This is a sermon based on Isaiah 44:21-28 preached at the evening service on 22nd July 2007.
Tonight I’d like to begin with a story. It’s called “The Boy Who Lost His Boat”.
Tom carried his new boat to the edge of the river. He carefully placed it in the water and slowly let out the string. Tom sat in the warm sunshine, admiring the little boat that he had built. Suddenly a strong current caught the boat. Tom tried to pull it back to the riverbank, but the string snapped and the boat sailed further and further away from Tom, until he couldn’t keep up with it and it vanished out of sight. He’d lost it.
Tom walked along the riverbank looking for his boat until it was getting dark. And then he had to go home without his precious toy.
A few days later, on the way home from school, Tom spotted a boat just like his in a charity shop window. When he got closer, he could see -- sure enough -- it didn’t just look like his, it was his!
He hurried in to speak to the shop manager. "Mister, that's my boat in your window! I made it!" he said.
"Sorry, son, but someone else brought it in this morning. If you want it, you'll have to buy it back. You can have it for a pound."
Tom ran home and counted all his money. He just had the price, but it was all he had. When he reached the shop, he rushed to the counter. "Here's the money for my boat." As he left the shop, Tom clutched the boat tightly under his arm. "Now you're twice mine,” he said. “You're mine because I made you and now you're mine again because I bought you."
That’s what our redemption by God is like. He is our Creator, and in that sense we are his already. But as sinners, we are like the boat swept away by the river, taken away from God’s presence. Then in his grace, God seeks us out again and pays the highest price he could –the sacrifice of his own dear Son on the cross – to buy us back and make us his again.
Our passage in Isaiah chapter 44 is all about redemption. It’s all about God delivering and saving his people.
In fact there are three different threads or aspects of redemption that run through this passage and I want us to look at each on in turn. No doubt you all got the three “Rs” at school. Well, this passage contains it’s own three “Rs”. For the purposes of alliteration, we might call them restoration, rescue and re-creation.
Restoration concerns God delivering his people from captivity in Babylon and bringing them back to Jerusalem and the land of Israel. It is what we might term a national or political deliverance and I think it symbolises what for us is God’s protection of our nation, and God’s providence that ensures that normal life was we know it goes on.
Rescue lies at very heart of the passage and the Christian gospel and concerns God’s salvation of his people from sin. This is the very core of God’s redemption, this dealing with the problem of sin and bringing us, who are by nature enemies of God, into a relationship of friendship with him.
Re-creation looks forward beyond the redemption and salvation of God’s people to the re-making of the whole of creation - the heavens and the earth and everything in them at the end of time, undoing the effects of evil and removing evil from the universe for all eternity – and bring the whole created universe under the headship of Jesus Christ.
There are elements of all three levels of redemption in this passage. The order in which Isaiah presents them to us is different from the way I’ve analysed what he is saying, so in effect we’ll look at the passage back to front a bit since Isaiah focuses on the restoration of the people of Israel and their deliverance from captivity in verses 25 to 28, on the rescue of God’s people from their sins in verses 21 and 22, and on the re-creation of the universe in verses 23 and 24.
So looking first at restoration, we can see in verses 25 to 28 that these verses contain a remarkable prophecy of promise to the people held in captivity in Babylon. Just how remarkable you think this prophecy is depends on whether you take a conservative or liberal line in biblical scholarship. You see, while conservative scholars – and the church generally for the past two thousand years – accepts that Isaiah wrote the whole of this prophecy and that is dates from about 200 years before the Jews went into captivity, liberal scholars deny this can be true because of how precise and how true Isaiah’s prophecy is. They would argue that this section of Isaiah was not written by Isaiah and dates from the time of the exile in Babylon, or even after it! – and not from 200 years before. If the liberals are right, there’s not much remarkable in what Isaiah says. It would be like me “prophesying” now that Germany would invade Poland in 1939, pretending that my prophecy was written before 1700. Some prophet I’d be. You might call me a fraud, and you wouldn’t be far wrong.
But if the conservative view is correct – and I believe it is – then it is a remarkable prophecy, and shows the supernatural, divine origin of the Scriptures. For Isaiah prophesied two centuries before the exile to Babylon even happened how it would end, in great detail. For instance, notice that not only is Israel’s restoration to their homeland and to the capital city, Jerusalem, predicted, but even the very name of the person who would bring this about, the Persian emperor, Cyrus the Great, is mentioned, by name in verse 28, hundreds of years before Cyrus was born!
Of course, the liberals will say, this proves this passage was written long after the real Isaiah died. But that is no more than unbelief dressed up as scholarship. There’s no reason why God, who knows the future with absolute certainty, could not reveal to Isaiah the very name of the future pagan emperor who would have such a hand in the freeing of the people of Israel from their Babylonian captivity and their restoration to Jerusalem.
One thing we do know for certain is that Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Cyrus and the restoration of Israel is accurate. We read about what happened during the reign of Cyrus in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23:
“Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: "Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, 'The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with him. Let him go up.'”
God calls Cyrus his shepherd in verse 28. Notice in passing that God can use people who are not his people to do his work. Here he will use a pagan emperor called Cyrus. He can just as well use a worldly monarch like King Henry VIII to bring about the reformation of his church in England, or even an evil tyrant like Joseph Stalin, to help the Allies defeat Nazi Germany and rid the world of Hitler’s barbarism. God is not restricted to using the godly to achieve godly ends. He can use the wicked to serve his purposes, even when they don’t think that’s what they’re doing!
The question is of what relevance are these things to us here today. We know that God could prophecy the future because he knows what will happen in the future. That’s one thing. We also know that he can use anyone to work out his purposes and achieve his ends – even when those who bring it about don’t realise they are doing it and even if what they want is completely at odds with God’s character and commandments. But is there anything else here for us to learn? I think there is and it’s this: there is an aspect of God’s protection and deliverance of his people that concerns their physical well-being, and survival and success of the nations and societies where they live.
If God had wanted to he could have given his people the spirit of repentance and given them the gift of saving faith, and restored them to the living covenant relationship he always wanted with them, while leaving them to live in Babylon. But he didn’t. He didn’t just save the people from their sins, he didn’t just make them believers, he looked after them by bringing them home to their own land and their own capital city.
Of course the people’s leaving captivity and coming home is symbolic of their returning to God in faith, but as well as that, there’s an element of God looking after all his people’s needs, not just their spiritual needs. Just as the deliverance from Egypt was both a spiritual event and a national, political event, so the return from Babylon is both a spiritual event and a national restoration.
Under the New Covenant, God’s people are no longer to be found in only one nation – the church of Christ is composed of every nationality and race. But there’s still a sense in which God looks after the nations where his people reside. God still looks after nations where he is honoured and his word respected. Historically that can be shown to be true. It is no accident that Great Britain rose from being an insignificant island on the fringes of Europe to being the greatest colonial power the world has ever seen. It is no accident that the nation where the Reformation flourished and God was honoured in both church and state was blessed and protected against all its enemies, and given the responsibility of taking the gospel to the four corners of the earth.
God is interested in his people’s welfare. Period. Not just their spiritual welfare – but their health, their peace, their prosperity, their physical survival and that of future generations of believers who are more likely than not to be the children of other believers and churchgoers.
The second of our three “Rs” in this passage is “Rescue”. Although God is interested in the temporal affairs of his people, it is their spiritual well-being from which all other blessings flow and it is God’s salvation of his people from their sins that lies at the very heart of the entire Bible’s message of good news. And this rescue that God has carried out for this people is what is mentioned in verse 22 of our passage, where God himself says:
“I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.”
There are three things to notice in this verse 22 that spells out the gospel for us. That’s why I want to look at this verse in more detail than the others.
The first thing this verse teaches is that there is a problem that God had to sort for us. And the problem is our transgressions and our sins. The problem is that human beings do not treat God as we should, and instead we break his laws and try to live our lives without reference to the God who gave us life in the first place. Instead of loving God and our neighbour and seeking to live lives that please God, by nature human beings are full of pride and selfishness. We prefer to please ourselves rather than God, and the Bible calls this sin. This problem of sin breaks the relationship that God designed us to have with him, because he is a good and holy God whose very character cannot tolerate evil. And it’s a big problem with the way the universe is. The Bible says that sin must be punished and the punishment, or wages of sin, is death, eternal death in hell.
The second thing this verse tells us is that God has sorted out the problem. It is not something that we can sort out for ourselves. “I have blotted out your transgressions...I have redeemed you,” God says. “I have done it, not you.” And the Bible is very clear about this throughout the Old Testament as here, and throughout the New Testament, both in the teachings of Jesus and the apostles.
Look at Jesus’ teaching in John’s Gospel. In John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” So according to Jesus, the only way for people to come to God, the only way to be saved, is to come to God through Jesus. Jesus is the only Saviour as Acts 4:12 also teaches. But back in John 6:44 Jesus had also taught: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” Isn’t that a remarkable two-way relationship that Jesus identifies? No one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him, gives him the will and faith to come. And no one can come to God except through coming to Jesus Christ in faith. Jesus makes it absolutely clear that salvation is the work of God, and accomplished by the will of God and not by the will of man. And Jesus makes that point many times in his teaching. In John 3 he teaches that no one can see the kingdom of God unless is born again. But he also teaches that those who are born again – those who are children of God – are born not of the will of man, but by God’s will, through the Holy Spirit.
The third thing this wonderful verse 22 teaches is how God accomplishes his people’s salvation. He describes it as being like when a cloud comes over and blocks out the sun, or when a mist descends, hiding the world from view. This summer we should have no trouble understanding the picture Isaiah paints of thick clouds blocking out the sun so that you wouldn’t even know it was there. That, according to this verse, is what God does with our sins and transgressions. He takes them away. He hides them from view. And it’s not our view he hides them from. He hides our sins from his own view. And that’s a tremendously significant thing.
In Habakkuk 1:13, the prophet prays to the LORD, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil.” So for such a God to live in a relationship of friendship with sinners, their sins must be taken away and hidden from his view. We could not have a relationship with a holy God if he could still see our sins. They need to be blotted out and this is precisely what God promises he will do in this verse in Isaiah.
We know now the way God accomplished this. It is through the death of his Son on the cross. I could read dozens of verses to show this. But I’ll just read one. The first is what John the Baptist said when he saw Jesus approaching him on the day after his baptism: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” he said. (John 1:29). The sacrificial lamb who removes, who takes away, who hides from view, the sin of the world.
On the cross, Jesus took away our sins, hiding them forever from God’s view, and in place of our sins, he gives us, he transfers to our account, his righteous standing before God, so that when God looks upon Christian believers, he cannot see our sins, but instead he sees Christ’s righteousness and accepts us as holy and worthy to enter into heaven because of the righteousness we possess through Christ. That is the gospel of grace that Jesus and Paul and Peter and John taught and that Isaiah and the other Old Testament prophets saw in shadowy outline. But they saw it nonetheless. Even Isaiah could write of the Messiah in 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.”
It is through Christ’s blood that God blots out our trangressions and sins. It is through giving up his own Son as a sacrifice for sin that God redeems us.
The great American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, wrote about this wonderful gospel in these words:
“The redeemed are dependent of God for all. All that we have-- wisdom, the pardon of sin, deliverance, acceptance in God's favour, grace, holiness, true comfort and happiness, eternal life and glory--we have from God by a Mediator; and this Mediator is God. God not only gives us the Mediator, and accepts His mediation, and of His power and grace bestows the things purchased by the Mediator, but He is the Mediator. Our blessings are what we have by purchase; and the purchase is made of God; the blessings are purchased of Him; and not only so, but God is the purchaser. Yes, God is both the purchaser and the price; for Christ, who is God, purchased these blessings by offering Himself as the price of our salvation.”
The hymn writer Toplady sums it up in fewer words like this:
“The terrors of law and of God
with me can have nothing to do;
my Saviour’s obedience and blood
hide all my trangressions from view.”
And John Wesley translated a great German hymn like this:
“Jesus, Your blood and righteousness
my beauty are, my glorious dress;
midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
with joy shall I lift up my head.
Bold shall I stand in that great day,
for who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am,
from sin and fear, from guilt and shame.”
Now although our salvation in Christ is absolutely fundamental to everything else in our lives and lies at the very centre of the Bible’s message, though it will be our song throughout the ages, the Bible actually teaches that our salvation from sin and our entry to heaven is not the entirety of God’s good news. Our salvation is the centrepiece of a bigger picture. And so we come to the third of three “Rs” – re-creation.
The gospel is not just about us reaching heaven, being snatched from destruction in hell. It certainly is about that, but that’s not all the gospel is. Hard though it is to comprehend, the Bible’s message is even better and bigger than that. Eternity will be much more than being incorporeal spirits living in heaven. No the Bible teaches that in eternity we will be people with resurrection bodies, inhabiting a new heaven and a new earth, in an eternity where all of creation will be remade, repaired and restored by God.
This is what comes through in verse 23 of our passage in Isaiah chapter 44: “Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it; shout, O depths of the earth, break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel.”
Now it might appear that Isaiah is simply being poetic here and saying that even the natural world should celebrate because the LORD is going to save his people. But I think it’s not just poetic licence here. The Bible teaches that God’s plan of salvation is not just to save for himself a people to be his and to live with him forever. Certainly that's part of it. But the plan is also to make a new heaven and a new earth – to renew and restore the whole of creation – to undo the fall and for eternity to be spent in a heaven and earth made perfect by God just as the old universe was made imperfect by man’s sin. This saving of the entire creation is why the mountains and trees should sing – because God’s eternal purpose for the whole of creation is gradually being realised. The heart of it is the salvation of his people, but the end of it is the salvation, the healing and making whole, every part of creation.
God’s big picture is summed up in Colossians 1:19-20:
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [that’s Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
And in Ephesians 1:10-11, Paul says that God’s purpose through Christ is “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”
In Romans 8:19-21, Paul writes what could almost be a commentary on verse 23 of our passage. Paul writes: “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one 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.”
Do you see what Paul is saying here? It really is fantastic! He’s saying that through the salvation of God’s people, the curse that came upon the whole of creation as a result of mankind’s fall into sin will be lifted, and through the salvation of God’s people, the whole world – the very mountains and forests and birds and animals – will all be saved and brought to glory. And in the new heavens and new earth, all of creation will dwell in peace and concord again, as if the fall had never happened. It’s as if creation itself knows that the salvation of God’s people will be the key to the salvation of all the other parts of creation. Now they wait for it. One the day that this salvation comes to creation, the very mountains and trees will praise God!
No wonder then that Isaiah breaks forth in a joyful exultation for all of creation to praise and thank God for redeeming Israel in verse 22.
Hopefully we’ve come to see something of greatness of God’s redemption too. A redemption and salvation that looks after the everyday, temporal needs of his people, a redemption that takes away his people’s sin, ends the enmity between God and sinners and restores that covenant bond of friendship with them, and a redemption that has as its ultimate end the salvation of the whole of creation under Christ Jesus – who made all things and for whom they were made.
I began this sermon with a story about a boy and his boat to show something of the nature of God’s redeeming love for his people. I’d like to finish with another story. A true story this time.
There was once a gathering of friends at an English country estate. The garden party nearly turned to tragedy when one of the family children fell into a river that ran through the estate. The gardener heard the boy’s cries for help, dived in, and rescued the drowning child. The boy’s name was Winston Churchill.
His grateful parents asked the gardener what they could do to reward him. The man was a Scot and reluctant to speak. He hesitated, then finally said, "I wish my son could go to the college someday and become a doctor."
"We'll see to it," Churchill's parents promised.
Years later, while Winston Churchill was Prime Minister during the Second World War, he was stricken with pneumonia. The country's best physician was summoned. His name was Alexander Fleming, the man who discovered and developed penicillin. He was the gardener’s son who had indeed gone to college and become a doctor. Of course Churchill recovered from his illness and the rest is history.
Churchill wrote of this later: "Rarely has one man owed his life twice to the same person."
In the sense that Churchill meant it, he was right of course – the gardener saved him from the river and in a sense saved him again by choosing for his son to grow up to be a doctor, of all the rewards he could have asked for. What a remarkable train of events that is. But for all of us who are God’s people, it’s not a rare event at all. Far from it being rare, it is actually true for all of us without exception, for we all owe our lives twice to the one person – to the LORD God, our creator and our Redeemer. Our heavenly Father gave us life once through deciding to create us, and he gave us life again when he chose that his Son should grow up to be our Saviour.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
Monday, 30 July 2007
Saturday, 28 July 2007
The Folly of Idolatry
This is a sermon based on Isaiah 44:9-20, preached at an evening service on 15th July 2007
If you were to take a survey in the streets of Britain today and ask people this question, I wonder what the answers you got would be. “Which sin does the Bible condemn the most often?” Judging from what seems to get into the news headlines, people might think it was sexual sins of one kind or another, but although the Bible does condemn sexual immorality, actually such sins are not dwelt on that much, certainly not as major themes in the Bible. Other people might suggest greed, hypocrisy or cruelty, or dishonesty are the biggest sins. And of course we can’t forget “murder” what many people would consider to be the ultimate sin that anyone could commit. The point is that they will almost always choose a sin that affects other people and especially things that harm other people. Hardly anyone ever thinks about the sins we commit only against God, against God directly. But the sin that the Bible seems to take more seriously than almost any other is idolatry.
Make no mistake about it, idolatry is condemned as a terrible sin – an evil even worse than any sin against a fellow human being, bad though those are, because idolatry is a sin directly against God himself.
The Bible could not condemn idolatry in stronger terms than it does. The Bible says that idolatry is an abomination:
Ezekiel 14:6: “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
And God’s threatened punishments upon idolators could not be put in stronger terms either.
In Leviticus 26:1 God says to the people of Israel: “You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the LORD your God.”
Throughout most of the chapter the Lord then warns the Israelites of the dire consequences if they break his commandment. By Leviticus 26:27 God “takes the gloves off” as it were and says:
“But if you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you.”
So idolatry is not something to be taken lightly and definitely not something we want to fool around with. It must be taken deadly seriously.
In the context of the Bible as a whole, the middle section of Isaiah 44 that we’re looking tonight is absolutely typical in its condemnation of idolatry. The biblical understanding of idolatry is that it is absolute folly and something we should avoid at all costs.
Now, before we look at the passage itself, there’s one thing some of you are probably asking yourselves. What is idolatry? If it’s such a serious sin, we better get it clear what it is so we can make sure we aren’t doing it.
Theologians and preachers have defined “idolatry” a number of different ways over the years – many of which are very helpful to us when we come to ponder this subject.
The 19th century American preacher, A. W. Tozer, gave one of the widest definitions of idolatry, but with a lot of truth, when he said it was “entertaining thoughts about God that are unworthy of him.” For Tozer then, idolatry was primarily getting our thoughts wrong about God and worshipping our version of what God is like, rather than the true God revealed through the pages of Scripture and in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Another good definition I came across was from Andrew Rudd, an American Christian businessman. Rudd says that "Idolatry is finding our security, our safety, our meaning in something or someone other than God." Where Tozer emphasised getting our thoughts wrong about God, Rudd emphasises placing other things – trusting in and relying on other things, loving other things more than we love God as being at the heart of idolatry.
I think both are correct. Idolatry is both either worshipping, trusting in or loving most anything or anyone more than the LORD God and idolatry is also worshipping or imagining the one true God in a way that he forbids or in a way that makes him less or different than he really is – that is as Scripture present him to us.
Both sides of idolatry are brilliantly summed up by Augustine of Hippo, who wrote: “Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshipped.”
The Bible’s own definition, which is in line with both Tozer’s, Rudd’s, and Augustine’s definitions, is probably best summed up in the first two of the Ten Commandments. According to the Ten Commandments, in other words, according to God himself, idolatry is either “having any other god” but him, whatever that is, or “making for ourselves carved images” and “bowing down to them.”
In Romans 1:25, Paul captures the essence of the sin of idolatry is in these words about the wicked. He says they “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!”
Worshipping and serving the creature – any part of creation instead of the one who created them: that is idolatry.
The Heidelberg Catechism sums up so much of the Bible’s teaching in Question and Answer 95:
Q95: What is idolatry?
A95: Idolatry is to conceive or have something else in which to place our trust instead of, or besides, the one true God who has revealed Himself in His Word.
That is the sin that the Bible condemns so strongly and so often – putting anything else in God’s place, even if we try to worship God himself through other things such as images. That is the sin that our passage deals with.
Now that we’ve had a look at the background to the subject we’re discussing tonight, let’s turn now to our passage in Isaiah chapter 44. In this passage we see three distinct points that Isaiah makes about the sin of idolatry that we should consider tonight.
First, in verses 9 to 11, Isaiah makes the point that idolatry is a shameful, harmful and useless thing.
Second, in verses12 to 17, Isaiah emphasises that idolatry is totally stupid from any kind of rational point of view.
Third, in verse 18 to 20, Isaiah reminds the people that to be an idolator is to believe in a lie and to do something which is both sinful and punishable by God.
So let’s look at these three sections in turn.
First, in verses 9 to 11, the point is made very strongly that idolatry is a shameful, harmful and useless activity.
Verse 9: “All who fashion idols are nothing and the things they delight in do not profit.” In other words, idolators are “beneath contempt” as we might say. In God’s eyes they are “nothing”. The verse concludes that such people will be “put to shame” by God. Whether or not they know it, one day idolatry will be exposed as a shameful activity and even the idolators will have to acknowledge that fact. One day – even if it is only at the Last Judgment – they will stand exposed and guilty of putting the creature in the place of the Creator.
But not only is idolatry shameful, it is also harmful according to Isaiah. Those who practise idolatry will be “terrified” according to verse 11. What greater harm can a man or woman do to himself than to conduct his life in such a way that at the last he or she will be filled with absolute terror as the realisation dawns on them that the LORD God was indeed real, and His word was indeed true, and the vastness of eternity stretches before such people in never ending darkness, where they face eternal torment and abandonment in hell. “They will be terrified” Isaiah says. The greatest harm a person can do to himself is not harming his body, but harming his soul if you like – storing up God’s wrath against himself because of his sins.
Next, Isaiah points out that not only is idolatry shameful and harmful, it is completely useless. There is absolutely no benefit derived to the idolator from his or her sinful activities. It “does not profit” as verse 9 says. Other translations put it slightly differently. One old translation simply says that the idols can “do no good.” The Good News Bible states that the idols are “useless”. The New American Standard Bible says they are “futile”. The New English Translation has “worthless”. Whatever way they put it, the verse tells us that idolatry is a useless, pointless, worthless, futile activity that does not profit us or do us any good whatsoever.
Second, in verses12 to 17, Isaiah emphasises that idolatry is totally stupid from any kind of rational point of view. He points out in a series of graphic scenes that all idols are made from mere man-made materials in one form or another. How could anyone really believe that a god can be formed from the ordinary materials of everyday life – stone, wood, plaster, or paint and canvass. He is deeply scornful of such beliefs and scathing in his denunciation of them.
In verse 12, the picture is of a ironsmith working to make a so-called god out of metal with his tools, but then becoming hungry and tired and having to stop his work and take a break. Picture it, Isaiah’s saying to us. What sort of god is it that is created by a mere man, a weak artisan who gets tired while forming a god and has to take a break and get a drink of water when he feels faint. The contrast between this puny god, created by a weak human being, and Yahweh, the uncreated, eternal God whose power is limitless and who never grows tired or weary could not be greater.
In verse 13, Isaiah’s satirical take on the idol makers, switches from the worker of metal to the carpenter working in wood. He lists all the skills and tasks the carpenter has to complete from measuring and cutting wood, to carving and shaping it, to going out and finding new timber or even planting trees to produce timber in the future. But then the absolute folly of idolatry is laid bare in withering terms. What could be more stupid? What could be more ridiculous than to cut down a tree and use part of the wood to burn as fuel in a fire (in other words to fulfil mundane tasks of everyday life), and use another part to fashion a so-called “god” and worship it. It is, as far as Isaiah is concerned, absolutely absurd to pretend that one lump of wood is a god who can help you (“Deliver me, for you are my god!” Isaiah has the idolator saying to his wooden idol) while another lump of wood is no more than fuel to cook your dinner or heat your house.
Third, in verse 18 to 20, Isaiah reminds the people that to be an idolator is to believe in a lie and to do something which is both sinful and punishable by God.
Isaiah says in verse 20 that the idolator has a “deluded heart”. Another way of saying this, as Paul does in Romans 1, is to say that the idolator has exchanged the truth of God for a lie. The lie is that the idol deserves to be worshipped and that the idol can somehow help or deliver the idolator, neither of which are true.
But instead of recognising the truth, the idolator lacks knowledge and the ability to discern truth from falsehood (verse 18): “They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.”
Notice that it’s God himself who leaves sinners like idolators in their sins. There is a dark and sombre teaching that runs through Scripture that God is sovereign over evil and sinners, and when he chooses, he sometimes leaves sinners in their sins to serve his own ends. It is not a truth we find palatable, but nevertheless it is true that God shuts the eyes of sinners to that they cannot see, and their hearts so that they cannot understand.
We find the same truth expressed in Exodus, in God’s dealings with Pharaoh when Israel was held in captivity in Egypt. Consider that God sent Moses to command Pharaoh to free the Hebrew slaves, but at the same time God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not obey and thereby store up more of God’s punishment against himself. In Exodus 9:16, God says to Pharaoh, “But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” We may find it difficult to grasp, but God’s word is clear – God raised up Pharaoh so that he could harden his heart and show him his power through the plagues and judgment he passed on Egypt.
Jesus’ teaching also has this dark thread running through it. In Matthew 11:27, Jesus says, “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” In other words the power lies in God’s hands and Christ’s hands who comes to see the truth about God and who doesn’t.
Jesus even says in Mark chapter 4, verses 11 and 12 that the purpose of telling parables is in part to conceal the truth from those he does not want to save. Christ said “For those outside everything is in parables, so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”
This is one reason, along with the total sinfulness of the human heart, that Isaiah can conclude in verse 20 of our passage that the idolator cannot deliver himself from God’s punishment for his sins or recognise the lie of the idol he holds in his right hand.
The idolator, like any other sinner, cannot save himself. But the good news of the gospel is that God can save even idolators. He can bring them to see the truth, and recognise the lie of idolatry. By nature, we are all of us idolators in some respect. All of us have at one time or another entertained thoughts about God that are unworthy of him. All of us have found our security, our safety, our meaning in something or someone other than God at some point in our lives.
Now, you might be thinking, “not me” when I say that. You might be saying to yourself: all this talk about idolatry in Isaiah’s time is all very well. Then it was true – the people of Israel in exile in Babylon were turning away to the gods of the Babylonians. Or at least worshipping them as well as their own God. They made statues of metal and wood, they worshipped idols, they were guilty of idolators all right, but can the same be said of people in our day?
Well I have to say that I think this generation is every bit as idolatrous as any past generation in history.
For one thing, the old fashioned kinds of idolatry are not confined to history as we sometimes make believe. The old fashioned worship of idols of metal and wood is very much still with us. Millions of people in the world follow false religions and worship idols. Hinduism and Buddism are religions steeped in physical idolatry – statues and shrines and such like. Islam and Judaism though to be commended for their strong stance against physical idols and images, are nonetheless idolatrous religions. They are ideological idolators, worshipping a false god of human invention rather than the true, Triune God, revealed in the Bible. Even within Christianity, millions are guilty of idolatry, worshipping statues of Christ, or Mary or the saints. All of these God condemns as idolatry and God calls those involved in such things to leave those idols and come to him to worship in spirit and in truth instead.
Secondly, there are those who are not guilty of what we might call “old-fashioned” idolatry – image worship and so on, but nevertheless commit idolatry daily by putting other things in the place of God. As someone once said with a lot of truth: “Today's idols are more in the self than on the shelf.” In other words, modern idols tend to be internalised – they are in the mind and in the heart, rather than carved images of gods made of metal, wood or stone.
In Western countries in particular, millions of people worship fame, money, power, sex, and pleasure (sometimes all them together!). And they build their lives around obtaining as much of these things as possible. In effect they believe in these things rather than the true God and they devote their lives to serving them, rather than serving him.
There’s no doubt that some people have a religious devotion to their favourite footballer, or actor, or pop singer. Such people are treated almost as living gods. Others take their sacred text as the Tabloid newspapers and can’t get enough of news and gossip about the rich and famous.
For other people, money and gaining as much of it as possible is clearly their god. Almost everything else in some people’s lives is put secondary to gaining success in business. Business is business and everything else comes second. It’s not just individuals who succumb. The whole country is governed on the basis of making sure the great god Economy is kept happy, never mind the human cost. If something is deemed right for the Economy then it is right, and any politician who argued otherwise – for example that people’s welfare should come first, would be laughed out of Parliament.
People will do almost anything to get on television and become famous. Look at programmes like Big Brother. Not that long ago, people were famous for having a talent – even if that was playing football very well or being able to write songs and sing them. In the last ten years, the cult of the celebrity who is famous merely for being famous and by regularly appearing in the papers and magazines. And they become a person that other people look up to and aspire to be. It doesn’t matter if you’re only famous for appearing at the right parties and film premieres, and for getting your picture in the papers – as long as you’re famous for something, anything.
One way or another, we’ve all been idolators, and we still fall into that sin from time to time, even as Christians.
But just as surely as God condemns idolatry as a sin, he also offers salvation to sinners through Jesus Christ, even for idolators. He could not put it more strikingly that he does in Ezekiel 36:25-28:
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”
This is God’s promise to every idolator who will turn away from his idols and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yet though God promises to save us from idolatry, he does not promise to save us as idolators. Indeed the Scriptures are clear that no idolator can enter into the kingdom of God. Very near the end of the Bible, in Revelation 22:14-15, we read: “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”
So we must resist the temptation to fall into idolatry every day – whatever idolatry our particular character and make-up is drawn towards. I would never kneel down and worship a statue, but I know I can be tempted to make an idol of the intellect and knowledge. Someone else might be immune from worshipping any other god but the God of the Bible, but nevertheless can be tempted to let the pursuit of money dominate their lives rather than living in a relationship of love with God. Another might have little interest in money, but their life is really controlled by a number of superstitions – making sure this or that or the other is avoided in case it brings bad luck. We all of us have our temptations, and our weaknesses. None of us can truly say we have never been jealous of another person, can we? Even the apostle Paul, who believed he had obeyed 9 of the 10 commandments knew he had broken the tenth and coveted. But you see the Bible calls covetousness a form of idolatry in Colossians 3:5. So everyone has been an idolator at some point in their life.
But though we differ in the form idolatry might take in our lives, we are as one in the solution to that temptation. Every day we must consciously put idolatry to death. We must deliberately set about murdering it in our lives whenever we feel the temptation to make something into an idol coming our way. And in the place of our idols we must keep God much in mind, walking closely with him in trust and loving, thankful, obedience. Every day is a fight against our idols with Christ as our Saviour, our Companion and our Friend. We do not always succeed but we keep on fighting, knowing that we are more than conquerors through him who loves us, and in Christ we shall be victorious.
If you were to take a survey in the streets of Britain today and ask people this question, I wonder what the answers you got would be. “Which sin does the Bible condemn the most often?” Judging from what seems to get into the news headlines, people might think it was sexual sins of one kind or another, but although the Bible does condemn sexual immorality, actually such sins are not dwelt on that much, certainly not as major themes in the Bible. Other people might suggest greed, hypocrisy or cruelty, or dishonesty are the biggest sins. And of course we can’t forget “murder” what many people would consider to be the ultimate sin that anyone could commit. The point is that they will almost always choose a sin that affects other people and especially things that harm other people. Hardly anyone ever thinks about the sins we commit only against God, against God directly. But the sin that the Bible seems to take more seriously than almost any other is idolatry.
Make no mistake about it, idolatry is condemned as a terrible sin – an evil even worse than any sin against a fellow human being, bad though those are, because idolatry is a sin directly against God himself.
The Bible could not condemn idolatry in stronger terms than it does. The Bible says that idolatry is an abomination:
Ezekiel 14:6: “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
And God’s threatened punishments upon idolators could not be put in stronger terms either.
In Leviticus 26:1 God says to the people of Israel: “You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the LORD your God.”
Throughout most of the chapter the Lord then warns the Israelites of the dire consequences if they break his commandment. By Leviticus 26:27 God “takes the gloves off” as it were and says:
“But if you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you.”
So idolatry is not something to be taken lightly and definitely not something we want to fool around with. It must be taken deadly seriously.
In the context of the Bible as a whole, the middle section of Isaiah 44 that we’re looking tonight is absolutely typical in its condemnation of idolatry. The biblical understanding of idolatry is that it is absolute folly and something we should avoid at all costs.
Now, before we look at the passage itself, there’s one thing some of you are probably asking yourselves. What is idolatry? If it’s such a serious sin, we better get it clear what it is so we can make sure we aren’t doing it.
Theologians and preachers have defined “idolatry” a number of different ways over the years – many of which are very helpful to us when we come to ponder this subject.
The 19th century American preacher, A. W. Tozer, gave one of the widest definitions of idolatry, but with a lot of truth, when he said it was “entertaining thoughts about God that are unworthy of him.” For Tozer then, idolatry was primarily getting our thoughts wrong about God and worshipping our version of what God is like, rather than the true God revealed through the pages of Scripture and in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Another good definition I came across was from Andrew Rudd, an American Christian businessman. Rudd says that "Idolatry is finding our security, our safety, our meaning in something or someone other than God." Where Tozer emphasised getting our thoughts wrong about God, Rudd emphasises placing other things – trusting in and relying on other things, loving other things more than we love God as being at the heart of idolatry.
I think both are correct. Idolatry is both either worshipping, trusting in or loving most anything or anyone more than the LORD God and idolatry is also worshipping or imagining the one true God in a way that he forbids or in a way that makes him less or different than he really is – that is as Scripture present him to us.
Both sides of idolatry are brilliantly summed up by Augustine of Hippo, who wrote: “Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshipped.”
The Bible’s own definition, which is in line with both Tozer’s, Rudd’s, and Augustine’s definitions, is probably best summed up in the first two of the Ten Commandments. According to the Ten Commandments, in other words, according to God himself, idolatry is either “having any other god” but him, whatever that is, or “making for ourselves carved images” and “bowing down to them.”
In Romans 1:25, Paul captures the essence of the sin of idolatry is in these words about the wicked. He says they “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!”
Worshipping and serving the creature – any part of creation instead of the one who created them: that is idolatry.
The Heidelberg Catechism sums up so much of the Bible’s teaching in Question and Answer 95:
Q95: What is idolatry?
A95: Idolatry is to conceive or have something else in which to place our trust instead of, or besides, the one true God who has revealed Himself in His Word.
That is the sin that the Bible condemns so strongly and so often – putting anything else in God’s place, even if we try to worship God himself through other things such as images. That is the sin that our passage deals with.
Now that we’ve had a look at the background to the subject we’re discussing tonight, let’s turn now to our passage in Isaiah chapter 44. In this passage we see three distinct points that Isaiah makes about the sin of idolatry that we should consider tonight.
First, in verses 9 to 11, Isaiah makes the point that idolatry is a shameful, harmful and useless thing.
Second, in verses12 to 17, Isaiah emphasises that idolatry is totally stupid from any kind of rational point of view.
Third, in verse 18 to 20, Isaiah reminds the people that to be an idolator is to believe in a lie and to do something which is both sinful and punishable by God.
So let’s look at these three sections in turn.
First, in verses 9 to 11, the point is made very strongly that idolatry is a shameful, harmful and useless activity.
Verse 9: “All who fashion idols are nothing and the things they delight in do not profit.” In other words, idolators are “beneath contempt” as we might say. In God’s eyes they are “nothing”. The verse concludes that such people will be “put to shame” by God. Whether or not they know it, one day idolatry will be exposed as a shameful activity and even the idolators will have to acknowledge that fact. One day – even if it is only at the Last Judgment – they will stand exposed and guilty of putting the creature in the place of the Creator.
But not only is idolatry shameful, it is also harmful according to Isaiah. Those who practise idolatry will be “terrified” according to verse 11. What greater harm can a man or woman do to himself than to conduct his life in such a way that at the last he or she will be filled with absolute terror as the realisation dawns on them that the LORD God was indeed real, and His word was indeed true, and the vastness of eternity stretches before such people in never ending darkness, where they face eternal torment and abandonment in hell. “They will be terrified” Isaiah says. The greatest harm a person can do to himself is not harming his body, but harming his soul if you like – storing up God’s wrath against himself because of his sins.
Next, Isaiah points out that not only is idolatry shameful and harmful, it is completely useless. There is absolutely no benefit derived to the idolator from his or her sinful activities. It “does not profit” as verse 9 says. Other translations put it slightly differently. One old translation simply says that the idols can “do no good.” The Good News Bible states that the idols are “useless”. The New American Standard Bible says they are “futile”. The New English Translation has “worthless”. Whatever way they put it, the verse tells us that idolatry is a useless, pointless, worthless, futile activity that does not profit us or do us any good whatsoever.
Second, in verses12 to 17, Isaiah emphasises that idolatry is totally stupid from any kind of rational point of view. He points out in a series of graphic scenes that all idols are made from mere man-made materials in one form or another. How could anyone really believe that a god can be formed from the ordinary materials of everyday life – stone, wood, plaster, or paint and canvass. He is deeply scornful of such beliefs and scathing in his denunciation of them.
In verse 12, the picture is of a ironsmith working to make a so-called god out of metal with his tools, but then becoming hungry and tired and having to stop his work and take a break. Picture it, Isaiah’s saying to us. What sort of god is it that is created by a mere man, a weak artisan who gets tired while forming a god and has to take a break and get a drink of water when he feels faint. The contrast between this puny god, created by a weak human being, and Yahweh, the uncreated, eternal God whose power is limitless and who never grows tired or weary could not be greater.
In verse 13, Isaiah’s satirical take on the idol makers, switches from the worker of metal to the carpenter working in wood. He lists all the skills and tasks the carpenter has to complete from measuring and cutting wood, to carving and shaping it, to going out and finding new timber or even planting trees to produce timber in the future. But then the absolute folly of idolatry is laid bare in withering terms. What could be more stupid? What could be more ridiculous than to cut down a tree and use part of the wood to burn as fuel in a fire (in other words to fulfil mundane tasks of everyday life), and use another part to fashion a so-called “god” and worship it. It is, as far as Isaiah is concerned, absolutely absurd to pretend that one lump of wood is a god who can help you (“Deliver me, for you are my god!” Isaiah has the idolator saying to his wooden idol) while another lump of wood is no more than fuel to cook your dinner or heat your house.
Third, in verse 18 to 20, Isaiah reminds the people that to be an idolator is to believe in a lie and to do something which is both sinful and punishable by God.
Isaiah says in verse 20 that the idolator has a “deluded heart”. Another way of saying this, as Paul does in Romans 1, is to say that the idolator has exchanged the truth of God for a lie. The lie is that the idol deserves to be worshipped and that the idol can somehow help or deliver the idolator, neither of which are true.
But instead of recognising the truth, the idolator lacks knowledge and the ability to discern truth from falsehood (verse 18): “They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.”
Notice that it’s God himself who leaves sinners like idolators in their sins. There is a dark and sombre teaching that runs through Scripture that God is sovereign over evil and sinners, and when he chooses, he sometimes leaves sinners in their sins to serve his own ends. It is not a truth we find palatable, but nevertheless it is true that God shuts the eyes of sinners to that they cannot see, and their hearts so that they cannot understand.
We find the same truth expressed in Exodus, in God’s dealings with Pharaoh when Israel was held in captivity in Egypt. Consider that God sent Moses to command Pharaoh to free the Hebrew slaves, but at the same time God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not obey and thereby store up more of God’s punishment against himself. In Exodus 9:16, God says to Pharaoh, “But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” We may find it difficult to grasp, but God’s word is clear – God raised up Pharaoh so that he could harden his heart and show him his power through the plagues and judgment he passed on Egypt.
Jesus’ teaching also has this dark thread running through it. In Matthew 11:27, Jesus says, “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” In other words the power lies in God’s hands and Christ’s hands who comes to see the truth about God and who doesn’t.
Jesus even says in Mark chapter 4, verses 11 and 12 that the purpose of telling parables is in part to conceal the truth from those he does not want to save. Christ said “For those outside everything is in parables, so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”
This is one reason, along with the total sinfulness of the human heart, that Isaiah can conclude in verse 20 of our passage that the idolator cannot deliver himself from God’s punishment for his sins or recognise the lie of the idol he holds in his right hand.
The idolator, like any other sinner, cannot save himself. But the good news of the gospel is that God can save even idolators. He can bring them to see the truth, and recognise the lie of idolatry. By nature, we are all of us idolators in some respect. All of us have at one time or another entertained thoughts about God that are unworthy of him. All of us have found our security, our safety, our meaning in something or someone other than God at some point in our lives.
Now, you might be thinking, “not me” when I say that. You might be saying to yourself: all this talk about idolatry in Isaiah’s time is all very well. Then it was true – the people of Israel in exile in Babylon were turning away to the gods of the Babylonians. Or at least worshipping them as well as their own God. They made statues of metal and wood, they worshipped idols, they were guilty of idolators all right, but can the same be said of people in our day?
Well I have to say that I think this generation is every bit as idolatrous as any past generation in history.
For one thing, the old fashioned kinds of idolatry are not confined to history as we sometimes make believe. The old fashioned worship of idols of metal and wood is very much still with us. Millions of people in the world follow false religions and worship idols. Hinduism and Buddism are religions steeped in physical idolatry – statues and shrines and such like. Islam and Judaism though to be commended for their strong stance against physical idols and images, are nonetheless idolatrous religions. They are ideological idolators, worshipping a false god of human invention rather than the true, Triune God, revealed in the Bible. Even within Christianity, millions are guilty of idolatry, worshipping statues of Christ, or Mary or the saints. All of these God condemns as idolatry and God calls those involved in such things to leave those idols and come to him to worship in spirit and in truth instead.
Secondly, there are those who are not guilty of what we might call “old-fashioned” idolatry – image worship and so on, but nevertheless commit idolatry daily by putting other things in the place of God. As someone once said with a lot of truth: “Today's idols are more in the self than on the shelf.” In other words, modern idols tend to be internalised – they are in the mind and in the heart, rather than carved images of gods made of metal, wood or stone.
In Western countries in particular, millions of people worship fame, money, power, sex, and pleasure (sometimes all them together!). And they build their lives around obtaining as much of these things as possible. In effect they believe in these things rather than the true God and they devote their lives to serving them, rather than serving him.
There’s no doubt that some people have a religious devotion to their favourite footballer, or actor, or pop singer. Such people are treated almost as living gods. Others take their sacred text as the Tabloid newspapers and can’t get enough of news and gossip about the rich and famous.
For other people, money and gaining as much of it as possible is clearly their god. Almost everything else in some people’s lives is put secondary to gaining success in business. Business is business and everything else comes second. It’s not just individuals who succumb. The whole country is governed on the basis of making sure the great god Economy is kept happy, never mind the human cost. If something is deemed right for the Economy then it is right, and any politician who argued otherwise – for example that people’s welfare should come first, would be laughed out of Parliament.
People will do almost anything to get on television and become famous. Look at programmes like Big Brother. Not that long ago, people were famous for having a talent – even if that was playing football very well or being able to write songs and sing them. In the last ten years, the cult of the celebrity who is famous merely for being famous and by regularly appearing in the papers and magazines. And they become a person that other people look up to and aspire to be. It doesn’t matter if you’re only famous for appearing at the right parties and film premieres, and for getting your picture in the papers – as long as you’re famous for something, anything.
One way or another, we’ve all been idolators, and we still fall into that sin from time to time, even as Christians.
But just as surely as God condemns idolatry as a sin, he also offers salvation to sinners through Jesus Christ, even for idolators. He could not put it more strikingly that he does in Ezekiel 36:25-28:
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”
This is God’s promise to every idolator who will turn away from his idols and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yet though God promises to save us from idolatry, he does not promise to save us as idolators. Indeed the Scriptures are clear that no idolator can enter into the kingdom of God. Very near the end of the Bible, in Revelation 22:14-15, we read: “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”
So we must resist the temptation to fall into idolatry every day – whatever idolatry our particular character and make-up is drawn towards. I would never kneel down and worship a statue, but I know I can be tempted to make an idol of the intellect and knowledge. Someone else might be immune from worshipping any other god but the God of the Bible, but nevertheless can be tempted to let the pursuit of money dominate their lives rather than living in a relationship of love with God. Another might have little interest in money, but their life is really controlled by a number of superstitions – making sure this or that or the other is avoided in case it brings bad luck. We all of us have our temptations, and our weaknesses. None of us can truly say we have never been jealous of another person, can we? Even the apostle Paul, who believed he had obeyed 9 of the 10 commandments knew he had broken the tenth and coveted. But you see the Bible calls covetousness a form of idolatry in Colossians 3:5. So everyone has been an idolator at some point in their life.
But though we differ in the form idolatry might take in our lives, we are as one in the solution to that temptation. Every day we must consciously put idolatry to death. We must deliberately set about murdering it in our lives whenever we feel the temptation to make something into an idol coming our way. And in the place of our idols we must keep God much in mind, walking closely with him in trust and loving, thankful, obedience. Every day is a fight against our idols with Christ as our Saviour, our Companion and our Friend. We do not always succeed but we keep on fighting, knowing that we are more than conquerors through him who loves us, and in Christ we shall be victorious.
Saturday, 14 July 2007
The God of Israel
The following sermon was preached at an Evening service on Sunday, 8th July 2007.
When I started university, at the beginning of term, I received a list of books for each class that I would be expected to read by the end of the year. And like any new and enthusiastic young law student I headed off to the university bookshop with my list and picked up copies of all the books I would need to read. I could hardly carry them homeThe . When I got into the house I stacked the books up on a table and felt a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. The stack of books was about three feet high. I thought to myself “There’s no way you’re going to be able to read, never mind learn and remember all this by the end of the year.” The task seemed to big, so overwhelming that for a few days I couldn’t face reading them at all.
But then classes started and I had to start reading them. And bit by bit over the course of the year I did read them – or at least large parts of them – and I ended up remembering enough to pass my exams at the end of the year and progress through my course.
I learned that the key to tackling a big reading task is to do it a bit at a time and break it down into smaller, achievable targets.
In the Bible, a book as big and intimidating as the Prophecy of Isaiah can affect us the same way. Sixty-six chapters of prophecy sounds like tough going, doesn’t it? The prophet Isaiah ministered for about 50 years from the death of King Uzziah in 739 BC till the death of King Hezekiah in 686 BC and his book reflects the length and depth of his rich prophetic ministry to the people of Israel.
How will we get through it, never mind understand it. I think the same solution applies: we need to tackle it a little bit at a time.
In the three weeks we’ve got together we’re going to look at just one chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy, Isaiah chapter 44, which is a very typical Isaiah chapter many ways, in that it deals with some of the themes that Isaiah touches on time and again in his prophecy, including the sin of idolatry and the redemption that God would send to his people. But this week, in the first section from verses 1 to 8, we see some important things about the relationship between God and his people, so I’ve called tonight’s service “The God of Israel.”
It has some great things to teach us about God’s love and grace and mercy towards his people, how he cares for them, and it shows us how God expects his people to treat him in return.
Isaiah chapter 44 comes in the middle of the great fourth section of Isaiah’s prophecy which runs from Isaiah chapter 40 through to chapter 55. These chapters, though I believe written several hundred years before the events, address that dark period of Israel’s history when the people of God were taken in captivity in Babylon.
We need to remember that the captivity or exile came about as God’s punishment on his people’s sin. And in that exile, the people thought that their God had abandoned them. They thought that since they had broken their covenant with God, he was no longer their God and had left them to be exiled or destroyed at the whim of the heathen rulers of the world.
The message of Isaiah chapters 40 to 55 is very much a message of hope and comfort. They proclaim that God will not abandon his people. They assure Israel, broken-hearted in exile, that God’s covenant stands forever and will never be cast aside. His great covenant promise, “I will be your God and you will be my people” which is repeated dozens of times through both the Old and New Testaments, is a promise that God will never break. Even when his people disobey and desert him, the promise stands and God acts to purify his people, destroying the wicked and blessing and prospering the faithful remnant of true Israelites. Because of His covenant, He will deliver them from captivity, free them and save them.
In these prophecies, following generations of Jews and later Christians have seen a deeper significance in these prophecies than the delivery of the Jewish nation from exile in Babylon, for beyond those events, the prophecies point towards the coming of the Messiah and God’s deliverance and salvation of his people from sin, death and punishment in hell.
I should probably just say in passing that my way of interpreting the Old Testament is very much in the tradition of what’s known as “covenant theology.” In other words, I believe that God only has one covenant people throughout history, and in the Old Testament that was the Jewish nation of Israel, and in this New Testament age God’s covenant people is the Church. I believe that the blessings and privileged position of Israel under the Old Testament have been transferred to the new Israel, God's Church composed of Jews and Gentiles together, who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. In prophecy this means that I would tend to see prophecies directed towards Israel as now applying to the Church rather than to the Jewish nation, or “ethnic Israel”. It’s a big subject and I don’t want to get bogged down in the arguments surrounding this. Just be aware that when I talk about Israel, I’m not meaning that Israel as a nation is now the people of God nor am I saying the prophecies apply to the Jewish nation today; they apply to God’s covenant people, the Church. They apply to us!
Okay, I think that’s enough background, so let’s have a look at this passage in Isaiah chapter 44.
You’ll notice that in verse 1, the first words are “But now...” This immediately signals a change in emphasis from what has gone before. The verses at the end of Isaiah chapter 43 are in effect a terrible curse on the people of Israel for their persistent disobedience.
The chapter ends with the Lord saying to his people in Isaiah 43:27-28:
“Your first father sinned and your mediators transgressed against me. Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary, and deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling.”
This comes after God lists a catalogue of the people’s sins including their failure to worship God, neglecting the sacrifices they should have made to him, and living lives marked by iniquity rather than righteousness. For these sins, God curses his own people and gives them up to a period of shame and reviling.
It is in this light that chapter 44 begins with the words, “But now...” which signals that God is not finished with his people. Despite allowing a period of punishment to fall on them, this is not the end of his dealing with his covenant people.
These words, “But now...” come as a ray of hope into what is otherwise a very bleak picture for God’s people.
It’s just the same for us today. By nature we are in a very bleak place regarding our standing before God. By nature we are “children of wrath” as Ephesians 2:1 says. We fail to obey God as we should and instead we disobey God’s laws. Everything we do by nature is tainted by sin, for none of what we do by nature is motivated by love for God, which Christ taught of course is the greatest commandment. We completely fail by nature at keeping the greatest commandment. So this “But now...” at the beginning of our passage is just as apt for us today as it was for the people in Isaiah’s day. Paul summed up human nature like this in Romans 3:10-12:
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
And in Romans 3:23 he says:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
That’s where we stand before God unless we have God’s grace and salvation in Jesus Christ. That’s our “but now...”
Isaiah’s “but now...” is just as amazing – he’s making the same point in Old Testament language. Israel, you are a nation of sinners, he’s saying. You are in a hopeless situation before God if human merit or goodness is the standard of righteousness. Yet God reveals to his people in this passage the greatness of his grace and mercy that will overcome even the hopelessness of human sinfulness!
In effect the message of this passage could be summed up like this: Don’t despair Israel, despite everything, God has chosen you and God will save you. The focus shifts from the wickedness of the people to the greatness, the glory and the grace of God, and it’s as if the sun rises over the horizon and dispels the darkness in the brilliance of its light.
You might wonder, how could God in one verse say that he was going to punish Israel and destroy them for their sins and in the next breath say he is going to bless and save Israel. That’s a very important question, and until you understand the answer to it, a lot of the Old Testament will be quite confusing. The answer is that there are really two Israels. There is Israel the nation, Israel in outward covenant with God, which included every Jew, even those who were wicked in action and faithless in God. This is the Israel that God threatens with judgment. But there is also the true Israel – the spiritual Israel composed of those who have real faith in the God of Israel. This is the Israel God promises to bless and save.
Paul describes the difference between the two Israel’s in Romans 9:6 (NIV):
“It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.”
And in Romans 9:8:
“In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.”
Even in Old Testament times this Israel included a few Gentiles. In the New Testament this true Israel includes many many Gentiles as well as those Jews who accepted God’s Messiah.
Paul makes it very clear who are members of the true Israel in Galatians 3:26-29:
“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
In Ephesians 2:12-13, Paul says to Gentile Christians:
“Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”
And then in verse 19 he concludes: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.”
In other words, we Gentile believers are members of Israel, the true or spiritual Israel, as far as God is concerned. So what this passage says about the covenant relationship between God and Israel is absolutely true for us here today as well.
Let’s look at the different things these verses teach about God and his people.
Verse 1: “But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen!”
Notice that as so often in the Bible, the foundation, the bedrock that everything else flows from is God’s sovereign election of his people. Israel was God’s people because he chose them to be so. It is God’s sovereign choice that is the ultimate cause of our salvation. Further back than that we cannot go. God chose his people before they were born, before the world existed, and he chose them not for any reason in them, but only because of his own sovereign choice. This is the doctrine of predestination that is so unpopular among so many people today that you rarely hear it mentioned in the church, but it is the very foundation of our salvation.
All the other blessings that God goes on to list in this passage, and absolute promise that despite their disobedience and sin, God will work to save his people from their sins, stems in history from the unbreakable covenant that God formed with his people through Abraham. But behind even that, it stems from God’s sovereign decree to save his elect in Christ, which is an eternal decree made before the world was made. In eternity God decided for his own glory, to choose for himself a multitude for salvation, because he loves them.
Back in Deuteronomy chapter 7 God comes closest to explaining why he chose Israel to be his people, and the same thing could be said of why he chose those individuals who make up his new covenant people, the church of Christ. This is Deuteronomy 7:6-8 (with Moses addressing the people of Israel):
“For you are a people holy [or set apart] to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the people who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love upon you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all the peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and has redeemed you...”
You know there’s times when logical thought has to give way to theological thought! And this is one of them. In effect Moses is saying the reason the Lord saved you was because he loves you, and the reason the Lord set his love upon you is...because he loves you. He loves you “just because he does.”
To look further back that God’s eternal love for his people is absurd – he loved us from the first of time, he loves us to the last. And it is from that eternal, unbreakable, constant, stedfast love that God’s choice of his people comes and every other blessing to us flows. As Paul said in Romans 8, “nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
So verse 1 emphasises that God covenant people are a chosen people.
Verse 2 then goes on to explain that they are a specially created people: “Thus says the LORD who made you, who formed you form the womb...”
Of course God is the creator of the whole world and the creator of every person in the world. But I don’t think that’s really what God’s saying here. He’s not referring here to our creation as human beings, but our creation as a distinct people of God, a holy nation, created to serve and worship God. How amazing is it to think that God made us, designed us to be the people are, formed us from when we were embryos in the womb to be the people we are and to fit into his covenant community to play a part that only we were designed to play! We really are formed by God to be people who will glorify and enjoy him forever.
The picture here is of God’s great skill in creating his people and his great care from the womb onwards to bring them to maturity to be his and to serve him. Now although we might think we’re all grown up, in God’s eyes we’re not. In this life, we’re rather like little toddlers to God – absolutely dependent on him for everything, learning all the time and getting plenty of things wrong, occasionally cute, but mostly causing a stink and a mess. He knows what we are. But he also knows that by the time we reach heaven, we will become the people he always intended us to be, and there we can really start living life to the full.
The fact that God has chosen and specially created his people with the utmost care leads to great words of comfort from God: “Fear not,” he says. “Don’t be afraid of me. You have nothing to fear,” God assures his people. After all you are my chosen ones, my special creation, my treasures.
In verses 3 and 4 God goes on to point out that not only is Israel chosen and formed by God, but his people are also specially cared for and blessed by God.
God’s really saying to them, “Look, despite what has gone wrong in the past, the future is bright for you, Israel. You’re my chosen ones, and I’m not going to go on cursing you, I’m going to bless you abundantly. I’m going to save you.”
The image of life giving water being poured out on dry ground would have been especially poignant to the people of Israel living in the dry, hot climate of the Middle East. Notice that again it is God’s unilateral action that is stressed: he will bless the people, he will pour out his spirit on them and on their descendants. He will pour refreshing, life giving water on the dry ground, which I’m sure should be taken both literally and metaphorically – that God will look after the material needs of his people, but also their spiritual needs. The symbol of water, of course, often has a spiritual symbolism to do with giving life, the Spirit of God and cleansing from sin.
In effect God is promising that his people will always survive and indeed thrive from the overflow of blessings he will pour out on them. His people “shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams.” They will be strong with deep roots drawing on God’s gracious blessings.
This verse is reminiscent of Psalm 1:
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked...his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”
And people like that, God’s faithful people who respond to all he offers them with trust and faithful, thankful obedience will thrive. Verse 5 describes what they are like. In one word it could be described as “loyal” or “faithful” or “true” or “committed.” God.
“This one will say, I am the LORD’s, another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, “THE LORD’S” and name himself by the name of Israel.”
These outward signs of loyalty and commitment symbolise a strong inner faith and trust in the LORD.
That’s the kind of people God wants and that’s the kind of people God is gradually turning us into if we are on the path of faith with him. So we will trust him more, rely on him more, love him more and obey him more as we grow and mature as Christians.
In verses 6 and 7, God again reveals so much about himself to us. First of all, he is the LORD, and we need to remember that when we see that name printed in our English Bibles, it’s really a translation of God’s special, personal, covenant name, Yahweh, or Jehovah as it used to be known. And in that name is summed up so much of God greatness and character, and most of all that stedfast, constant love for his covenant people. That’s the God we worship, the God who speaks to us in Scripture, the God who sent his Son to be our Saviour. Not some impersonal spirit or cosmic force, but a personal God with a personal name. And this God, Yahweh, is according to verse six, the true King of Israel and Israel’s Redeemer. He is the leader, the potentate, the sovereign king, the shepherd of his people. And he is the one who saves them by redemption, by paying the price to set them free. That price was nothing less than his own blood, because the Lord Jesus Christ is Yahweh, Israel’s King and Redeemer incarnate, made flesh for our salvation.
Then in verse 7, we see our God described as the LORD of hosts, which is a title meaning that he is the Lord of the heavenly hosts – the supreme commander of all the angelic armies and cosmic powers. The poet Milton described God commanding the angels in these memorable words:
“Thousands at his bidding speed, and post o’er land and ocean without rest. They also serve, who only stand and wait.”
The forces that can assemble at his command make all the armies and navies and air forces that ever existed in this world seem like a drop in a bucket. Limitless power, directly by limitless love – that describes in a nutshell the LORD of hosts that we worship and serve.
He is also the eternal one according to verse 7: “I am the first and the last...” Outside the realm of time, he is the ever living God. His very name proclaims it: Yahweh means “I AM THAT I AM” – he is always in the present tense – I AM – “forever I existed, forever I will existed, forever I will be me” He is always “I AM.”
And after all these wonderful and unique attributes of God, the Lord concludes by saying, and “besides me there is no god” as if to hammer the point home. Only God is god and only God deserves to be recognised as God. Whenever we get that wrong, we are guilty of idolatry – but we’ll be looking at idolatry in more detail next week so I won’t say more about that now.
Finally in verse 8, God repeats his words of comfort, “Fear not, nor be afraid!” And the reason he gives this time is because he is the sovereign God in control of everything that happens in this, his world and his universe. The fact that he knows the future and can foretell what is going to happen before it takes place is the proof he brings forward to show that he is in sovereign control: “Have I not told you from of old and declared it?” he asks. Of course the reason God can foretell the future is because God has already ordained what will happen throughout time.
“Is there a God besides me?” he asks.
That’s a question for each of us to ponder. For you, for me, “Is there a God for us besides this glorious God who reveals himself in the pages of Scripture?” Is this your God? Or does your god not fit into this picture. Is your god remote, or powerless? Or maybe you struggle to believe there even is a god? Or do you believe in God, but can’t accept he chooses who is saved and who isn’t? Or maybe can’t you accept that he really is in control of the universe and not us or blind fate?
Well there’s good news. This God that Isaiah presents to us, is a God of grace, slow to anger and quick to forgive, a God who will show mercy even to the chief of sinners, when they come to him in repentance and faith. This God is calling you to turn from your sins, to turn from your past and come to him and embrace the future he wants you to have – a future of blessing and salvation.
Our passage ends with the words: “There is no Rock; I know not any.” And very much implied in those words is a silent “except the LORD”. The kind of rock that is meant here is huge – like Ayer’s Rock in Australia, or Castle Rock in Edinburgh – a high place where enemies cannot reach and where those taking refuge can live in safety.
That’s the kind of Rock our God is. Not a pebble, nor a boulder, but a mountain. For he is the Rock, the Rock his people can trust and rely on, the one they can cling to when all else fails, the Rock that no enemy can conquer, a Rock that can never be broken or defeated, the one who never moves or changes, the one fixed landmark in an ever changing world, from which all other bearings are marked.
David wrote in Psalm 18:
“I love you, O Yahweh, my strength. Yahweh is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon Yahweh, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from all my enemies.”
May each of us know God like that in our lives, this night and for evermore. Amen.
When I started university, at the beginning of term, I received a list of books for each class that I would be expected to read by the end of the year. And like any new and enthusiastic young law student I headed off to the university bookshop with my list and picked up copies of all the books I would need to read. I could hardly carry them homeThe . When I got into the house I stacked the books up on a table and felt a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. The stack of books was about three feet high. I thought to myself “There’s no way you’re going to be able to read, never mind learn and remember all this by the end of the year.” The task seemed to big, so overwhelming that for a few days I couldn’t face reading them at all.
But then classes started and I had to start reading them. And bit by bit over the course of the year I did read them – or at least large parts of them – and I ended up remembering enough to pass my exams at the end of the year and progress through my course.
I learned that the key to tackling a big reading task is to do it a bit at a time and break it down into smaller, achievable targets.
In the Bible, a book as big and intimidating as the Prophecy of Isaiah can affect us the same way. Sixty-six chapters of prophecy sounds like tough going, doesn’t it? The prophet Isaiah ministered for about 50 years from the death of King Uzziah in 739 BC till the death of King Hezekiah in 686 BC and his book reflects the length and depth of his rich prophetic ministry to the people of Israel.
How will we get through it, never mind understand it. I think the same solution applies: we need to tackle it a little bit at a time.
In the three weeks we’ve got together we’re going to look at just one chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy, Isaiah chapter 44, which is a very typical Isaiah chapter many ways, in that it deals with some of the themes that Isaiah touches on time and again in his prophecy, including the sin of idolatry and the redemption that God would send to his people. But this week, in the first section from verses 1 to 8, we see some important things about the relationship between God and his people, so I’ve called tonight’s service “The God of Israel.”
It has some great things to teach us about God’s love and grace and mercy towards his people, how he cares for them, and it shows us how God expects his people to treat him in return.
Isaiah chapter 44 comes in the middle of the great fourth section of Isaiah’s prophecy which runs from Isaiah chapter 40 through to chapter 55. These chapters, though I believe written several hundred years before the events, address that dark period of Israel’s history when the people of God were taken in captivity in Babylon.
We need to remember that the captivity or exile came about as God’s punishment on his people’s sin. And in that exile, the people thought that their God had abandoned them. They thought that since they had broken their covenant with God, he was no longer their God and had left them to be exiled or destroyed at the whim of the heathen rulers of the world.
The message of Isaiah chapters 40 to 55 is very much a message of hope and comfort. They proclaim that God will not abandon his people. They assure Israel, broken-hearted in exile, that God’s covenant stands forever and will never be cast aside. His great covenant promise, “I will be your God and you will be my people” which is repeated dozens of times through both the Old and New Testaments, is a promise that God will never break. Even when his people disobey and desert him, the promise stands and God acts to purify his people, destroying the wicked and blessing and prospering the faithful remnant of true Israelites. Because of His covenant, He will deliver them from captivity, free them and save them.
In these prophecies, following generations of Jews and later Christians have seen a deeper significance in these prophecies than the delivery of the Jewish nation from exile in Babylon, for beyond those events, the prophecies point towards the coming of the Messiah and God’s deliverance and salvation of his people from sin, death and punishment in hell.
I should probably just say in passing that my way of interpreting the Old Testament is very much in the tradition of what’s known as “covenant theology.” In other words, I believe that God only has one covenant people throughout history, and in the Old Testament that was the Jewish nation of Israel, and in this New Testament age God’s covenant people is the Church. I believe that the blessings and privileged position of Israel under the Old Testament have been transferred to the new Israel, God's Church composed of Jews and Gentiles together, who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. In prophecy this means that I would tend to see prophecies directed towards Israel as now applying to the Church rather than to the Jewish nation, or “ethnic Israel”. It’s a big subject and I don’t want to get bogged down in the arguments surrounding this. Just be aware that when I talk about Israel, I’m not meaning that Israel as a nation is now the people of God nor am I saying the prophecies apply to the Jewish nation today; they apply to God’s covenant people, the Church. They apply to us!
Okay, I think that’s enough background, so let’s have a look at this passage in Isaiah chapter 44.
You’ll notice that in verse 1, the first words are “But now...” This immediately signals a change in emphasis from what has gone before. The verses at the end of Isaiah chapter 43 are in effect a terrible curse on the people of Israel for their persistent disobedience.
The chapter ends with the Lord saying to his people in Isaiah 43:27-28:
“Your first father sinned and your mediators transgressed against me. Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary, and deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling.”
This comes after God lists a catalogue of the people’s sins including their failure to worship God, neglecting the sacrifices they should have made to him, and living lives marked by iniquity rather than righteousness. For these sins, God curses his own people and gives them up to a period of shame and reviling.
It is in this light that chapter 44 begins with the words, “But now...” which signals that God is not finished with his people. Despite allowing a period of punishment to fall on them, this is not the end of his dealing with his covenant people.
These words, “But now...” come as a ray of hope into what is otherwise a very bleak picture for God’s people.
It’s just the same for us today. By nature we are in a very bleak place regarding our standing before God. By nature we are “children of wrath” as Ephesians 2:1 says. We fail to obey God as we should and instead we disobey God’s laws. Everything we do by nature is tainted by sin, for none of what we do by nature is motivated by love for God, which Christ taught of course is the greatest commandment. We completely fail by nature at keeping the greatest commandment. So this “But now...” at the beginning of our passage is just as apt for us today as it was for the people in Isaiah’s day. Paul summed up human nature like this in Romans 3:10-12:
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
And in Romans 3:23 he says:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
That’s where we stand before God unless we have God’s grace and salvation in Jesus Christ. That’s our “but now...”
Isaiah’s “but now...” is just as amazing – he’s making the same point in Old Testament language. Israel, you are a nation of sinners, he’s saying. You are in a hopeless situation before God if human merit or goodness is the standard of righteousness. Yet God reveals to his people in this passage the greatness of his grace and mercy that will overcome even the hopelessness of human sinfulness!
In effect the message of this passage could be summed up like this: Don’t despair Israel, despite everything, God has chosen you and God will save you. The focus shifts from the wickedness of the people to the greatness, the glory and the grace of God, and it’s as if the sun rises over the horizon and dispels the darkness in the brilliance of its light.
You might wonder, how could God in one verse say that he was going to punish Israel and destroy them for their sins and in the next breath say he is going to bless and save Israel. That’s a very important question, and until you understand the answer to it, a lot of the Old Testament will be quite confusing. The answer is that there are really two Israels. There is Israel the nation, Israel in outward covenant with God, which included every Jew, even those who were wicked in action and faithless in God. This is the Israel that God threatens with judgment. But there is also the true Israel – the spiritual Israel composed of those who have real faith in the God of Israel. This is the Israel God promises to bless and save.
Paul describes the difference between the two Israel’s in Romans 9:6 (NIV):
“It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.”
And in Romans 9:8:
“In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.”
Even in Old Testament times this Israel included a few Gentiles. In the New Testament this true Israel includes many many Gentiles as well as those Jews who accepted God’s Messiah.
Paul makes it very clear who are members of the true Israel in Galatians 3:26-29:
“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
In Ephesians 2:12-13, Paul says to Gentile Christians:
“Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”
And then in verse 19 he concludes: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.”
In other words, we Gentile believers are members of Israel, the true or spiritual Israel, as far as God is concerned. So what this passage says about the covenant relationship between God and Israel is absolutely true for us here today as well.
Let’s look at the different things these verses teach about God and his people.
Verse 1: “But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen!”
Notice that as so often in the Bible, the foundation, the bedrock that everything else flows from is God’s sovereign election of his people. Israel was God’s people because he chose them to be so. It is God’s sovereign choice that is the ultimate cause of our salvation. Further back than that we cannot go. God chose his people before they were born, before the world existed, and he chose them not for any reason in them, but only because of his own sovereign choice. This is the doctrine of predestination that is so unpopular among so many people today that you rarely hear it mentioned in the church, but it is the very foundation of our salvation.
All the other blessings that God goes on to list in this passage, and absolute promise that despite their disobedience and sin, God will work to save his people from their sins, stems in history from the unbreakable covenant that God formed with his people through Abraham. But behind even that, it stems from God’s sovereign decree to save his elect in Christ, which is an eternal decree made before the world was made. In eternity God decided for his own glory, to choose for himself a multitude for salvation, because he loves them.
Back in Deuteronomy chapter 7 God comes closest to explaining why he chose Israel to be his people, and the same thing could be said of why he chose those individuals who make up his new covenant people, the church of Christ. This is Deuteronomy 7:6-8 (with Moses addressing the people of Israel):
“For you are a people holy [or set apart] to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the people who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love upon you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all the peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and has redeemed you...”
You know there’s times when logical thought has to give way to theological thought! And this is one of them. In effect Moses is saying the reason the Lord saved you was because he loves you, and the reason the Lord set his love upon you is...because he loves you. He loves you “just because he does.”
To look further back that God’s eternal love for his people is absurd – he loved us from the first of time, he loves us to the last. And it is from that eternal, unbreakable, constant, stedfast love that God’s choice of his people comes and every other blessing to us flows. As Paul said in Romans 8, “nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
So verse 1 emphasises that God covenant people are a chosen people.
Verse 2 then goes on to explain that they are a specially created people: “Thus says the LORD who made you, who formed you form the womb...”
Of course God is the creator of the whole world and the creator of every person in the world. But I don’t think that’s really what God’s saying here. He’s not referring here to our creation as human beings, but our creation as a distinct people of God, a holy nation, created to serve and worship God. How amazing is it to think that God made us, designed us to be the people are, formed us from when we were embryos in the womb to be the people we are and to fit into his covenant community to play a part that only we were designed to play! We really are formed by God to be people who will glorify and enjoy him forever.
The picture here is of God’s great skill in creating his people and his great care from the womb onwards to bring them to maturity to be his and to serve him. Now although we might think we’re all grown up, in God’s eyes we’re not. In this life, we’re rather like little toddlers to God – absolutely dependent on him for everything, learning all the time and getting plenty of things wrong, occasionally cute, but mostly causing a stink and a mess. He knows what we are. But he also knows that by the time we reach heaven, we will become the people he always intended us to be, and there we can really start living life to the full.
The fact that God has chosen and specially created his people with the utmost care leads to great words of comfort from God: “Fear not,” he says. “Don’t be afraid of me. You have nothing to fear,” God assures his people. After all you are my chosen ones, my special creation, my treasures.
In verses 3 and 4 God goes on to point out that not only is Israel chosen and formed by God, but his people are also specially cared for and blessed by God.
God’s really saying to them, “Look, despite what has gone wrong in the past, the future is bright for you, Israel. You’re my chosen ones, and I’m not going to go on cursing you, I’m going to bless you abundantly. I’m going to save you.”
The image of life giving water being poured out on dry ground would have been especially poignant to the people of Israel living in the dry, hot climate of the Middle East. Notice that again it is God’s unilateral action that is stressed: he will bless the people, he will pour out his spirit on them and on their descendants. He will pour refreshing, life giving water on the dry ground, which I’m sure should be taken both literally and metaphorically – that God will look after the material needs of his people, but also their spiritual needs. The symbol of water, of course, often has a spiritual symbolism to do with giving life, the Spirit of God and cleansing from sin.
In effect God is promising that his people will always survive and indeed thrive from the overflow of blessings he will pour out on them. His people “shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams.” They will be strong with deep roots drawing on God’s gracious blessings.
This verse is reminiscent of Psalm 1:
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked...his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”
And people like that, God’s faithful people who respond to all he offers them with trust and faithful, thankful obedience will thrive. Verse 5 describes what they are like. In one word it could be described as “loyal” or “faithful” or “true” or “committed.” God.
“This one will say, I am the LORD’s, another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, “THE LORD’S” and name himself by the name of Israel.”
These outward signs of loyalty and commitment symbolise a strong inner faith and trust in the LORD.
That’s the kind of people God wants and that’s the kind of people God is gradually turning us into if we are on the path of faith with him. So we will trust him more, rely on him more, love him more and obey him more as we grow and mature as Christians.
In verses 6 and 7, God again reveals so much about himself to us. First of all, he is the LORD, and we need to remember that when we see that name printed in our English Bibles, it’s really a translation of God’s special, personal, covenant name, Yahweh, or Jehovah as it used to be known. And in that name is summed up so much of God greatness and character, and most of all that stedfast, constant love for his covenant people. That’s the God we worship, the God who speaks to us in Scripture, the God who sent his Son to be our Saviour. Not some impersonal spirit or cosmic force, but a personal God with a personal name. And this God, Yahweh, is according to verse six, the true King of Israel and Israel’s Redeemer. He is the leader, the potentate, the sovereign king, the shepherd of his people. And he is the one who saves them by redemption, by paying the price to set them free. That price was nothing less than his own blood, because the Lord Jesus Christ is Yahweh, Israel’s King and Redeemer incarnate, made flesh for our salvation.
Then in verse 7, we see our God described as the LORD of hosts, which is a title meaning that he is the Lord of the heavenly hosts – the supreme commander of all the angelic armies and cosmic powers. The poet Milton described God commanding the angels in these memorable words:
“Thousands at his bidding speed, and post o’er land and ocean without rest. They also serve, who only stand and wait.”
The forces that can assemble at his command make all the armies and navies and air forces that ever existed in this world seem like a drop in a bucket. Limitless power, directly by limitless love – that describes in a nutshell the LORD of hosts that we worship and serve.
He is also the eternal one according to verse 7: “I am the first and the last...” Outside the realm of time, he is the ever living God. His very name proclaims it: Yahweh means “I AM THAT I AM” – he is always in the present tense – I AM – “forever I existed, forever I will existed, forever I will be me” He is always “I AM.”
And after all these wonderful and unique attributes of God, the Lord concludes by saying, and “besides me there is no god” as if to hammer the point home. Only God is god and only God deserves to be recognised as God. Whenever we get that wrong, we are guilty of idolatry – but we’ll be looking at idolatry in more detail next week so I won’t say more about that now.
Finally in verse 8, God repeats his words of comfort, “Fear not, nor be afraid!” And the reason he gives this time is because he is the sovereign God in control of everything that happens in this, his world and his universe. The fact that he knows the future and can foretell what is going to happen before it takes place is the proof he brings forward to show that he is in sovereign control: “Have I not told you from of old and declared it?” he asks. Of course the reason God can foretell the future is because God has already ordained what will happen throughout time.
“Is there a God besides me?” he asks.
That’s a question for each of us to ponder. For you, for me, “Is there a God for us besides this glorious God who reveals himself in the pages of Scripture?” Is this your God? Or does your god not fit into this picture. Is your god remote, or powerless? Or maybe you struggle to believe there even is a god? Or do you believe in God, but can’t accept he chooses who is saved and who isn’t? Or maybe can’t you accept that he really is in control of the universe and not us or blind fate?
Well there’s good news. This God that Isaiah presents to us, is a God of grace, slow to anger and quick to forgive, a God who will show mercy even to the chief of sinners, when they come to him in repentance and faith. This God is calling you to turn from your sins, to turn from your past and come to him and embrace the future he wants you to have – a future of blessing and salvation.
Our passage ends with the words: “There is no Rock; I know not any.” And very much implied in those words is a silent “except the LORD”. The kind of rock that is meant here is huge – like Ayer’s Rock in Australia, or Castle Rock in Edinburgh – a high place where enemies cannot reach and where those taking refuge can live in safety.
That’s the kind of Rock our God is. Not a pebble, nor a boulder, but a mountain. For he is the Rock, the Rock his people can trust and rely on, the one they can cling to when all else fails, the Rock that no enemy can conquer, a Rock that can never be broken or defeated, the one who never moves or changes, the one fixed landmark in an ever changing world, from which all other bearings are marked.
David wrote in Psalm 18:
“I love you, O Yahweh, my strength. Yahweh is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon Yahweh, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from all my enemies.”
May each of us know God like that in our lives, this night and for evermore. Amen.
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