WEBVTT 00:00:00.119 --> 00:00:03.471 Let's take our Bible and go to the book of Isaiah, chapter 48. 00:00:03.471 --> 00:00:08.266 I'm excited for you and I'm excited for me. 00:00:08.266 --> 00:00:12.401 This Friday I'll start with myself and then I'll move to you first. 00:00:12.401 --> 00:00:15.489 This Friday I get to join my sons. 00:00:15.489 --> 00:00:22.492 They're coming to San Diego, or from London to San Diego, and I'll be meeting them there for a fishing trip. 00:00:22.492 --> 00:00:37.371 We're going to share together a tuna fishing journey, a joint fishing trip we haven't done together since 1999, the year my mother passed away and joined my father in Northern California to catch a lot of trout. 00:00:37.371 --> 00:00:40.109 So we're going to be in Southern California and doing some tuna fishing. 00:00:40.109 --> 00:00:46.593 But in my absence, dr Michael Grisanti and his wife Martha Ann will be with us. 00:00:46.593 --> 00:01:12.572 Dr Grisanti is a professor of Old Testament at the Master's Seminary and just wonderfully so he and his wife Martha Ann are on a seven-day cruise touring through New England area all the way up into Canada, and we'll be back here on Saturday and we'll be joining us on Sunday and Michael Grisanti is going to be preaching Isaiah 49 for us. 00:01:12.572 --> 00:01:17.429 So I'm excited for you even more than I'm excited for me. 00:01:17.429 --> 00:01:20.093 It's going to be glorious. 00:01:21.721 --> 00:01:24.048 But here we are in Isaiah, chapter 48. 00:01:24.048 --> 00:01:38.909 And as I think about this chapter. 00:01:38.909 --> 00:01:42.117 There's a tension here between God's good purposes and Israel's great rebellion. 00:01:42.117 --> 00:01:42.819 It's a stunning, stunning chapter. 00:01:42.819 --> 00:01:45.781 Let's go before the Lord in prayer and prepare our hearts to hear it. 00:01:45.781 --> 00:01:53.390 Father, we come in to this moment with expectant hearts, knowing that your word will speak truth. 00:01:53.390 --> 00:01:59.156 But we have to come not only with expectant hearts but willing ones. 00:01:59.156 --> 00:02:30.515 We don't want the truth simply to expose, but to transform, and we pray our Heavenly Father that we might be willing to hear not only the warm and understand that our ways are not best but yours are. 00:02:30.515 --> 00:02:34.050 And we ask this in Christ's name, amen. 00:02:36.260 --> 00:02:45.812 As I've been preparing to meet my sons, I've been reflecting back on a lot of our memories together, and one of the precious ones as a dad was teaching my boys how to ride their bicycles. 00:02:45.812 --> 00:02:56.989 After a season of them being on their training wheels, the day came when their training wheels had to come off, and that was a scary moment for me as a dad. 00:02:56.989 --> 00:02:58.432 What's this going to look like? 00:02:58.432 --> 00:03:01.989 And it actually went a lot easier than I thought it would. 00:03:01.989 --> 00:03:07.643 Matthew, with just a little bit of coaxing, within a couple hours was riding his bike. 00:03:07.643 --> 00:03:12.312 I was impressed, but not as impressed as I was with Ben. 00:03:12.312 --> 00:03:17.991 I took the training wheels off, he hopped onto the bike and off he took, like he'd been riding it for years. 00:03:17.991 --> 00:03:19.682 I was stunned. 00:03:19.682 --> 00:03:23.352 I'd never seen anybody do that before and I certainly didn't. 00:03:24.883 --> 00:03:31.461 Well, for this morning, as we go into Isaiah, chapter 48, I want you to picture in your mind a father teaching his daughter how to ride a bike. 00:03:31.461 --> 00:03:33.627 But it's a little bit different. 00:03:33.627 --> 00:03:43.687 This daughter is insisting that she knows already what she's doing and she pushes her dad's hands away. 00:03:43.687 --> 00:03:51.627 She refuses the training wheels and she does just like I did when I was learning to ride a bike she ran right into the bushes. 00:03:51.627 --> 00:03:57.889 And again and again, this daughter is resisting her father's guidance. 00:03:57.889 --> 00:04:01.282 And she's constantly running herself right into the bushes. 00:04:01.282 --> 00:04:08.022 And the reason is is because she trusts what she thinks is best rather than what her dad's trying to teach her. 00:04:08.022 --> 00:04:18.461 And so she just continues in this sort of stiff self-desire to go on her own way. 00:04:18.461 --> 00:04:22.247 And yet the father doesn't just walk away. 00:04:22.247 --> 00:04:24.288 He doesn't just say, father, doesn't just walk away. 00:04:24.288 --> 00:04:28.774 He doesn't just say well, go ahead and learn then and leave her to figure it out on her own. 00:04:28.774 --> 00:04:40.071 He stays with her, he steadies her, he speaks to her in comforting words, his love doesn't quit simply because she's stubborn and self-willed. 00:04:40.071 --> 00:04:43.100 Actually, his love leans in even harder. 00:04:43.100 --> 00:04:51.194 Actually, his love leans in even harder, and that's something of what we capture here, in far grander tone than Isaiah, chapter 48. 00:05:01.160 --> 00:05:03.444 This chapter is a chapter of a tug of war where human rebellion fights against divine resolve. 00:05:03.444 --> 00:05:18.725 The prophet here in chapter 48 moves back and forth between these two things contrasting what God has said, he has done and what he's going to do, and what Israel refuses to hear and refuses to do. 00:05:18.725 --> 00:05:28.021 God, in this chapter, has predicted, he's forewarned, he's acted, has predicted, he's forewarned, he's acted. 00:05:28.021 --> 00:05:31.588 And Israel, all the while, has turned a deaf ear, refused to listen, and continues on in their rebellious ways. 00:05:31.588 --> 00:05:48.000 And like a parent who is as stubborn as the child, but stubborn in love, he keeps calling out to Israel here in love. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:49.863 He keeps calling out to Israel here and throughout this chapter he uses these kind of words. 00:05:49.884 --> 00:05:55.014 Take a look at a few verses with me very quickly Verse 1, 6, 8, 12, 14, and 16. 00:05:55.014 --> 00:06:01.326 And note the words listen and hear this and you've heard it before. 00:06:01.326 --> 00:06:03.168 Verse 1, listen. 00:06:03.168 --> 00:06:06.434 Verse 6, you have heard it. 00:06:06.434 --> 00:06:14.632 Verse 8, you have never heard, you have never known your long time your ears have not been open. 00:06:14.632 --> 00:06:15.901 Obviously, to what? 00:06:15.901 --> 00:06:17.045 To the Lord speaking. 00:06:17.045 --> 00:06:20.230 Verse 12, listen to me, jacob. 00:06:20.230 --> 00:06:21.754 Verse 14,. 00:06:21.754 --> 00:06:24.384 All of you assemble and listen. 00:06:24.384 --> 00:06:28.093 Verse 16, approach me and listen. 00:06:28.093 --> 00:06:34.750 You don't tell somebody to listen that many times when they are listening. 00:06:34.750 --> 00:06:39.062 You tell someone to listen that many times when they're not listening. 00:06:39.062 --> 00:06:41.163 Every mom and dad. 00:06:41.163 --> 00:07:03.636 You know exactly what I'm saying, and with each of these calls, the Lord's voice gets weightier and weightier and weightier, and the tone gets heavier and the seriousness of it builds and it becomes painfully clear that these people are headed to judgment. 00:07:03.636 --> 00:07:11.754 And it's tragic, and it's tragic and it's shocking. 00:07:12.519 --> 00:07:20.447 But what's even more shocking in this chapter is that their stubbornness is meant with God's resolve not to abandon them. 00:07:20.447 --> 00:07:26.668 They meet a God whose grace is even more stubborn than their sin. 00:07:26.668 --> 00:07:30.624 And the Lord is not passive in this chapter. 00:07:30.624 --> 00:07:33.713 He isn't saying, well, fine, just go your own way. 00:07:33.713 --> 00:07:36.221 Then he's determined to redeem them. 00:07:36.221 --> 00:07:51.651 And let there be no mistake, this is not an indulgent leniency, this is not just some helpless great-grandfather in the sky who just says, well, I really can't do much, go on anyway. 00:07:51.651 --> 00:07:56.610 No, this is a God who is faithful, even to the unworthy. 00:07:56.610 --> 00:08:14.413 And so there's this tension in this chapter and we need to feel that tension, this tension between stubborn hearts and stubborn grace, and it sets the stage for what you're going to hear next week in chapter 49. 00:08:14.413 --> 00:08:18.951 Because in chapter 49, the tension gets resolved. 00:08:18.951 --> 00:08:23.324 The tension gets resolved between these stubborn hearts and stubborn grace. 00:08:23.324 --> 00:08:36.094 The tension declares that it's resolved in the servant who comes in the next chapter, the servant who obeys where Israel fails and who responds where Israel resists. 00:08:36.094 --> 00:08:40.649 But first we have to clarify the problem. 00:08:40.649 --> 00:08:43.168 And that's where we are in this chapter. 00:08:43.168 --> 00:08:54.421 In the midst of this clash of wills and this conflict of intentions, we'll find that there's a Redeemer that's needed to come to the rescue. 00:08:54.421 --> 00:09:00.673 So for the first five verses, let's look at our first point Israel's resistance to grace. 00:09:00.673 --> 00:09:02.143 Let's build that tension. 00:09:03.544 --> 00:09:20.664 Isaiah opens up with a piercing diagnosis of Israel's need, and he begins by talking to them that they bear God's name but they don't bear God's nature, and that they invoke God in prayer but not in truth. 00:09:20.664 --> 00:09:31.145 And that they wear this badge of identity but they do so without grace, thinking of it as a birthright and not as a calling. 00:09:31.145 --> 00:09:35.214 And so he diagnoses them in three ways. 00:09:35.214 --> 00:09:40.625 In verse 1, by prodding their privilege and showing it without purity. 00:09:40.625 --> 00:09:43.649 Notice how he does this in verse 1. 00:09:45.152 --> 00:09:55.153 Listen to this, jacob, those who are called by the name Israel and have descended from Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord. 00:09:55.153 --> 00:10:04.909 And the Lord here begins by reminding them that Israel is the sacred name by which they've been called. 00:10:04.909 --> 00:10:15.054 But notice what else he says they are House of Jacob. 00:10:15.054 --> 00:10:26.677 Now, jacob was a man that God chose and, by God's intervention, changed his name to Israel and God established promises to Jacob. 00:10:26.677 --> 00:10:34.383 God's intervention changed his name to Israel and God established promises to Jacob and that, through him, a people would be called. 00:10:34.383 --> 00:10:39.908 Now, jacob's name means heel grabber, or surplanter, or usurper. 00:10:39.908 --> 00:10:48.456 This was a man who, by deception, tried to grab a hold of things that were other people's and claimed them as his own. 00:10:48.456 --> 00:10:53.441 He was that self-oriented and selfish. 00:10:53.441 --> 00:11:03.148 And that man, jacob, god wrestled with and changed his name to Israel's Prince of God. 00:11:03.148 --> 00:11:04.649 Name to Israel, prince of God. 00:11:04.668 --> 00:11:25.899 Now notice the irony of this statement here that these people coming out of Judah have been called by the name Israel, prince of God, and yet they need to be told that they're really nothing more than the house of Jacob. 00:11:25.899 --> 00:11:29.121 When they really ought to be living like princes of God. 00:11:29.121 --> 00:11:33.970 They're living more like selfish surplanters, heel grabbers, all. 00:11:33.970 --> 00:11:38.542 And so he's telling them that they're living their life by way of presumption. 00:11:38.542 --> 00:11:43.148 They put on the clothes of Israel, but their heart is the heart of Jacob. 00:11:43.148 --> 00:11:49.061 They were chosen, but they're still not changed. 00:11:49.061 --> 00:11:54.841 They're being blessed, but they're not serving the Lord with honesty and humility and sincerity. 00:11:55.981 --> 00:12:16.902 And secondly, he exposes them in this diagnosis of their hypocrisy of ritual without relationship, who swear by the name of the Lord and declare the God of Israel, not in truth, not in righteousness, for they're named after the holy city and lean on the God of Israel. 00:12:16.902 --> 00:12:18.986 His name is the Lord of armies. 00:12:18.986 --> 00:12:25.669 Yes, they have the Lord's name in their lips, but they don't have the Lord's character in their hearts. 00:12:25.669 --> 00:12:45.014 And so he exposes their religion as nothing more than ceremonial and perfunctory, not transformational, calling on Yahweh and their rituals and expecting his presence, but not thinking about how their life might represent his name or what it really means to truly belong to him. 00:12:45.014 --> 00:12:55.131 They prided themselves on having this spiritual status, but God is a God of truth and God is a God of righteousness. 00:12:55.131 --> 00:12:58.187 These virtues were absent in their lives. 00:12:58.187 --> 00:13:19.936 Their public allegiance meant nothing if there wasn't a private life that walked in alignment with who God was, and he continues this diagnosis in verses 3 to 5 by bearing their inexcusability because they don't respond to his revelation with repentance. 00:13:21.660 --> 00:13:23.447 I declared the past events long ago. 00:13:23.447 --> 00:13:25.793 They came out of my mouth, I proclaimed them Suddenly. 00:13:25.793 --> 00:13:27.558 Long ago, they came out of my mouth, I proclaimed them Suddenly, I acted. 00:13:27.558 --> 00:13:27.980 They occurred. 00:13:27.980 --> 00:13:43.427 And because I know that you're stubborn and your neck is iron and your forehead bronze, therefore I declared to you long ago, I announced it to you before it occurred, so that you could not claim my idol, caused them my carved image and cast idol. 00:13:43.427 --> 00:13:44.350 Control them. 00:13:44.350 --> 00:13:52.562 Cause them my carved image and cast idol. 00:13:52.562 --> 00:13:53.384 Control them. 00:13:53.403 --> 00:13:56.269 You see, israel's rebellion was not born out of ignorance. 00:13:56.269 --> 00:13:58.394 Israel's rebellion was born out of defiance. 00:13:58.394 --> 00:14:01.721 God had spoken to them, god had warned them. 00:14:01.721 --> 00:14:04.346 God had acted mightily in their presence. 00:14:04.346 --> 00:14:06.412 He had done great things. 00:14:06.412 --> 00:14:08.624 He had moved history for their benefit. 00:14:08.624 --> 00:14:14.423 He had removed them from the hand of Pharaoh and out of the land of Egypt and its slavery. 00:14:14.423 --> 00:14:17.009 He brought them into a land of milk and honey. 00:14:17.009 --> 00:14:20.542 He had acted, he had done great things for them. 00:14:20.542 --> 00:14:23.466 And all of those things. 00:14:23.466 --> 00:14:42.267 The only thing that they could accredit behind that act is that God alone had done this, and yet they were stubborn and they denied these things, they refused him and they were betrayed by this rebellion. 00:14:43.589 --> 00:14:48.216 Now let's just pause for a moment, because there's a tension already developing here, isn't there? 00:14:48.216 --> 00:14:58.850 A tension that isn't simply for us to read in some historical framework, but a tension that might be lying within our own hearts, possibly? 00:14:58.850 --> 00:15:12.307 Because, just as they, it's quite easy for us to have the name of Christian without having the nature of a Spirit-transformed life. 00:15:12.307 --> 00:15:29.174 And just as Israel, in Isaiah, chapter 48, claims God's name and claims God's heritage without heartfelt devotion, it's easy for us too to wear the label Christian and have nothing of the Spirit lighting within us. 00:15:29.174 --> 00:15:44.917 Israel called themselves gods, but God said they had iron necks that were stiff and unrepentant and unyielding. 00:15:44.917 --> 00:15:46.922 That were stiff and unrepentant and unyielding. 00:15:47.062 --> 00:16:10.171 And so it's quite possible for us to recite creeds, for us to pray prayers, for us to do scripture reading in public, to display crosses on our clothing, to hang beautiful Bible verses on the walls of our house and yet continue to bow to the idols of comfort and power and convenience and control. 00:16:10.171 --> 00:16:20.965 You see, being a Christian isn't a badge to wear, it's the indication of a life transformed by grace. 00:16:20.965 --> 00:16:26.466 And when our devotion stops at just mere appearances. 00:16:26.466 --> 00:16:30.764 There are some several debilitating things that happen. 00:16:30.764 --> 00:16:45.178 First of all, we're denying the glory of God's grace, but we're also denying our deep need for renewal, because we're presenting a facade that everything's good, when we know it's not. 00:16:48.504 --> 00:17:04.169 And what happens, not only to ourselves and to God, is tragic, because when we walk around simply claiming the name of Christ and not living a life that is in comportment with Christ, Everybody knows. 00:17:04.169 --> 00:17:17.880 Now they may call every Christian a hypocrite, but they know a real hypocrite when they see one we forfeit the ability to represent Christ. 00:17:17.880 --> 00:17:21.625 Our joy, our intimacy with God is gone. 00:17:21.625 --> 00:17:31.868 We reduce our connection in His rich presence and privileges of His presence to simple slogans and empty phrases. 00:17:31.868 --> 00:17:38.988 We grieve the Spirit, who's there to comfort us, to guide us, to assure us. 00:17:38.988 --> 00:17:43.038 What do we do with that? 00:17:44.782 --> 00:17:58.226 Well, before we get any deeper into the tension, perhaps we need to stop and do a little self-examination and ask the Lord to expose our hearts, like David did when he prayed in Psalm 139, "'search me, o God. 00:17:58.226 --> 00:18:33.747 Search me and see if there's any grievous way within me and lead me to the way everlasting, to invite the Spirit into our hearts, to soften it so that we might be afraid of pride, that we might be resistant to the resistance of pride, might be resistance to the resistance of pride, that we might share our struggles with others who might help us and hold us up and pray for us, that we would truly align ourselves with that identity of Christ that we claim. 00:18:33.747 --> 00:19:05.020 But there's someone else I want to speak to here, not to us as a congregation, so much as members of New Hyde Park Baptist Church, but to anybody listening here who knows within your heart that you truly are not a believer, even though you might have said you are, that you realize that your connections to Christ have simply been those passed down to you by way of your family connections or your cultural inheritance, simply external. 00:19:05.020 --> 00:19:08.461 I want you to hear something. 00:19:08.461 --> 00:19:15.647 God is not calling you to polish your spiritual resume right. 00:19:15.647 --> 00:19:19.384 He's not asking you to present yourself here. 00:19:19.384 --> 00:19:26.404 He's not trying to urge you on to some moral upgrade at all. 00:19:26.404 --> 00:19:33.503 What he's doing here is he's telling us that he's come to save sinners. 00:19:33.503 --> 00:19:55.939 And if your heart has never been truly broken over your sin, if you're never been gripped with grace to the place where your heart is just speechless with awe, if the name of Jesus that you've used has never been the one that you've truly trusted in with life and eternity. 00:19:57.721 --> 00:19:59.663 Today is not a day to try harder. 00:19:59.663 --> 00:20:18.307 Today is a day to simply come humbly before the Lord and lay yourself before him, lay down your pride, lay down your pretense, lay down the patterns of this empty title of Christian that you might have called yourself, and receive the mercy of a God who delivers. 00:20:18.307 --> 00:20:38.107 The scriptures tell us that Christ came to bear the wrath that we deserve, that he came to give us life that we could not make on our own, to give us forgiveness for our sins and an inheritance in the kingdom of light to share with Christ himself. 00:20:38.107 --> 00:20:46.489 And he wants to receive you, not as some refurbished Christian, but as a new creation. 00:20:46.489 --> 00:20:50.577 Now let's move on. 00:20:50.577 --> 00:20:59.039 Let's feel this tension even deeper because it starts off with the indictment of Israel's resistance to grace. 00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:15.739 But the tension gets stronger when we move over to the other side of the rope in this spiritual tug-of-war, to God's side, and we see God's relentless pursuit, despite their resistance, and we see this in verses 6 to 11. 00:21:15.739 --> 00:21:24.111 If Israel's rebellion is persistent, god's grace is even more persistent. 00:21:28.738 --> 00:21:30.263 Let me just read this whole section. 00:21:30.263 --> 00:21:32.057 You've heard it. 00:21:32.057 --> 00:21:35.125 Observe it all, will you not acknowledge it? 00:21:35.125 --> 00:21:39.806 From now on, I will announce new things to you, hidden things that you've not known. 00:21:39.806 --> 00:21:54.541 They've been created now and not long ago, and you've not heard of them before today, so that you could not claim well, I already knew that You've never heard, you have never known. 00:21:54.541 --> 00:22:01.682 For a long time, your ears have not been open, for I knew that you were very treacherous and were known as a rebel from birth. 00:22:01.682 --> 00:22:11.962 I will delay my anger for the sake of my name and I will restrain myself for your benefit and for my praise, so that you will not be destroyed. 00:22:11.962 --> 00:22:14.982 Look, I have refined you, but not as silver. 00:22:14.982 --> 00:22:16.875 I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. 00:22:16.875 --> 00:22:23.189 I will act for my own sake, indeed my own, for how can I be defiled? 00:22:23.189 --> 00:22:27.125 I will not give my glory to another. 00:22:29.496 --> 00:23:07.796 Here is a statement that grace is not going to quit, that God's not waiting for their cooperation for him to act, that he's going to move forward even while their hearts are still stuck in reverse, and he promises to act Verses 6 and 7, he says that he's going to reveal new things, that this grace is going to be surprising beyond what they can even imagine at this moment, not some recycled mercy, not some predictable kindness, but fresh, undeserved grace. 00:23:07.796 --> 00:23:18.157 The Apostle Paul, just to give you a hint, said eye is not seen, nor is ear heard, nor is it entered into the hearts of men. 00:23:18.157 --> 00:23:33.575 The things that God has ordained for those that love him, of men, the things that God has ordained for those that love him, ah, there's something grand and glorious. 00:23:33.575 --> 00:23:37.551 The people's hearts have grown hard and cold. 00:23:37.551 --> 00:23:42.580 God is going to act, not because of their obedience, but in spite of their disobedience. 00:23:42.580 --> 00:23:44.185 And here's the miracle in that. 00:23:49.174 --> 00:23:49.997 Just think about that for a moment. 00:23:49.997 --> 00:23:56.608 Would you act this way to somebody who had been constantly resistant to your reaches of care and love and help and assistance and truth? 00:23:56.608 --> 00:24:02.722 I don't think any of us would. 00:24:02.722 --> 00:24:21.905 But God here is telling us that he is that different than us, that his purposes are not going to be thwarted by human stubbornness and that he doesn't need Israel's cooperation to accomplish what he intends to do. 00:24:21.905 --> 00:24:36.717 He's going to move forward, even if it means dragging these people through the furnace to do it, and it's going to be the kind of grace that they've never even heard about before, that they couldn't even imagine. 00:24:36.717 --> 00:24:43.605 That was so stunning that even the powers of darkness. 00:24:43.605 --> 00:24:48.230 Had they known about this, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 00:24:48.230 --> 00:25:00.624 Some grace super bounding beyond human comprehension Just whispers of that right at the moment. 00:25:00.624 --> 00:25:04.344 But I think you understand where that's headed. 00:25:04.344 --> 00:25:13.363 But notice, in verses 8 and 9, it's not only this statement of surprising grace to come, but also restraining his wrath. 00:25:13.363 --> 00:25:16.503 I restrained myself for your benefit and for my praise. 00:25:17.694 --> 00:25:21.520 God knew their hearts all along, from the very beginning. 00:25:21.520 --> 00:25:35.048 They weren't innocent people, even when he first owned them, and he did so not because they were holy, but because he wanted to make his name great in the midst of them. 00:25:35.048 --> 00:25:39.828 And then, in verses 10 and 11, he speaks about refining them. 00:25:39.828 --> 00:25:41.955 Verses 10 and 11, he speaks about refining them. 00:25:41.955 --> 00:25:56.243 That this exile that he's pointing them forward toward was not going to be abandonment but actually refinement, that he wasn't going to send them to Babylon simply to discard them but to purify them. 00:25:56.243 --> 00:26:05.789 And that his discipline was intentional and purposeful and it wasn't putative in the sense that it would be final. 00:26:05.789 --> 00:26:10.432 It was meant to be redemptive for the people, because the promises would continue on. 00:26:19.843 --> 00:26:23.634 And what we see here is this tension between rebellion and a God who refuses to let go. 00:26:23.634 --> 00:26:30.020 They were relentless in their rebellion, but God is more relentless in his grace, and this gives us hope, doesn't it? 00:26:30.020 --> 00:26:57.087 It gives us hope that God's glory is the anchor of our hope, that he acts not because we're worthy, but because he desires for the glory of his grace to be known to us, and that he deals with us not in some indulgent, hands-off manner, but rather with an intervention of love and mercy to continue to press his promises deep into our soul. 00:26:57.087 --> 00:27:13.445 And even his discipline, which we might take immediately as abandonment, is not there simply because God has walked away from us, but because he intends to use those things to transform us. 00:27:13.445 --> 00:27:17.863 The writer of Hebrews said that there's no discipline that comes. 00:27:17.863 --> 00:27:27.259 That is joyous but grievous, but it has an intent, because when it's finished it'll work, the peaceable fruit of righteousness within us. 00:27:27.259 --> 00:27:40.980 Even God's heavy hands have good purposes behind them, and so this leads us to look to this Lord and to let go of our end of the rope and to get on. 00:27:40.980 --> 00:27:43.321 Paul, in Romans 2 said this. 00:27:43.321 --> 00:28:12.611 He said, he said do you despise the riches of his kindness, his restraint, his patience, not recognizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? 00:28:12.611 --> 00:28:30.335 Wow, here is a God who means to break our rebellion with love and not greater strength. 00:28:30.335 --> 00:28:44.050 And so we can trust him and anchor our hope in his name, and we can know that he comes into our life not because of our merit, but because he has a mission of grace to perform within us. 00:28:44.050 --> 00:28:52.637 And so this leads us to the third point, where we've looked at one side of the rope Israel and rebellion God's side of the rope and the tug of grace. 00:28:52.637 --> 00:29:05.828 In the next section, those two are combined together in verses 12 to 19, where God reinforces his gracious declarations and reinforces Israel's defiance. 00:29:10.096 --> 00:29:15.785 God here speaks, and he brings this tension to a peak in this section. 00:29:15.785 --> 00:29:19.009 He begins with himself. 00:29:19.009 --> 00:29:22.641 Let's start in verse 12. 00:29:22.641 --> 00:29:24.416 Listen to me. 00:29:24.416 --> 00:29:28.700 Jacob in Israel, the one called by me, I am he. 00:29:28.700 --> 00:29:32.040 I am the first, I am also the last. 00:29:32.040 --> 00:29:37.707 My own hand founded the earth and my right hand spread out the heavens. 00:29:37.707 --> 00:29:40.119 When I summoned them, they stood up together. 00:29:40.119 --> 00:29:43.304 All of you assemble and listen. 00:29:43.304 --> 00:29:48.084 Who among the idols has declared these things? 00:29:48.084 --> 00:29:51.417 The Lord loves him. 00:29:51.417 --> 00:29:54.104 He will accomplish his will against Babylon. 00:29:54.104 --> 00:29:56.576 His arm will be against the Chaldeans. 00:29:56.576 --> 00:30:04.895 I have spoken, I have spoken, yes, I have called him, I have brought him, and he will succeed in his mission. 00:30:04.895 --> 00:30:08.021 Approach me and listen to this. 00:30:08.021 --> 00:30:11.528 From the beginning, I have not spoken in secret. 00:30:11.528 --> 00:30:14.780 From the time anything existed, I was there. 00:30:14.780 --> 00:30:17.728 And now the Lord God has sent me in his spirit. 00:30:17.728 --> 00:30:28.910 And this is what the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, says I am the Lord, your God, who teaches you for your benefit, who leads you in the way you should go. 00:30:32.776 --> 00:30:34.864 Boy, this is quite a reinforcement, isn't it? 00:30:34.864 --> 00:30:41.307 This is a God who identifies himself, in verses 12 and 13, as the eternal voice. 00:30:41.307 --> 00:30:46.266 He is the first and the last, the alpha and the omega. 00:30:46.266 --> 00:30:51.743 He's the one who's called creation into being and he's the one that holds history in his hands. 00:30:51.743 --> 00:30:57.765 The mountains move at his word and the stars stand at attention when he speaks. 00:30:57.765 --> 00:31:05.045 And he is not one voice among many, he is the voice of the heavens and the earth. 00:31:05.045 --> 00:31:08.159 Verse 14,. 00:31:08.159 --> 00:31:10.119 He's sovereign, he's the Lord of history. 00:31:11.516 --> 00:31:13.943 No idols had predicted Babylon's fall. 00:31:13.943 --> 00:31:17.566 No false gods had ever foreseen Cyrus. 00:31:17.566 --> 00:31:20.021 But Yahweh did. 00:31:20.021 --> 00:31:24.221 And he didn't just foresee it, he ordained it to happen. 00:31:24.221 --> 00:31:36.366 You see, cyrus was not just some political accident, it was a divine appointment and history was going to bend to God's will. 00:31:36.366 --> 00:31:47.079 In verse 16, he talks about the spirit speaking, this divine disclosure that God speaks through His Word, his Spirit and His Son. 00:31:47.079 --> 00:31:53.464 Ultimately, and the question is not, does God care and does God speak? 00:31:53.464 --> 00:31:55.701 The question is, do we have ears to hear? 00:31:55.701 --> 00:31:59.318 Are we listening to what he has to say? 00:31:59.318 --> 00:32:06.269 Now, that's one side of this tension that gets strengthened in this section. 00:32:06.269 --> 00:32:12.728 The other side, the tension strengthens still verses 17 to 19. 00:32:16.875 --> 00:32:30.140 Verse 18, if you had only paid attention to my commands, then your peace would have been like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. 00:32:30.140 --> 00:32:36.980 Your descendants would have been as countless as the sand and the offspring of your body like its grave. 00:32:36.980 --> 00:32:42.182 Their name would not be cut off or eliminated from my presence. 00:32:42.182 --> 00:33:02.430 You know those horrible moments when your parents told you what you just missed out on because you didn't listen to them. 00:33:02.430 --> 00:33:05.212 Israel wouldn't listen. 00:33:05.212 --> 00:33:10.380 Their selective obedience had brought them into spiritual drought. 00:33:10.380 --> 00:33:13.484 The river of peace had dried up. 00:33:13.484 --> 00:33:19.113 The waves of righteous never broke upon their shores. 00:33:19.133 --> 00:33:21.156 And Lord here, doesn't speak with rage. 00:33:21.156 --> 00:33:23.221 Catch the tone. 00:33:23.221 --> 00:33:33.549 It's not rage speaking, it's lament. 00:33:33.549 --> 00:33:40.849 My sons never believed me when I said that giving them discipline was harder on me than it was on them. 00:33:40.849 --> 00:33:48.505 And what made it hard on me was. 00:33:48.505 --> 00:34:07.862 I wanted to show them love, but in the moment they needed correction, in the moment they needed rebuke, in the moment they needed that side of me, when, all along, I really just wanted to embrace and care and shower them. 00:34:07.862 --> 00:34:12.800 And here the Lord is speaking in that sort of lamenting tone. 00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:21.478 If only you had paid attention to my commands it's that tone. 00:34:21.478 --> 00:34:32.717 Then your peace would have been like a river and your righteousness it would have been like a river and your righteousness it would have been like waves on the sea. 00:34:32.717 --> 00:34:36.039 Your descendants would have been as countless as the stars. 00:34:36.039 --> 00:34:46.739 He mourns over what could have been. 00:34:50.492 --> 00:34:53.159 The Lord doesn't speak here in riddles or shadows, does he? 00:34:53.159 --> 00:34:55.735 He's plain. 00:34:55.735 --> 00:35:01.282 He speaks prophetically, publicly, declaratively. 00:35:01.282 --> 00:35:12.170 I am he, the first and the last, the one who calls creation into being, holds history in his hands, the mountains moving at his word and the stars standing at his attention. 00:35:12.170 --> 00:35:24.240 And yet the tragedy of this tension is that the people are still stubborn and the tension is not the Lord in his message. 00:35:24.240 --> 00:35:27.219 The tension is because of their hardness of heart. 00:35:27.219 --> 00:35:49.516 He speaks to them with unmistakable authority and he tells them that they forfeited peace and righteousness and blessing, and he laments all that could have been for them, laments, all that could have been for them. 00:35:49.516 --> 00:35:51.221 Oh, jerusalem, jerusalem. 00:35:51.221 --> 00:35:59.762 Jesus said how I would have gathered you as a hen does her chicks, but you would not. 00:36:08.492 --> 00:36:10.800 The Lord is going to do something in the light of this. 00:36:10.800 --> 00:36:25.764 He's going to do something in the light not only of Israel's failures but our own, not only in the face of Israel's obstinance and stiff-necked heart, but in light of our own. 00:36:25.764 --> 00:36:40.230 And it's going to be this, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. 00:36:40.230 --> 00:36:47.610 What a remarkable, remarkable thing. 00:36:47.610 --> 00:37:01.826 And here, right at the very edge of the end of this chapter, isaiah builds us up to this point of tension by looking first at Israel's rebellious and stiff-necked heart and God's continued remarkable grace. 00:37:01.826 --> 00:37:10.304 And this sort of look at both sides and the tug that's going on here as the tension reaches its apex. 00:37:10.304 --> 00:37:17.027 And he leaves us with a question that's more than just a rhetorical question. 00:37:17.027 --> 00:37:18.650 It's a personal question. 00:37:18.650 --> 00:37:21.755 Israel, are you listening? 00:37:21.755 --> 00:37:26.141 Are you listening? 00:37:26.141 --> 00:37:30.065 Am I listening to this? 00:37:30.065 --> 00:37:38.358 Let's take a look at the last section. 00:37:40.351 --> 00:37:46.300 Israel's resistance in the first five verses, god's relentless pursuit in the next section. 00:37:46.300 --> 00:37:58.804 God's reinforcement of his gracious declarations and Israel's defiance is culminated in the last three verses of God's redemption declared. 00:37:58.804 --> 00:38:01.873 Now, remember this is prophecy. 00:38:01.873 --> 00:38:06.721 And here we see the Exodus reimagined. 00:38:06.721 --> 00:38:16.960 Listen to it, because Isaiah closes this chapter with a call of movement, a call to leave Babylon. 00:38:20.130 --> 00:38:22.760 Leave Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans. 00:38:22.760 --> 00:38:25.557 Declare with a shout of joy, proclaim this. 00:38:25.557 --> 00:38:30.954 Let it go out to the ends of the earth and announce the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob. 00:38:30.954 --> 00:38:32.896 What do we have here? 00:38:32.896 --> 00:38:52.992 The Lord calling the people to leave babylon. 00:38:52.992 --> 00:38:55.135 But it's more than just a geographical command. 00:38:55.135 --> 00:38:56.478 It's a spiritual summit. 00:38:56.478 --> 00:39:09.724 It's a call not just to abandon the captivity physically and to leave the location, but to to abandon Babylon and your allegiance to that. 00:39:12.351 --> 00:39:20.192 Because Babylon represents more than just the city and the people it represents. 00:39:20.192 --> 00:39:23.922 And this represents more than just the exile from that. 00:39:23.922 --> 00:39:34.253 Babylon represents the compromise and the confusion and the consequences of covenantal desertion by Israel. 00:39:34.253 --> 00:39:42.916 And God's invitation is not simply for them to—a change of address needs to be registered with the post office. 00:39:42.916 --> 00:39:47.690 This is about a realignment with God and His promises. 00:39:47.690 --> 00:39:50.476 This is about a realignment with God and his promises. 00:39:50.476 --> 00:39:54.931 He doesn't want them simply to relocate, he wants them to return to him. 00:39:54.931 --> 00:39:59.221 And he does so with this language of Exodus here. 00:39:59.221 --> 00:40:10.762 Right, you know the Exodus, where they're in bondage and slavery in Egypt, and Moses and Aaron come down and say let my people go. 00:40:10.762 --> 00:40:21.862 And after the plagues, moses leads the people across the dry land and into, eventually, the land of promise, the Exodus. 00:40:21.862 --> 00:40:33.481 And this is the language he uses here when he talks about the freedom of the people from the captivity of Babylon to return back to the place of Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple. 00:40:33.481 --> 00:40:53.679 But it's more than that, even, and so Isaiah evokes the memory of that first exodus, that time when water flowed from a rock, when God led his people with a pillar of cloud and fire, when God didn't just promise deliverance but he performed it. 00:40:53.679 --> 00:40:58.481 And he calls them into the summons to leave Babylon. 00:40:58.481 --> 00:41:06.480 And this exodus is going to be different Because it's reimagined and it's even prophetic. 00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:13.117 It's reimagined in the sense that he wants them not just to leave a place but to enter into the promises. 00:41:13.117 --> 00:41:25.679 And it's prophetic in the sense that it's going to reach forward as you go into chapter 49 to talk about a greater redeemer who's going to bring people on a greater journey and bring them into a greater inheritance. 00:41:25.679 --> 00:41:30.300 And the New Testament picks up this theme. 00:41:34.170 --> 00:41:45.682 The writers of the New Testament use Exodus phraseology and Exodus motifs to describe Jesus to believers today. 00:41:45.682 --> 00:41:48.677 And it's no accident. 00:41:48.677 --> 00:41:55.856 The believers are doing that or the writers are doing that intentionally, very intentionally. 00:41:55.856 --> 00:41:57.920 Just listen to a sampling of it. 00:41:57.920 --> 00:42:10.106 You can read these later on your own Jesus, in Hebrews 3, 1-6, is called the greater Moses, a greater Moses who leads his people out of the bondage of sin. 00:42:10.106 --> 00:42:17.103 In 1 Corinthians, chapter 10 and verse 4, jesus is called the rock from which the living water flows. 00:42:17.103 --> 00:42:33.210 Jesus himself said in John chapter 14 that he is the way, the truth and the life, the truth and the life. 00:42:33.210 --> 00:42:39.324 When you go to John, chapter 14 and verse 6, you'll read that In 1 Peter, chapter 2 and verse 9, it says that Jesus called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. 00:42:39.324 --> 00:42:39.931 What is that? 00:42:39.931 --> 00:42:43.617 That's transference, just like the Exodus was. 00:42:43.617 --> 00:42:53.382 And in Hebrews, chapter 12 and verse 28, jesus brings us not just into a new land, but into a kingdom that cannot be shaken. 00:42:53.382 --> 00:43:03.505 And those are just a few of many, many more verses that carry the motifs of Exodus and the phraseology of that time. 00:43:05.411 --> 00:43:15.260 But just like the Exodus, isaiah ends with a warning there's no peace for the wicked, says the Lord. 00:43:15.260 --> 00:43:30.882 Because with all of this Exodus imagery and with all of this Exodus language, with all of the freedom and deliverance promised there is, just like the Exodus, faithlessness rebuked. 00:43:30.882 --> 00:43:56.039 You see, that Exodus journey took 40 long years, the wilderness and did not enter into the land of the promise. 00:43:56.039 --> 00:44:38.989 And as tender as he's portraying this about coming out of Babylon, going on a new Exodus journey back to the land of promise, he says if you refuse this, know this, there's nothing left for the wicked, there's no peace for them, no shalom, no ultimate understanding of the fullness of God's many rich blessings. 00:44:38.989 --> 00:44:45.110 Because the Exodus wilderness journey is not neutral. 00:44:45.110 --> 00:44:54.929 It reveals the God who is to be trusted, but it also exposes the resistant heart. 00:44:54.929 --> 00:45:03.099 And just like those in the first exodus who perished in unbelief, those who reject God's voice in this new exodus will also perish in unbelief. 00:45:04.681 --> 00:45:20.403 And when you read the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, you realize that only a small sliver of people returned from Babylon back to the land and they simply, most of them simply relocated their address and did not realign their hearts. 00:45:20.403 --> 00:45:46.456 And this is why the Lord Jesus, when he comes, speaks to a wicked and adulterous generation, yes, with a changed address, but with the same old hearts that Isaiah has been exposing in this chapter, and this is why the writer of Hebrews picks up this phrase and says how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? 00:45:46.456 --> 00:46:04.777 Because the greatest exodus is the exodus out of the domain of darkness and sin and rebellion, and if you do not believe on the one who will lead you into the kingdom of light and hope and forgiveness, how shall you escape? 00:46:04.777 --> 00:46:14.675 You can't deliver yourself, and if you refuse the deliverer, there is no peace, says my God to the wicked. 00:46:14.675 --> 00:46:27.300 And so Isaiah ends here, not with a threat, but with the truth, because redemption is here. 00:46:27.300 --> 00:46:35.362 We must leave Babylon and believe the Lord on the journey. 00:46:35.362 --> 00:46:39.297 Now let me bring all this to a close. 00:46:41.610 --> 00:46:44.661 Isaiah 48 is not just a chapter of confrontation. 00:46:44.661 --> 00:46:49.297 It's really, in its essence, a chapter of compassion. 00:46:49.297 --> 00:46:54.916 From the beginning of it to the end of it, god is speaking. 00:46:54.916 --> 00:46:57.440 He's talking about acting sovereignly. 00:46:57.440 --> 00:47:01.333 He is displaying his heart by lamenting deeply. 00:47:01.333 --> 00:47:05.480 He's not indifferent to the rebellion. 00:47:05.480 --> 00:47:11.755 He's actually very grieved by it and his voice is thundering with authority. 00:47:11.755 --> 00:47:14.222 But his heart is aching with longing for them. 00:47:14.222 --> 00:47:20.862 And we don't see displayed here the cold distance of deity, but rather the tender persistence of a father. 00:47:20.862 --> 00:47:34.943 And here, in this whole chapter, he's been reinforcing his declarations, he's been recalling his past faithfulness, he's been reissuing his invitations and he's calling the people out of Babylon. 00:47:34.943 --> 00:47:47.376 Thankfully, this isn't where the story ends, because Isaiah, chapter 48, doesn't end in despair. 00:47:48.139 --> 00:48:01.773 Like I said at the beginning, this is setting us up in anticipation for something that's coming, because the final verse that ends with there's no peace, says my God for the wicked, opens up this way. 00:48:01.773 --> 00:48:06.641 Coast and islands, listen to me, distant peoples pay attention. 00:48:06.641 --> 00:48:09.085 The Lord called me before I was born. 00:48:09.085 --> 00:48:13.135 And it goes on, verse 3, you are my servant. 00:48:13.135 --> 00:48:29.317 A servant is coming, and not just a prophet, but the very embodiment of the complete faithfulness of God, and he is going to be the answer to this tension. 00:48:29.317 --> 00:48:36.702 He is going to be the resolution of the rebellion, he is going to be the fulfillment of the Father's compassionate love. 00:48:36.702 --> 00:48:51.907 And he's going to come not with wrath, but with the purposes and the means to bring redemption and reconciliation between sinful people and a loving God, between sinful people and a loving God. 00:48:51.907 --> 00:48:55.027 He's going to restore Israel and be a light to the nations and bring salvation to the ends of the earth. 00:48:55.452 --> 00:48:56.275 Who is this servant? 00:48:56.275 --> 00:49:01.699 You got it Absolutely. 00:49:01.699 --> 00:49:05.838 This servant is Christ himself. 00:49:05.838 --> 00:49:33.030 Jesus the Savior, the one sent by the Father, the same Father who's mourning here over Israel's disobedience, sent to bear our sins, sent to bring us peace, not just to tell us go, walk off away from Babylon, but to lead us as the one who is the way, the truth and the life himself. 00:49:33.030 --> 00:49:41.295 Because in Christ, if we leave Babylon, we embark on a journey of promise and reconciliation and hope. 00:49:41.315 --> 00:49:50.820 The question is will you receive the invitation or will you still stand rebellious in the light of it? 00:49:50.820 --> 00:49:58.862 Will you refuse it with ardent, strengthened resolve? 00:49:58.862 --> 00:50:05.179 Or will you simply walk away from it saying I'm not worthy of it, as if you ever were anyway? 00:50:05.179 --> 00:50:19.219 Will you receive it Because God is a God of grace, god is a God of love, god is a God of truth and righteousness. 00:50:19.219 --> 00:50:30.177 Also, there's no peace, says my God, to the wicked, but there's wondrous embrace to the broken and contrite heart. 00:50:30.177 --> 00:50:35.173 The Father's heart is still faithful. 00:50:35.173 --> 00:50:39.983 Today is the day of salvation, now is the accepted time. 00:50:42.170 --> 00:50:47.338 Pray that we all respond with soft hearts and not stiff necks. 00:50:47.338 --> 00:51:00.581 Let's pray, father, father, father. 00:51:00.581 --> 00:51:26.393 How can we respond to this, this revelation of who you are, this revelation of who you are, how you persisted in your pleadings and your arguments and your warnings and your invitations to a people so long and their disobedience to you. 00:51:26.393 --> 00:51:49.181 How can we respond to promises beyond belief, to encouragements outside of our abilities to comprehend, but to simply say yes, yes, lord, yes, lord yes. 00:51:49.181 --> 00:52:04.856 Put down any rebellion, put down any stiffness, put down any selfishness, put down any self-will within us and deliver us. 00:52:04.856 --> 00:52:15.822 Cause peace to reign, cause the waves of righteousness to roll over us again and again. 00:52:15.822 --> 00:52:31.280 Cause the fullness of your blessing to reach not only into our lives but beyond it, so that our children and our children's children might praise your name, that all the earth might hear and rejoice together. 00:52:31.280 --> 00:52:36.481 There's a God in heaven who saves undeserving people. 00:52:36.481 --> 00:52:45.016 Empower our witness, fill us with joy, strengthen our hearts. 00:52:45.016 --> 00:52:49.315 We ask you in Christ's name, amen.