disgusting. It’s violent. It’s selfish. It’s materialistic. It’s ugly. Therefore, Daniel sees these empires like beasts, ravenous beasts coming up out of a turbulent sea. It’s a dire vision. The particularly cold way that the spirit of Babylon works is this: we see Babylon rise up, make allies of Elam and Media, and together they overthrow Assyria. That’s how it works. So they’re partners together like that. But then Babylon, more powerful than the others, dominates them and subjugates them like the Assyrians did. Now Babylon is in charge. Babylon sweeps down, takes over Palestine. They are the top dog, king of the hill. But they won’t last. They won’t last because now the traitor is going to turn and betray them. The looter that’s been looting with the Babylonians is going to loot Babylon. Who are we talking about? We’re talking about the Elamites and the Media, the Medes. They’re coming. They’re going to judge. Basically the history of the world is, “what goes around, comes around.” The way you treat your neighbor, that’s the way your neighbor’s going to treat you. That’s how it works. Habakkuk 2:16 says it this way, “Now it is your turn! Drink and be exposed! The cup from the Lord’s right hand is coming around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory.” That cup you gave to your neighbors, now it’s your turn. What goes around, comes around. Jesus put it this way in Mark 4:24: “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more.” So the groaning that Babylon caused will come to an end. He’s going to use their subjugated allies to rise up. These peoples are going to rise up. The Medes are coming with the Persians. They’re going to destroy Babylon. This is what Isaiah’s saying. Isaiah’s Amazing Reaction: Compassion Isaiah Overwhelmed In the midst of this oracle comes an incredible response. This is Isaiah’s response as he’s looking at this oracle. Isaiah was a visionary prophet and I think his mind is filled with visions of what the fall of Babylon is going to look like. It was overwhelming. Almost, he couldn’t stand it. It was so terrifying. Look at verses 3-4. “At this my body is racked with pain, pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor; I am staggered by what I hear, I am bewildered by what I see. My heart falters, fear makes me tremble; the twilight I longed for has become a horror to me.” He is overwhelmed, get this, at the destruction of the people who exiled the Jews. How do you figure that? He knows that the Babylonians are going to come and exile the Jews. Now he sees a vision of them getting crushed and destroyed, and he’s overwhelmed. It’s like he can’t even look at it. He sees with clarity, in visionary form, the night that Babylon fell, what it would be like. Men, women, children, and sleeping infants, are slaughtered in their beds. He sees it. It’s the very thing he already told us, in Isaiah 13, would happen. Speaking of the Medes, he says, “Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants nor will they look with compassion on children. Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Babylonians’ pride, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.” So he’s looking at this vision inwardly in his mind and he can’t handle it. It’s so overwhelming to him. He has a visceral reaction. His body is racked with pain. Pangs like those of a woman in labor rack his body, because of the vision that he’s seeing. Compassion on the Lost This is amazing, isn’t it? This is compassion for the lost, compassion for those who are going to suffer this coming judgment. Now, God’s work of judgment is not His delight. He doesn’t delight in it, any more than He literally delighted in the suffering of His son on the cross. Jesus suffering on the cross is not God’s delight. What is God’s delight, is the effect of Jesus’ suffering on the cross. For the joy that was set before God the Father, He poured out wrath on His son. He doesn’t enjoy the wrath pouring out part. Neither does He enjoy the clearing of the threshing floor so that the kingdom can be built. There’s nothing delightful in the mind of God in the crushing and judgment of sinners. Instead, He beckons again and again, calling on them to repent. So it says in Ezekiel 33:11, “Say to them, ‘As surely as I live,’ declares the sovereign Lord, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.’ Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die?” So He’s calling out to sinners. God yearns to be gracious. Isaiah 30:18 says, “The Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion.” That’s the God of the Bible. In the midst of all this judgment, God is rising to show you compassion, and His name is Jesus. That’s the compassion He wants to show you. Jesus, moved by compassion, reaches out and saves. Disaster Destroys the Party Overwhelming Desire for Pleasure Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul mourns, in Romans 9, over the Jews who were persecuting him. Isaiah is racked with pain at this image of the destruction of Babylon. Well, this destruction comes in, and, amazingly, the judgment interrupts a party. The party’s over. The party is over. Look at verse 5. “They set the tables, they spread the rugs, they eat, they drink! Get up, you officers, oil the shields!” I love that. That’s Isaiah giving Babylon military advice. What are you doing partying? How does that fit? You’re about to be destroyed and you’re having a party! How did it work? Well, I think they’re within the walls of Babylon. Remember, I began the sermon talking about refuge, secure places, and shelter. They thought they had it. Babylon was pretty imposing. Herodotus tells us the walls were 150 feet high. You could drive a chariot with four horses at the top of the wall. It was huge. The city had plenty of food. They could outlast you if you’re besieging them. It was a secure place. I get the image that the soldiers of Babylon were up on the walls toasting the Medes and the Persians. Do your best, but we’re going to party. See if you can get in here. They were absolutely cocky and confident. So they’re having a feast; they’re enjoying it. There’s something innate, something inside us that yearns for pleasure. We want to be happy. You know where I think that comes from? I think it comes from God, because He is happy. “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.” Psalm 115:3. He’s a happy being. Our problem is that we pursue it like idolaters: materialistically and sensually. We pursue it wickedly. There’s nothing wrong with a yearning for pleasure. But these folks, they pursue it like pagans, rubbing God’s nose in their idolatry. This is the night in Daniel 5 of Belshazzar’s feast, when Belshazzar orders that the gold goblets from the temple be brought in to the feast. They used these goblets, God’s cups, to toast the gods of bronze, iron, wood, and stone. They cannot see or hear or understand. That’s what they’re doing while the Medes and the Persians are besieging Babylon, proving that their refuge is nothing of the kind. Oh, it’s a wicked drive we have inside us! Even with the Jews, in the very next chapter, Isaiah 22, when they are under judgment, when wrath is coming on them, when they are besieged, this is what happens. Just look one chapter over in Isaiah 22:12-14. “The Lord Almighty called you on that day to weep and to wail, to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth. But behold, there’s joy and revelry, slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine. ‘Let us eat and drink,’ you say, ‘for tomorrow we die!’ The Lord Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: ‘Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for.’” He said that to the Jews, God’s chosen people. “You should have mourned. You should have fasted. You should have prayed. You should have taken it seriously. But instead you pursued life as it has always gone on.” Just like it’s always going on. Jesus said it would be like this. It was like in the days before the flood. People were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage right up to the day that Noah entered the ark. They had no idea what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. So it was also with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the days of Lot. Right up until the fire and brimstone starts coming down, they’re pursuing lustful pleasures. They’re pursuing the old way. Belshazzar’s Sinful Feast And so, we have Belshazzar’s sinful feast. And you remember the end of Daniel 5. That very night, Belshazzar, King of the Babylonians, was slain. Darius the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of 62. Oh, what a final verse that is! The writing on the wall has been fulfilled. Babylon has fallen. How does the city fall? Well, I’ve mentioned it a number of times in my sermons. They diverted the Euphrates River. They crawled under the wall. With the city drunk or asleep, they opened up the gates. It’s just like the story of the Trojan horse. They came in. They opened it up. Then they went running through the sleeping, drunken city and kill everybody. That’s how it happened. All that Babylon needed to do was to be alert and take Isaiah’s ancient advice, from 150 years, 200 years before that. Just take his advice. Get up officers, oil the shields, get ready for battle, and you win. But they wouldn’t because God had given them over to judgment and used their own pleasures to do it. That’s how it worked. So Babylon has fallen. Jeremiah gave a clear prophecy on how it would happen in Jeremiah 51:37-39. This, again, was seventy years in advance. “Babylon will be a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, an object of horror and scorn, a place where no one lives. Her people all roar like young lions, they growl like lion cubs. But while they are aroused, I will set out a feast for them and make them drunk, so that they shout with laughter – then sleep forever and not awake.” I don’t know if it could be any plainer than that, friends. In Jeremiah 51:39, He said how He would do it. He was going to set out a feast and they would get drunk and they would die that night. Judgment has come. Babylon Has Fallen… Don’t Fall with Her! The Scene Shifts: Israel Receives News In Isaiah 21, the scene shifts from Babylon to a watchman, perhaps in Jerusalem, waiting on the walls for news. The watchman is up on the walls and he’s waiting for news. Why? Well, I think this is what’s going on: by the time that the city of Babylon has fallen, the Medes and Persians have conquered the whole empire. It’s just the city that’s left. I think all of the outpost cities that were under the Babylonian Empire are waiting for news. “What’s happening? What’s happening? Has Babylon fallen? What’s going on?” So they’ve got watchmen up on the walls. They’re waiting for news, trying to find out what’s happened. Look at verses 6-9. “This is what the Lord says to me: ‘Go, post a lookout and have him report what he sees. When he sees chariots with teams of horses, riders on donkeys or riders on camels, let him be alert, fully alert.’ And the lookout shouted, ‘Day after day, my lord, I stand at my watch tower; every night I stay at my post. Behold, here comes a man in a chariot with a team of horses. And he gives back the answer: ‘Babylon has fallen, has fallen! All the images of its gods lie shattered on the ground!’” People received the news. The watchmen on the wall were waiting for news. Nowadays, you don’t have to have a watchman on the wall. You know, the guy who walks around saying, “Two o’clock and all is well! Three o’clock and all is well!” That’s over. Now you’ve got your Blackberry. If something major happens in some part of the world, you get a little red light and you turn it on. “What is it? Oh, it’s an email from CNN.” Because you set that up, when anything big happens, they’ll tell you. They’ll let you know because you are so important and you need to know. I think that’s fascinating. How important can we be? “Twenty-four/seven, I need to be in touch with the events of the world, okay?” “Giving you the news you need.” I always wonder about that. Why do I need that news? But at any rate, there it is. We can find out immediately when a city like Babylon falls. The Watchman is Called on to be Alert… Fully Alert But back then, they were waiting on the walls, looking for some messenger coming, looking for a chariot or something, coming with the news. “What’s going on over there in Babylon?” The watchman is told to be fully alert. It could come at any moment. And at last, he sees the chariot coming. Babylon Has Fallen… Has Fallen The chariot comes and the answer comes back, almost breathless. “Babylon has fallen, has fallen! It’s done! Babylon is gone.” Then there is a focus on the religion, all the images, of Bel, Marduk, and all those false gods. They were so alluring. All those images are crushed on the ground. Final Warning: Don’t Share Babylon’s Fate So this is a warning. Don’t trust in Babylon’s gods. Don’t put your trust in Bel and Marduk. If the modern gods are called the almighty buck, or your career, or whatever the Babylonian idols are today, don’t trust in them because all of those things are getting crushed on the ground when judgment comes. So God gives this message: don’t share in Babylon’s fate. Look at verse 10. “O my people, crushed on the threshing floor, I tell you what I have heard from the Lord Almighty, from the God of Israel.” “I told you, I tell you what God Almighty told me to tell you. That’s prophecy. God spoke into my head these words. I’m telling you what God, who created heaven and earth, has told me to tell you. Babylon is going to fall. It’s coming down. Therefore, a warning: come out from Babylon and be separate, so that you will not share in her judgment.” Edom and Arabia No Refuge Either This Section Ends with Two More Brief Oracles Now, the rest of the chapter really just enhances the same point that’s already been made. There are two other kingdoms, Edom and Arabia. Neither one of them are a refuge either. Both of them could be a refuge. You run out of Babylon and you go to Edom. Maybe that’ll be a safe place. They had a really high, lofty mountain fortress. Maybe that will be a safe place. Then Arabia, you can go out in the desert and hide in the desert. But there is no safe refuge. Edom: A Land Silenced by Judgment Look at verse 11-12. “An oracle concerning Dumah (that’s Edom): Someone calls to me from Seir, ‘Watchman, what is left of the night?’ The watchman replies, ‘Morning is coming, but also the night. If you would ask, then ask; and come back yet again.’” These are the kind of verses that make Isaiah a mystery. You read it, and it’s like, “Why is that in the Bible? I don’t get it. What does it mean?” Well, it’s an oracle against Edom. Edom felt secure. Read about it in Obadiah. They felt like they were safe. They were up in a lofty mountain perch, safe and sound, all right? But they’ve got watchmen on the walls, waiting to hear about Babylon. They’re waiting to hear, has Babylon fallen? “What’s left of the night? Night is tough. It’s dark. Are we going to die tonight like the Babylonians did?” They’re waiting and the minutes are like hours. It’s the longest night of your life if you think it’s the last night that you’ll be alive. The watchman comes back, and it’s almost dawn. Morning is coming. But there’s another night, too. Come back again tomorrow and we’ll do this whole thing all over again. Waiting for judgment is all it is. The message here concerning Edom is: don’t flee to Edom. Edom is going to be judged as well. Arabia: A land Overrun by Refugees “What about Arabia? Can we go to Arabia? It seems good. Go hide in the desert. Who is going to want the desert?” Well, look at verses 13-17. “An oracle concerning Arabia: You caravans of Dedanites, who camp in the thickets of Arabia, bring water for the thirsty; you who live in Tema, bring food for the fugitives. (Who are these fugitives? We’ll get to that in a minute) They flee from the sword, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow and from the heat of battle. (That’s who the fugitives are) This is what the Lord says to me: ‘Within one year, as a servant bound by contract would count it (that means very accurately, counting day-by-day), all the pomp of Kedar will come to an end. The survivors of the bowmen, the warriors of Kedar, will be few.’ The Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.” So the Babylonians run for their lives, whatever is left of them. They go out in the desert to their allies, the Arabians. Who are these people? Well, the Dedanites were descendants of Keturah, from Genesis 25:3, Abraham’s concubine. They were desert dwellers, Arabians. Tema and Kedar are names of the tribes of Ishmael. They are also descendants of Abraham. Their trade caravans have fled from the swords of the Medes and Persians. Now they’re camping, hiding in the desert. Babylonians come running from the Medes and Persians, looking for a shelter. The refugees flee out to the desert where the Arabians are. What’s the word? Don’t go there, because judgment is coming there as well. I’m telling you that within one year, the Arabians will be wiped out as well. What is God doing? What is He saying? He’s saying, there is no other refuge. It’s like, to which dry hill during Noah’s rainstorm should I go? Which one will do? What would you recommend? Well, that one’s pretty high. Let’s go to that one. But there is no other refuge. Not Edom, not Arabia, not Babylon, not Egypt, not Assyria, none of them. Nothing earthly can save us. You know why? Because God is our problem. Our sins are our problem. The only refuge there has ever been, the only refuge there will ever be, is Jesus Christ on the cross, His blood shed, and the empty tomb of Christ. There is your refuge. Flee there. Flee there, oh friends! Flee there. Maybe you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Maybe you’ve never trusted in Him. Flee to Christ. Call on the name of the Lord. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are kept safe.” That’s where you go. Application See the Marks of Babylon Around You Are we living in Babylon? Is this Babylon? Yes. Yes, it is. Does that mean everyone involved in the government is wicked? No. Daniel was second in charge, or third in charge, in Babylon. There are Godly people involved in government. But what are the marks of Babylon? Arrogance, defiance, idolatry, wickedness and pursuit of sensual pleasure. The two aspects of Babylon, military strength and trading with the nations, both of them are in Revelations 18. That’s Babylon. Are we living in Babylon? Well, if so, then don’t you think the Bile ought to let us know how to do it? How shall we live in Babylon? Trust in the Lord Above All Well, first and foremost, find what your true refuge is. It is Christ. Listen to Galatians 1:3-4. “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age.” Jesus gave Himself to rescue us. He is our refuge. Trust in Him. And I don’t just say that if you’ve never trusted in Christ and you came here today to be saved. (Praise God for that! Trust in Him.) I say that to Christians as well. Keep fleeing to Christ. In your mind, every time you’re getting anxious, you read something in the news and your heart is getting anxious, flee to Christ. Flee to Christ. He’s not telling you He won’t bring you any difficulties. He’s telling you that when you pass through the waters, He will be with you. When you go through the fire, you’ll not be consumed. That’s what He’s telling you. He’s actually going to bring you through those things. You’re going to make it through. You’re going to be saved. That’s what He’s telling you. Seek the Prosperity of the City Doomed to Destruction Learn how to live in Babylon. First of all, understand that it’s going to be destroyed. It’s coming down. Everything visible is temporary. Everything. Now, Jeremiah told the exiles of Babylon to seek the peace of the city. Jeremiah 29:7 says, “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Fine, seek the peace of the city. But can I urge you that you would focus on this kind of peace: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith in Christ, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Seek that peace for the city, not material prosperity. Furthermore, wasn’t it Jeremiah who later in this same prophecy told us that Babylon was going to be destroyed? Understand Babylon’s Final End There are people that go out and plant gardens and do different things in urban renewal projects based on Jeremiah 29:7. Look, if it’s a ministry and it gives you a chance to share the gospel to interested onlookers, do it. But if you think those gardens you plant are eternal, they’re not. Judgment is coming on Babylon. Understand that. Come out and be Separate… Live a Holy Life Finally, a message of holiness and purity. Live a holy life. Isaiah 52:11 says, “Depart, depart, go out from there. Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord.” And this from Jeremiah 51:44-45, “I will punish Bel (that’s a false god) in Babylon and make him spew out what he has swallowed. The nations will not longer stream to him. And the wall of Babylon will fall. Come out of her, my people! Run for you lives! Run from the fierce anger of the Lord.” And then there’s this in Revelation 18:1-4, “After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice, he shouted: ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.’ Then I heard another voice from heaven say: ‘Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.’” And then in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? … Therefore, come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” Grieve For and Rescue the Perishing Since everything is going to be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? Peter said, “You ought to live holy and Godly lives in Babylon.” Can you not live in Babylon? No, you cannot live in Babylon. But you do. What are you going to do about it? Seek refuge in Christ. Allow Him to be a wall of protection spiritually around you. Like Isaiah, grieve for the perishing around you. Reach out with the only message that can save, the gospel. Close with me in prayer.

sermon transcript God’s Promise of Present Protection and Eternal Reward This is Genesis 15 and our second week in studying this incredible Chapter. When our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross and his blood was shed, He was fulfilling a covenant promise made thousands of years before to our father in faith, Abraham. He came and took on a body in fulfillment of the covenant promise that God made to Abraham. In Acts Chapter 3, when Peter was preaching to the Jews, he said, "You are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with Abraham. We, who are gentiles and not naturally Jews by birth,” −"we," it says in Romans 11−"have been grafted in us though we were wild olive shoots grafted into a tree, a Jewish tree, and Abraham is our father in faith.” Context: Abram’s Defeat of Kedorlaomer Our God is a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God, and when in the end, you stand before him blameless, free of all of your sin, holy and righteous, you will do so on the basis of a covenant promise that God made and that He fulfilled through his son, Jesus Christ, and that is what is in front of us today. And if I were to have 30 hours, I wouldn't have enough time to plunge the depths of Genesis 15. For two months, I've been excited to preach this sermon, and now at last it's come. Now last week, we looked at the first six verses of Genesis 15, and they were deep and rich enough. We saw God's promise of present protection for Abram, which he needed because he had probably made some very stern and serious enemies by defeating Kedorlaomer and his coalition of kings. The “Word of the Lord Came” And so, God spoke to Abram and said, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield. I'll stand between you and anything that would come to harm you, I will protect you. I'll take upon myself the burden of keeping you safe and you will be protected." Secondly, He said, "I am also your very great reward." Oh, is there a richness in meditating on that? He is what we get at the end of a life of faith in Christ, nothing less and there can be nothing more. We get God, He's our reward, our eternal portion, and He was also for Abram. And then Abram bringing his complaint to God, you remember, he said, "What can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And He said, "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." God’s Promise in the Stars: Abram’s Glorious Offspring And then He said, "Come on outside, I want to show you something." Well, I don't know if He said that, but something like that. He took Abram outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars−if indeed you can count them.” “. . .So shall your offspring be." The word of promise. The key to it all, the key to your soul is that God speaks promises, and if you believe them, He will justify you, He will declare you not guilty of all of your wickedness and sin, and if you don't believe them, then you will stand accountable for all of your wickedness and sin. It's just that simple. Abram’s Justification by Faith Alone Everyone who gets saved, gets saved the same way, by hearing the promise and believing it. And so, also Abraham was our father in faith. He heard the promise and he believed it. Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was justified by faith alone. Okay, that was last week's sermon, I really would enjoy preaching it again, but I want to go on now into the rest of Genesis 15. In this He makes a magnificent covenant. We've already seen His promise in the stars, “so shall your offspring be,” you will have numerous and glorious offspring. Your descendants will be numerous and they will be glorious. By the way, I always find it interesting that Abraham's descendants were likened to two different things, the dust of the Earth and the stars of the sky. And I really think that is speaking of two different categories, those that are earthy and dusty, the physical descendants of Abraham, and those that are of the heavens, the spiritual descendants, both Jew and Gentile, but that's a whole other message for a whole other day. God’s Promise in the Blood: The Promised Land God’s Second Promise Stated Again I told you, if I had 30 hours, we couldn't go into all the depths here. But He said, "There's the promise up in the stars, but now I have another promise for you." God made two basic promises to Abram, a multiple of descendants or offspring, multiplicity of offspring, so shall your offspring be, you'll have many a numerous offspring, and you will inherit the land. These are the two basic promises, and he makes them again and again and again. And here He is going to make the promise again, Verse 7. He also said to him, "I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." Now, we know from archaeology and from study that frequently treaties and covenants were made in the ancient world and they would always begin the same way, I am the Lord who did such and such for you, or I am the Mighty King who did this and who did that. There's a historical prologue, so that we know who we're dealing with. And here He says, "I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans. . ." Now, later on in redemptive history, there's going to be more. For example, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of your fathers.” Or, “I am the God who brought you out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” Or, “I am the God who spoke to you at Mount Sinai saying. . .” etcetera. But none of those things have happened yet. So far, all that's happened with Abram is, I am the Lord, who led you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, but that's who I am. And then He says, "I am going to give you this land to take possession of it." Now, this is not the first time He's made this promise. We see the same promise in Genesis 12:7, where it says "The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’" And so, at that time, Abram built an altar there to the Lord. And so, this is what the Lord does, He makes a promise for the future, but He links it to his past, He links it to past history. And I'm telling you today, this is why Genesis 15 is relevant for you today. You who sit in the pews and listen to me, why does it matter to me what God did with some Bedouin 2,000 years before Christ? Well, the reason is, the reason it's relevant is that God has kept all of his promises to Abraham, and so He is going to keep all of his promises to you. That is why it is relevant for you today. I am all about one thing today, actually two things. If you are a believer in Christ, I want to encourage you in your faith, that is my goal today. I want you to be greatly encouraged, if you are not a believer, I want you to become a believer, so that you can become greatly encouraged. I want you to trust in Christ, that is my goal today. And so, that's why it's relevant, God is a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping God, He keeps his promises. And so, He comes and says, "Now I am the historical God, I'm the one who has led you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, the things that happened in the past are important. I'm the same God today, I'm the one, and I'm telling you, I'm going to give you this land to take possession of it. Main Question. How Can I Know? Now comes the key question for the whole rest of the chapter. If you understand this question, you'll understand everything that's going to come after this. Look at the question in Verse 8, “But Abram said, ‘O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?’" This is a matter of assurance, it's a matter of certainty, it's a matter of knowing something that hasn't come to you yet, right? How can we know? Is that important to you? Do you ask questions like that? How can I know that I'll go to heaven when I die? How can I know on that great judgment day, when you whose eyes are too pure and holy to even look on evil and I feel foul and full of sin now, how can I know that you will accept me on that day? How can I know that I'll have a resurrection body? How can I know that I'll gain possession of these promises? How can I know? It's a question of assurance and certainty, isn't it? Now, I don't think this is a faithless question on Abram’s part. I think it's more like, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Can you give me some help here? Yes, I will give you all the help you need. I'll give you everything you need so that you will know that I am a faithful covenant-keeping God. So, he's not rebuked. God doesn't rebuke him for his question. Not at all, actually, He lavishly blesses him. I think you will not understand the somber covenant ceremony that's going to follow if you forget Abram's question, “How can I know?” He's answering the question, keep that in mind. The animals, when they are laid apart in the path and the torch, and that whole thing is the answer to Abram's question, this is how you can know. He is answering the question, okay? Why God Makes Covenants and the Biblical Significance Now, as we come to this, we come to the issue of why God makes covenants at all? What is the Biblical significance of covenants? First of all, what is a covenant? A covenant is a binding agreement between two or more parties. The most common form of covenant today is marriage, where two individuals, a man and a woman stand before God and before witnesses, make promises to another that they will be one flesh, and that they will be husband and wife to each other, that is a binding covenant. Now, in ancient times, ancient Near East, the kings would use covenants to bind themselves to their people. An invading powerful king who would conquer the land would say, I am king so and so, Amel-Marduk or whoever, and I took over your land, and if you give me 100 cores of wheat and a bunch of wine and all that, if you do that, I won't invade you again. And more than that, I will protect you from your enemies. These were covenants that they would make one with another. God also uses covenants again and again at key moments in Biblical history to communicate His purpose and his plans to people. For example, God made a covenant with Noah to protect him and all that were with him on the ark. He made a promise, a covenant, I'll keep you safe. After the flood, God made a covenant with all living creatures that He would never again destroy the world with a flood, and He put the rainbow in the sky as a sign of that covenant, which God has kept faithfully to this day. In Verse 18, He calls what He's doing here a covenant, look at it. And it says "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said. . .” So, there's a covenant, He is making a covenant. In Genesis 17, He is going to give the sign of circumcision, a seal of the covenant, and that is what it is going to be, a constant reminder in the flesh of the covenant that God made with Abram. At Mount Sinai, He will make a covenant of a different sort, with Israel concerning the promised land, the Mosaic covenant we call it where the Ten Commandments and other commandments were given. Later on in redemptive history, He would make a covenant with David saying, “One of your descendants, I will see on your throne forever and ever.” The son of David is the son of God, it's Jesus Christ. These are all covenants. And the night before Jesus died, He took bread in his hand and broke it and said, "This is my body," and He took a cup in his hand and said, "This cup is the blood of the New Covenant. In my blood, which is poured out for many for their forgiveness of sins." There Jesus spoke of a new covenant, and on the basis of that New Covenant, we who have trusted in him stand holy and blameless before God, that is our only hope. That is our salvation. And so, our God is a covenant-making God. Now, there are two different kinds of covenants, there are conditional covenants, and there are unconditional covenants. A conditional covenant runs like this, “Son, I'm going to give you the car tonight, but if you get back at 11:01 or later, and if the car isn't filled with gas, or if there are any dings or scratches or crashes, whatever, you will never drive the car again for at least a year anyway. Okay?” That's a conditional promise, I'm giving you the car, and if you meet these criteria, then these blessings will come, and if you do not, then these curses will come, you'll not get to use my car, conditional covenant. An example, probably the best example of a conditional covenant in the Bible is the covenant with Moses made at Sinai. I'm giving you the promised land, and if you fully obey all of the stipulations and the statutes of the covenant, then you will live long in the land I'm giving you, but if you do not obey me, I will evict you from the land and you will lose the promised land. That is a conditional covenant. A great example of an unconditional covenant is the one made with Noah after the flood in which He said, "I make this covenant with all living creatures. I will never again bring a flood on the Earth, as I have done to destroy every living thing." There are no conditions, there's nothing that has to be met, there's no obeying needed, it's just something God is doing, and so is that covenant here. There are no commands given to Abram, there's nothing he needs to do. Later on, he's going to need to circumcise his children and himself, but here there's nothing for him to obey. This is a unidirectional covenant, a covenant that God made with Abram. The Mechanics of the Covenant Now, what are the mechanics of this covenant? Well, first there is the sacrifice. Look at Verses 9-11, remember the question, how can I know? How can I know I'll get the land? What does God say? Bring me a bunch of animals. That's an interesting answer, isn't it? How can I know, well, go get me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old along with a dove and a young pigeon. That's an interesting thing, isn't it? Go get some animals and bring them. The covenant that He would make with Abram would be made at a price, it would be expensive, and the price would be blood, it would cost blood to make this covenant promise. Let me tell you something, God does nothing with sinful people, apart from a blood sacrifice. He is not going to deal with you, and why? Because your sins have estranged you from a holy God. And if you hope to get back in good favor with God, you only do it by blood, because apart from the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness for sins. However, the book of Hebrews which told us that, also tells us that the blood of bulls and goats can in no way take away sin, it's just a symbol, it's a picture of a sacrifice that one day would come. And so, this sacrifice, this animal sacrifice, as all animal sacrifices ordained by God did in the Old Testament, point ahead to Jesus Christ. He is the Lamb of God whose blood takes away the sin of the world. He died on the cross. Jesus paid the price for this covenant. God's going to make some lavish promises to Abram, Jesus paid for them, He paid in his blood. And so right away, God wants Abram to know this covenant that He is making would be expensive. It would cost blood. Well, what else does he do? Well, he cuts them in half, probably right down the middle, and he separates the pieces apart. He makes, as it were, kind of a pathway between the pieces of the covenant, although the birds, he does not cut. Now, this is a very interesting thing and we will talk more about it in a moment. Then in Verse 11, it says, "Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away." More about them later. And so, he waited. Abram waited on the Lord. And then in Verse 12 comes the awesome moment, the terrifying moment really. The incredible moment. Verse 12, it says, "As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him." God is coming near. The awesome and eternal God, the one whose eyes are too pure to look on evil. The eternal God, the Ancient of Days, the one who spoke and universes came to pass. This God is meeting with Abram, and the first thing that this God does is He makes Abram terrified. Horror comes on his soul. And so, it is always when a sinner comes in the presence of God. There's not a single man or a woman who would not have felt terror at that moment, the terror of being a finite sinful person. Like Isaiah said, "Woe is me, I'm ruined," and Daniel on the ground trembling can barely stand up, and Ezekiel the same way. It's always the same. Terror, horror came over Abram. Now, I find this interesting, you know? Because the scripture says that Abram was God's friend. He was his friend. Is this how God treats his friends, by making them terrified? Well, if his friends are sinners, yes. And Jesus says, "You are my friends." So, we are his friends and yet, yes, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The first thing God does to save you and to work in you is to make you afraid, fearful of the eternal God, fearful of what it will be like to stand before him on judgment day. Horror came over him and darkness. When God descended on Mount Sinai, it says in Exodus 20:18-20, "When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, 'Speak to us yourself, and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.' Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.’" And so, God was blessing Abram that day when he caused a horror to come over his soul, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the fear of the Lord comes and keeps us safe from our real enemy. The real enemy is sin. And after the terror of God's presence came over him, the fear of the Lord, then He makes a series of covenant promises, remarkable, astonishing predictions one after the other. Look at it in Verses 13-16, "Then the Lord said to him, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here. . .’" This is astonishing. I mean, notice the details, the specificity, even the time frame given. It is so clear and so detailed that the liberals tell us it must have been written after the Exodus. There's no way we could be this specific about something that far in the future. Oh, yes, there is. Our God knows the future. Amen? And, He can tell you what's going to happen tomorrow and 2,000 years from now. That's how well he knows the future. And so, He gives specific predictions, specific prophecies. Look at them, seven and all. First, your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own. This is fulfilled by their time in Egypt. They were strangers in Egypt. Secondly, they would be enslaved and mistreated. This is very specific. They wouldn't just be strangers, but they would be enslaved and mistreated. Thirdly, the enslavement and the mistreatment would last for 400 years. Also, He says, four generations. For He says, "In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here” and take possession of this land. By the way, that was literally fulfilled if you look at Moses's genealogy. Remember that it was Jacob who brought his family in. Jacob's son was Levi, Levi’s son was Kohath, Kohath's son was Amram, Amram's son was Moses, that's four generations. The specificity is incredible. Now you think 400 years, four generations? But they live longer back then. And that's exactly what it was. Specificity, fourth. “I will punish the nation they serve as slaves.” This is literally fulfilled in the 10 plagues. Fifth, afterward, they will come out. So, they are going to come out of that land, that is the amazing prediction of the Exodus, the great events of the Exodus. Six, with great possessions, they will plunder the Egyptians. And so, this happened in Exodus 11. The Lord made the Jews favorably disposed, or the Israelites or the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the Jews and gave them many possessions, gold and silver, and all kinds of valuable things. This is highly unusual. You would think there would be great animosity, but there wasn't. There was the lavish generosity, and I think a small payment for all those years of service. And then seventh, you, Abram will go to your fathers in peace and you'll be buried at a good old age. So now these details are given for a specific reason. This is what I'm saying, Jesus, the night before He was killed, He had an intimate time with his disciples. And in John 16, He says, "There will come a time when they will persecute you, put you out of the synagogues and even put you to death, and they will think that they are serving God by doing that. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens, you will believe that I am He.” Okay, why did God tell Abram beforehand? Very simple. Because halfway through, it's not looking very good for the promises, is it? We're going to talk more about that in a minute. This is the specific reason He gives the detailed specificity of the promise. Now, why the delay? Why 400 years? Why not now? Abram's like, "I'm ready. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to take possession of the land. Can we do it now?" No. Why? Because “the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” Oh, is there depth here. The sin of the Amorites isn't finished yet. This is incredible. In effect, God has a measure, like a measuring cup, of sin for the Amorites. And when it's full, when it's full, according to God's measure, judgment is coming. The judgment will come by the sword of Joshua and the Israelites. When God has had enough of their child sacrifice, the stench of the sacrifice burning in His nostrils, when He is borne it long enough, enough is enough. And when He sees all of the wickedness of their immorality and their idolatrous wicked religious systems, He will bring judgment. But it will come when He says. And note the incredible patience of God and realize the patience of God means salvation for people, that's why God waits. That's why you all aren't in heaven yet, because there's still some unsaved people that have to be saved. And God is waiting and working so that they will be saved. And meanwhile, He is willing to put his people through misery, 400 years of slavery in Egypt, until the sin of the Amorites can reach its full measure. That is our God. And I can tell you one Amorite, Rahab, the harlot, who's glad that God waited. Right? Because she got converted. She was saved, and her household. Right? And so, God waits for the sin of the Amorites to reach its full measure. This is a dreadful thing. I want to talk more about it in a moment. But, do you realize that God has a measure of sin He will put up with in the life of a wicked unbeliever and He doesn't tell you how big the measure is? He doesn't owe a wicked person another day on this earth, not one. But yet, He is patient. He waited 400 years for the Amorites. He is a patient God but He doesn't owe you another day. If you're sitting here today and you have never trusted in Christ, don't presume that you will have an average lifespan. Only God knows the measure of sin that He will put up with. It says in Romans Chapter 2, Verses 4-5, "Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed." That's the measure that's going up, and at some point, the wrath gets poured out. Now, the beauty of the Gospel is that there are two choices on where it can get poured out. It can get poured out on you eternally in hell, or it can get poured out on His own dear Son at the cross. Praise God that there's two options, and not just one. Praise God that Jesus was willing to drink my wrath, the measure of my wickedness and my sin, and all those of you who are listening to me today that have trusted in him. And so, the reason for the delay is given. The sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. Then in Verses 18-21, God gives the clear boundaries for the Promised Land. This is the most extensive list of “ites” that you are going to find. No list is longer, I've checked. All the other “ites” lists are shorter. This is the longest “ites” list, okay? And Alan did a phenomenal job. Where are you, Alan? Wonderful job on all the “ites.” But this is the extent, the boundaries of the land. "On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates− the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.’" Alright, that's the covenant promise, but now comes the covenant warning. Now again, remember the question that God is seeking to answer. What is it? How can I know that I'm going to get the land? God is about to answer. Verse 17, it says, "When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces." Now again, understand what's happening. A dreadful, horrible darkness, darker than any darkness he could ever imagine has come over him. Blinded, really, by the darkness. And there's a horror there, and then suddenly there's a light. As if God said, “Let there be light.” The Scripture says, God is light. And again and again, when God reveals himself, He uses fire to do so. It says, our God is a consuming fire. When He appeared to Moses, it was in the flames of the burning bush. When He appeared to the Israelites and led them through the desert, it was with a pillar of fire by night, and a pillar of cloud by day. And so, at a smaller level, this blazing torch and smoking fire pot represent God himself. This is the appearance of God. Now, no man has ever seen God at any time, it says in John 1. God spoke to Moses and said, "No one can see me and live." So, God uses representations to show himself. The smoking fire pot and the torch represented God in His holiness. And so, there was God. Now the question is, why did He pass through the pieces? Now, in English when we speak, we say, we make a covenant. The Hebrews cut a covenant. They cut a covenant. And so, again and again, they understood the ceremony. What they would do is, they would take an animal and cut it and separate its pieces. And then those who are making the covenant promises one to another, would walk between the pieces. It was symbolic representation. In your bulletin, I have a quote from Jeremiah. It was so important to me that I didn't want you to take the time to flip to Jeremiah, so I printed it there in the bulletin. Look what it says in Jeremiah 34. I'm going to read Verses 18-20, although I only gave you, I think, one verse there, but listen. "The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces." Do you see that? They're going to be like the calf. That is not good, okay? You don't want that happening to you. Blown to bits, sliced up into ribbons. I will cut you to pieces because you haven't kept my covenant. Well, that's the symbolism of the covenant. May God, the holy God, the eternal God, do this to me if I don't keep this covenant. Reading on in Jeremiah, it says, "The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, I will hand over to their enemies who seek their lives. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth." This is a serious covenant warning. May this happen to me if I don't keep this covenant. Now, here's the amazing thing. Abram did not walk between the pieces. It was God who went between the pieces. What was the question that God was seeking to answer? How can I know that I will get it? Our God never lies. And in effect, He says, “If one thing that cannot happen to me happens, then may another thing which cannot happen to me happen. I cannot stop existing. I am who I am, and may I stop existing if I don't keep this covenant promise to you. May I be blown to bits. May I stop existing as God. I swear by myself. I swear by my person. I swear by my deity that you will get this land. It's more than just, ‘Because I said so.’" God swears a curse on himself if He doesn't keep this promise. Now, it's incredible to me that Jesus paid the price for all this. Because the curse came down on him, of course. He didn't cease existing, but He drank the cup of wrath that this covenant promise might come true. But I can say to you today with all reverence that God is as likely to stop existing as you who have trusted in Christ will be to end up in hell. God is as likely to stop existing as that He will not keep every one of the promises He has made to you in the new covenant. He's going to keep them all. Every one. He did this so that you would know with a certainty that He is a covenant-making and keeping God. Why God Made this Dramatic Covenant Why God Made this Solemn Promise That is why God made this dramatic covenant. The fact is, God had right in his sights, right in his cross hairs, He had our faith, our hope, our confidence, our assurance. He wanted us to be confident. He wanted us to be certain. He wanted us to be sure and not waver through unbelief. That's why. And the reason is because God's plan is not our plan. God's ways are not our ways. He does strange things. Providence Seems Contrary to Promises His providence seems so often to run contrary to his promise. In effect, He says, "Okay, here's where you are today, Abram. Here's where you're going to be in the future, Abram." Okay, you understand? Here's where you are, this is where we're going. Ready? Okay, here we go. Whoosh, this way. Salvation for Slaves He's saying, "Wha. . . No, no, wait a minute. Slaves in Egypt for 400 years? That's not what I had in mind. I was thinking maybe my son could get it. If I don't get it, at least Isaac can get it." No, no, no. We've got a long, long journey to travel. A long journey to travel. And, therefore, you've got to cling to a covenant promise and believe it day after day, because the things that are going on in the world around you and in your life just seemed to run so opposite of what God says He is finally going to do for you. You see, God had in mind a long delay. And that delay was going to be rigorous and tough for people He loved. This, I believe, is the significance of the buzzards, the birds of prey. I thought, "God, why, in such a thick, dense chapter that it's going to take me six hours to preach, why the birds of prey? What's going on there?" And it came to me, okay? Because God wanted to come at night. He wanted the darkness. But Abram cut the beast up during the day. And what did that mean? It meant a delay. God doesn't come when we think He should come. He makes us wait. And so, Abram had to get out there and fight for the pieces, you see? He had to knock the birds away so that God could do what He is going to do. If the birds eat them up, the symbolism is lost. It's horrible, actually. What does the birds eating the beast have to do with anything? And so, he's going to get up there and he's going to fight the birds of prey, get the vultures away. They're picking at the animals. We can't have that. Well, I don't want to go allegorical here, folks, but that's what happens to your faith. Have you noticed? Because God's making you wait. And these vultures come in and your faith gets weak, your sin attacks and picks at it, and you've got to get up there aggressively and say, "No." God makes us wait. Now, how important is all this? Well, I want you to imagine a descendant of Abram. Think with me for a moment about one of Abram’s precious descendants, 250 years after Jacob went down to the promised land, I mean down to Egypt. Another Pharaoh came who didn't know anything about Joseph, and they enslaved these people. You're 250 years in. Well, alright. You know enough about the Bible to tell me, that Israelite who's in Egypt, what is his job? What does he do for a living? Go ahead, tell me. What does he do? He's a slave. He makes bricks, okay? What did his father do for a living? He was a slave, he made bricks. What's his son going to do for a living? Well, he's a slave. He's going to make bricks. Moses isn't even born yet. How does that Israelite get saved from his sin? By hearing a promise and believing it, same as you, same as me. And so, as he's halfway through this stern providence from God. . . he's a slave, and that's all he will be. God is not going to send Moses in his lifetime. He's already told him it's going to be four generations. He needs some sustenance, doesn't he? He needs something to feed on. And so, what does he have? The ancestral story of a promise that God made, and of a smoking fire pot and torch that passed through the pieces. And he could believe or not believe, just like you today. You see, Jesus Christ came as the fulfillment of all of this and God sets before you a simple choice. You can either believe that your sins are paid for in his blood and by simple faith have eternal life, trusting in Christ or not. Just like that Egyptian or that slave in Egypt had a choice to believe. He could believe or not. Encouragement Until the End of the Age And how dreadful to spend your whole life in slavery and then go to hell. But if he had refused to believe the promise, that's exactly what would have happened to him. God intended salvation for slaves, but He intended more than that. He intended encouragement for you and me. There in your bulletin, I have a magnificent text of scripture from Hebrews. Actually, I wouldn't mind if you took a moment and opened to Hebrews 6, because I only could give you part of that incredible assessment. Why? It's answering the question why. God, why the pieces? Why the path? Why the smoking fire pot and the torch? Why? Why? Why? This is strange. Why did you do it? God answers the question directly in Hebrews 6, 13-19 When God made his promise to Abram, since there was no one greater to swear by, He swore by himself. Saying, I will surely bless you and give you many descendants. Are you with me? Look at Verse 15, Hebrews 6:15, “And so after waiting patiently, Abram received what was promised.” Is God making any of you wait? Are you in heaven now? I'm not. I'm waiting on some things. I'm waiting to be free of my sin nature. I'm waiting to be free of this body of death. I'm waiting for the great resurrection day. I'm waiting to see Jesus face to face. I'm waiting for glory. I'm waiting to be united with brothers and sisters in Christ who have gone before us and who are glorious now in their spirits, though they don't have resurrection bodies yet. I'm waiting for a lot of things. Are you waiting? How's your hope this morning? Is it strong? Does it make a difference whether your hope is strong? I think it does. Because you know you are a pilgrim, if you are a child of God. And if you are weak in your faith and your hope, you are going to sit down and stop making progress. You are going to stop walking. You are going to say, "Enough is enough. I can't take it anymore." And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Now here he answers the question, why did you do it, God? Verse 17. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of His promise. He confirmed it with an oath. Verse 18, “God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we. . .” Do you see that? You could circle it. He did it for me, He did it for you. “. . .we, who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.” Now just stop there for a moment. Why did God cut the covenant with Abraham? Why the smoking fire pot and the torch? Why? So that you and me who have fled to take hold of Jesus Christ may be encouraged. That's it. That we might have courage in our journey, because without the courage and faith, you're not going to keep going. You are going to stop witnessing, you are going to stop putting sin to death, you may stop going to church. You may just crumble and fall in your Christian life, and God doesn't want that. And so, He does these kinds of things so that you can see God's track record. Can I tell you something today? This is incredible. God has kept his two promises to Abram. He did it. He gave him descendants as numerous as the stars, and He gave him the promised land. But that is nothing compared to what He is promising you in Christ. We have Verse 19 of Hebrews 6, “. . .this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” Does your soul need an anchor today? Does it need an anchor? Do you ever feel blown and tossed by the waves of the circumstances around you? God wants you to be anchored to a promise that cannot move. It can't change. And so, He did this ceremony with Abram. Application What application can we take from this? First, your reward. After a life of encouragement and faith and trusting in Christ, you get God. That's what you get. Is that enough for you? It's enough and more for me. And oh, am I looking forward to that? Secondly, notice God's faithfulness to his promises. I just said it a second ago, He's done it. He kept his promises to Abram, and He is going to keep His promises to you. But what incredible promises is He yet to fulfill in your life? Completely freeing you of all sin inside, owning your salvation on judgment day, having the judge of your case speak up for you and say, "She's mine, he's mine. Forgiven through blood that I shed." Oh, that's incredible. Thirdly, I want you to notice God's incredible patience to sinners. You are surrounded every day by people who do not know Jesus Christ. The Scripture says, every day they are under wrath, that God doesn't owe them another moment to live. He doesn't owe them another breath. They are filling up the measure of the sin of the Amorites every day. And every day, some of the measures get full and they die and they go to hell every day. I don't know who they are by name. That's not for us to know. He's the judge. I don't know anybody by name in that category, but there are many. Because the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven every day against all godlessness and wickedness. And so, I think we have an obligation to warn the Amorites around us. You know something? God isn't going to put up with it forever. There comes a Judgment Day. It's a solemn warning. Also, notice how much He is willing to put us through while He waits on them finally to repent. Fifth, notice God's astonishing knowledge of the future, with what great detail he knows the future that will come. And six, can I say, be greatly encouraged. Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, shed his blood for you and for me. He will never let you go. He will work in you and on you until He has finished his covenant promise to you. Be greatly encouraged today. Don't let your faith grow weak. Get strong, feed on the Word. Get strong. And then finally, can I urge you? Not just be greatly encouraged, but be greatly encouraging to one another. I mean, look around. Just take a minute and look around. Do you see? It's not just me talking. There's a bunch of brother and sisters, you are all still looking at me. Look around, look around, okay? There are other people in the room. These are brothers and sisters. There may be somebody on the pew with you or seven rows back who needs some great encouragement today. You know why? Because they're struggling with sin and sin is deceitful. It's tricky. And you need to encourage them, don't give in. Be strong, stand firm. God is with you; He will help you. Love and good deeds, be faithful, even as you see the day drawing near.