Doug McMasters: Take your Bible and turn over to Isaiah chapter 54.
Doug McMasters: It's my desired end by the end of this morning that Isaiah chapter 54 will be one of your most treasured chapters in the Bible.
Doug McMasters: In 1792, a young village shoe repairman by the name of William Carey stood up before a small gathering of Baptist pastors in Nottingham, England.
Doug McMasters: He was not a man of pedigree, he was not a man of prominence, he was a pastor of a small church, but he was a man gripped by the promise of God.
Doug McMasters: And his text as he spoke to that small gathering of twelve to thirty men was Isaiah 54, verses 2 and 3.
Doug McMasters: Enlarge the sight of your tent, for you will spread out to the right and to the left.
Doug McMasters: And so he preached from this passage that we're going to be looking at this morning.
Doug McMasters: And there's a refrain that he said several times in that sermon.
Doug McMasters: Expect great things from God.
Doug McMasters: Attempt great things for God.
Doug McMasters: Well, Kerry's sermon, as passionate as it was, was not very well received by many in that room.
Doug McMasters: In fact, one older pastor told him to sit down and to quit speaking the way he had.
Doug McMasters: This morning sparked the formation of the particular Baptist Society for the propagation of the gospel among the heathen.
Doug McMasters: That's a mouthful.
Doug McMasters: What it meant was it was the beginning of the modern missionary movement.
Doug McMasters: It began with a man who took Isaiah chapter 54 at face value.
Doug McMasters: As a man who believed that there would be fruit coming from the suffering servants, obedience to the plan of God.
Doug McMasters: And that God was going to fulfill the promises of worldwide grace.
Doug McMasters: And so this morning we come to Isaiah chapter 54.
Doug McMasters: We come to a passage that is not disconnected from what we just finished in the previous four weeks by looking at Isaiah chapter 53.
Doug McMasters: This is the necessary sequel to chapter 53.
Doug McMasters: This is the first word after the finish of the fourth servant song.
Doug McMasters: We've stood in awe as we've watched and listened and read about this suffering substitute, this servant who was pierced for our transgressions and who was crushed because of our iniquities.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah chapter 53 ends with some statements of hope that this servant, obedient, would find prosperity even after death.
Doug McMasters: And so Isaiah chapter 54 begins with rejoicing.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at the first word.
Doug McMasters: Rejoice.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because redemption has been accomplished.
Doug McMasters: And so in Isaiah chapter 54, we have the echo of Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: And John Calvin put it this way.
Doug McMasters: After having spoken of the death of Christ, the prophet passes now with good reason to the Lord's people that we may feel more deeply in ourselves what is the value and the efficacy of his death.
Doug McMasters: And so this morning we're going to walk through the whole of chapter 54, and we're going to see it in three different headings.
Doug McMasters: As simply as I could put it, in verses 1 to 3, we're going to see gladness.
Doug McMasters: In chapters 2 and 3, we're going to see growth, and they're overlapping, yes.
Doug McMasters: And then in verses 4 to 17, we're going to see glory.
Doug McMasters: So gladness, growth, and glory.
Doug McMasters: And in those three words, we're going to learn to sing.
Doug McMasters: We're going to be challenged to stretch, and we're going to have confidence to stand.
Doug McMasters: It's a glorious chapter.
Doug McMasters: Well, let's begin where Isaiah begins with the song.
Doug McMasters: And so here, first of all, we have gladness, where we learn to sing.
Doug McMasters: And this chapter opens with a command that is so unexpected, it startles us.
Doug McMasters: Rejoice, childless one who did not give birth.
Doug McMasters: One of the last things that we heard was the sound of the silence of the land.
Doug McMasters: Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before our shears.
Doug McMasters: But now that silence is broken with song.
Doug McMasters: Suddenly we hear singing.
Doug McMasters: Rejoice, childless one, who did not give birth.
Doug McMasters: Burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor.
Doug McMasters: For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of the married one, says the Lord.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah 54 begins not only with a startling command, but also with a paradox.
Doug McMasters: A barren woman is told to sing.
Doug McMasters: Now we need to understand what barreness is.
Doug McMasters: And as a pastor, I've sat with ladies and also with families that have had to go through the difficulty of not being able to have children.
Doug McMasters: It's a painful experience.
Doug McMasters: But in this context, it's more than just a personal and family sorrow.
Doug McMasters: There's something more here.
Doug McMasters: Beyond that is a statement to the whole people of Israel.
Doug McMasters: And this is something that strikes against them in a covenantal worldview that they had.
Doug McMasters: Because children were seen as divine blessing, as covenant continuity, as well as social security and laughter and joy and hope that we have in our children.
Doug McMasters: You see, for them particularly was to live under the shadow of shame, which was not just social shame, but some indication, perhaps, a divine judgment.
Doug McMasters: That's how they would look at it.
Doug McMasters: Because Israel's identity was wrapped up in a word given to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12.
Doug McMasters: I will make you a great nation.
Doug McMasters: And if you couldn't perpetuate that as a family, you felt isolated from the promises of your people.
Doug McMasters: And so here in Isaiah chapter 54, Zion, the people of Judah are described as this barren woman.
Doug McMasters: Where are they?
Doug McMasters: They're in exile.
Doug McMasters: They're in Babylon.
Doug McMasters: They are a people who have been defeated, disgraced, and desolate because of their willful defiance against God.
Doug McMasters: They have no children, they have no labor pains, and they have no husband.
Doug McMasters: But they're called to rejoice.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because the servant has come.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: The judgment, the judgment that the sinful people had brought upon themselves through their covenant apostasy has now been borne by another.
Doug McMasters: A life that would be produced in fruitfulness.
Doug McMasters: You see, the Lord is offering for them a hope of a glorious future, a joy of a people who could be restored, not by their efforts, but by his grace.
Doug McMasters: This was a God who had already chosen in their history barren people, Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel and Hannah, to showcase his power to bring life out of nothing.
Doug McMasters: And now he's calling them to say, believe on the servant who's come, so that you might see life out of nothing.
Doug McMasters: That's something to rejoice over.
Doug McMasters: The fact that God would even speak so tenderly, so kindly, so welcomely, so hopefully to them, what a wonderful mercy that is.
Doug McMasters: But there's more.
Doug McMasters: Because this barren woman in exile, desolate and disgraced and forsaken, is not only called to be received, but is told she's going to have children.
Doug McMasters: Take a look back at verse 10 of Isaiah 53 for a second.
Doug McMasters: The Lord was pleased to crush him severely, the servant.
Doug McMasters: When you made him a guilt offering, he will see his seed.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 12.
Doug McMasters: I will give him the many as a portion, and he will receive the mighty as a spoil.
Doug McMasters: The servant of Isaiah chapter 53 is told that because of his obedience to suffering and death and fulfilling the plan of God, that from him was going to be a number of people.
Doug McMasters: That a family would begin because of what he did.
Doug McMasters: And the place where that family would be begin is among that barren woman who is desolate and disgraced.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah 54 is showing us that these people would be born, not out of their will, not out of their power, not out of their works, not out of their effort, but out of the servants.
Doug McMasters: And this is why in John chapter 1, John said that Jesus came to his own, in his own, received him not, but to as many as received him, to them he gave the authority to become the children of God who were born, not of natural descent or the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God.
Doug McMasters: That servant is bringing forth children.
Doug McMasters: And so the promises of the servant's reward in chapter 53 are now being told that they will be actualized in chapter 54.
Doug McMasters: By grace, this once barren woman is now going to be the mother of a new people, those who trust in the servant.
Doug McMasters: I'd like you to turn over with me to Galatians chapter 4 for just a moment.
Doug McMasters: Galatians chapter 4.
Doug McMasters: Apostle Paul is setting up a statement to the churches at Galatia not to trust in the law for their righteousness, but to rely upon faith in Christ.
Doug McMasters: And he sets up this contrast between Sarah and Hagar.
Doug McMasters: That Ishmael was born of the servant woman, and Isaac born of the woman of promise.
Doug McMasters: And in verse 25, he begins.
Doug McMasters: Now Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: For she is in slavery with her children.
Doug McMasters: But the Jerusalem above is free.
Doug McMasters: And she is our mother.
Doug McMasters: So what we have here is that the heavenly Jerusalem, the place where the Lord has inaugurated the new covenant, the place where he has brought his blood that satisfies the justice of God and covers the sins of all who believe.
Doug McMasters: Where he is now sat at the right hand of the Majesty on high, that place of the fulfillment of the redemption of humanity, the new Jerusalem, the heavenly one, is now our mother.
Doug McMasters: And that mother is giving birth to children.
Doug McMasters: And look what Paul does in the next verse.
Doug McMasters: For it is written rejoice, childless woman, unable to give birth.
Doug McMasters: Burst into song and shout, you who are not in labor.
Doug McMasters: Because take a look at the next verse that he says in verse 28.
Doug McMasters: Now, you too, Gentiles, you too, brothers and sisters in Christ, like Isaac, are children of promise.
Doug McMasters: Paul saw Isaiah 54 coming to fulfillment through the new covenant, through the unfolding of believers into the new creation of a new humanity, Jew and Gentile, reconciled and reborn through the gospel.
Doug McMasters: Paul writes these words.
Doug McMasters: And this is the reason why William Carey chose this passage to preach, to inquire, just to put out there for discussion the possibility, maybe among these twelve to thirty men, could we not have a conversation that perhaps God is going to do something with these words in our day.
Doug McMasters: And why he gave that unforgettable exhortation, expect great things from God.
Doug McMasters: Attempt great things for God.
Doug McMasters: This passage, let's go back to Isaiah, is why this barren woman should sing, why she should rejoice, because what is promised her is something far beyond her ability to even comprehend.
Doug McMasters: This woman under Babylon's rule left without a home or country, without a temple to worship in, shackled to the most powerful nation of the day.
Doug McMasters: This woman is going to live and flourish and marry and bear an innumerable number of people.
Doug McMasters: We sing because that suffering servant triumphs.
Doug McMasters: We just sang about it, didn't we?
Doug McMasters: Our God reigns.
Doug McMasters: And we pulled in Isaiah 53 into that song, didn't we?
Doug McMasters: Our God reigns.
Doug McMasters: And so we sang and we're called to sing.
Doug McMasters: And our doxology is this blessed be the God and our father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.
Doug McMasters: For he's chosen us before the foundation of the world.
Doug McMasters: What are we singing about?
Doug McMasters: This glorious truth that God has made children, forgiven people, justified because of the servant's death, who are now returning and renewed and rejoicing people.
Doug McMasters: The gospel does this.
Doug McMasters: Listen to the sounds of singing that the gospel brings as the Apostle Paul lays out in melodic tune the message of the gospel in his missionary efforts.
Doug McMasters: Romans 15.
Doug McMasters: Christ has become a servant to the circumcised on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises to the fathers, and so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written.
Doug McMasters: And this is Romans 15, verse 8 and 9.
Doug McMasters: Therefore, I will praise you among the Gentiles.
Doug McMasters: I will sing praise to your name.
Doug McMasters: And again it says, Rejoice, you Gentiles, with my people.
Doug McMasters: And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles.
Doug McMasters: Let all the peoples praise him.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 54 is a song.
Doug McMasters: A song of happy people, a song of the redeemed.
Doug McMasters: It is the logic of grace.
Doug McMasters: This is God's grace to undeserving people.
Doug McMasters: You are forgiven.
Doug McMasters: Sing.
Doug McMasters: Gladness is the fruit of salvation, and joy is the sound of redemption.
Doug McMasters: I love what Calvin said.
Doug McMasters: The church is a place where the gospel is preached.
Doug McMasters: The gospel is good news.
Doug McMasters: Good news makes people happy.
Doug McMasters: Happy people sing.
Doug McMasters: It's the logic of grace.
Doug McMasters: If we've truly grasped that Christ has covered every one of our sins, past, present, and future, if our life is eternally secure within the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, if hell is no longer our forwarding address, then we sing.
Doug McMasters: We stand to inherit every blessing in the heavenlies, in Christ Jesus.
Doug McMasters: So joy should erupt out of our hearts.
Doug McMasters: We are the children of the desolate one.
Doug McMasters: We're the fruit of the servant's suffering.
Doug McMasters: We are the gathered sons and daughters of grace.
Doug McMasters: And so let joy shape your week and let it reframe your hardships.
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: Let it reframe that.
Doug McMasters: Like this barren woman, if God could speak words of life and flourishing to her, he can certainly speak words of life and flourishing to you.
Doug McMasters: He can.
Doug McMasters: And there's many of us who could attest to the fact that he does.
Doug McMasters: And if you're here this morning, you don't know Christ as your Savior.
Doug McMasters: And if you're watching this sometime down the road on YouTube, and you're pondering whether or not God can bring life out of the tragedy of your soul.
Doug McMasters: He can cause you to sing.
Doug McMasters: Now let's move on.
Doug McMasters: We see here, first of all, this wondrous, wondrous statement of gladness, where we're told and taught how to sing.
Doug McMasters: But in verses two and three, we're also called to grow.
Doug McMasters: To grow, to stretch, to stretch.
Doug McMasters: Look at verse 2.
Doug McMasters: Enlarge the sight of your tent.
Doug McMasters: Let your tent curtains be stretched out.
Doug McMasters: Do not hold back.
Doug McMasters: Lengthen your ropes and drive your pegs deep, for you will spread to the right and to the left, and your descendants will dispossess nations and inhabit the desolate cities.
Doug McMasters: And because she's going to be the mother of a multitude, she needs to think about becoming the mother of a multitude.
Doug McMasters: And that means making accommodation for that multitude to come in.
Doug McMasters: That means enlarging her tent.
Doug McMasters: That means stretching out those curtains.
Doug McMasters: That means pulling and lengthening those stakes and ropes and driving them deep in an enlarged way.
Doug McMasters: This is not cautious expansion.
Doug McMasters: This is exuberant confidence.
Doug McMasters: Do not hold back, God says to her.
Doug McMasters: Because she's about to face a population explosion in her family.
Doug McMasters: The imagery draws from the wilderness when the people truly were dwelling in tents.
Doug McMasters: But now the dwelling place of God among the people is going to expand.
Doug McMasters: This tent is not shrinking, it's stretching.
Doug McMasters: The family is not dying, it's multiplying.
Doug McMasters: The cities that were once desolate are now going to be repopulated.
Doug McMasters: It's going to happen.
Doug McMasters: This is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise.
Doug McMasters: When Abraham was pulled out into the sky to see the sky, and he was told without New York City light pollution to look up.
Doug McMasters: And he said, Can you count the stars?
Doug McMasters: That's how many descendants you're going to have, Abraham.
Doug McMasters: This is the outworking of the servant's mission.
Doug McMasters: When we read in the second servant's song in Isaiah 49 and verse 6, listen to what the Lord says to the servant.
Doug McMasters: It is not enough.
Doug McMasters: It is not enough for you to be my servant, raising up the tribes of Israel.
Doug McMasters: I will give you to be a light for the nations.
Doug McMasters: And that prophetic anticipation reaches into the glorious places of Revelation 21.
Doug McMasters: The nations walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.
Doug McMasters: The tent is expanded to include all of the children of the servant.
Doug McMasters: And you, brothers and sisters, are children of the promise.
Doug McMasters: It's all of us.
Doug McMasters: This growth is the reward of the servant's obedience.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53, 11.
Doug McMasters: By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many.
Doug McMasters: Many.
Doug McMasters: And here are the many being gathered.
Doug McMasters: This is the missionary vision.
Doug McMasters: This is the tent being stretched because the servant had succeeded.
Doug McMasters: This is the expansion of God's people.
Doug McMasters: And it's not just a hopeful wish, it's a guaranteed outcome of the servant's obedience.
Doug McMasters: And I want to give you just a couple examples.
Doug McMasters: In the middle of deep persecution and trouble, John Calvin wrote the first edition of his Institutes to the King of France in the hope that it would modify that strong and desperate opposition against the people of God.
Doug McMasters: Why did Calvin write those words in that time?
Doug McMasters: Because the Academy of Geneva was sending out missionaries into France.
Doug McMasters: And in the documents found in the registrar of the Company of Pastors, there were 88 missionaries sent to France between 1555 and 1562.
Doug McMasters: But there's more.
Doug McMasters: Historian Robert Kingdon found evidence of 151 missionaries in 1856 alone being sent into France.
Doug McMasters: And by 1562, it's estimated that there were 2,160 Reformed congregations in France.
Doug McMasters: And Calvin wrote to Bullinger about what was happening in Normandy, and he said that there were gatherings of three to four thousand people who were gathering to hear the preached word.
Doug McMasters: And there were so many of them, they had to do it outside because there was no building in that area that could hold them.
Doug McMasters: Spiritual fruit, despite the suffering, because many of those missionaries were killed when they went into France.
Doug McMasters: And that's why Calvin wrote his Institutes and appealed to the king.
Doug McMasters: Don't kill these men.
Doug McMasters: They're bringing truth to the country.
Doug McMasters: And the missionary movement from Geneva helped establish a vibrant reformed presence in France and laid the groundwork for the Huguenot tradition.
Doug McMasters: And we have a Huguenot in our midst right now.
Doug McMasters: Hani.
Doug McMasters: We love you, Honey.
Doug McMasters: All the way to our day still.
Doug McMasters: Carrie.
Doug McMasters: After preaching this sermon to 12 to 30 men and one old guy saying, sit down and shut up.
Doug McMasters: A few other guys got around him and said, Let's have some more conversations about this.
Doug McMasters: And they started a small little band of that rather lone word or phrase for starting a missionary society.
Doug McMasters: And Kerry and his colleague in 1793, John Thomas, arrived in India.
Doug McMasters: Translating the Bible into over 30 languages, founding a college in 1818.
Doug McMasters: And from Kerry's model and the growth of the gospel in India came the London Missionary Society in 1795, and the Church Missionary Society in 1799, and the American Board for the Commission of Foreign Missions in 1810.
Doug McMasters: And out of that one sermon preached in a small Baptist chapel in 1792 came the work of the gospel throughout Asia and Africa.
Doug McMasters: From one sermon on Isaiah 54.
Doug McMasters: Expect great things for God.
Doug McMasters: Attempt great things for God.
Doug McMasters: And so from Kerry's small society in Nottingham, North came an explosion of mission agencies all across Europe and America and Asia and Africa.
Doug McMasters: And today believers live in what was once considered a barren mission field.
Doug McMasters: So what must we do?
Doug McMasters: What must we do today?
Doug McMasters: Was this just a promise for 1792?
Doug McMasters: Or is this a promise for 2025 as well?
Doug McMasters: Well, We must live with gospel expectancy.
Doug McMasters: That's what we must do.
Doug McMasters: We must not be a bunker hunkering down.
Doug McMasters: Oh, it's getting so much worse out here.
Doug McMasters: We need to progress.
Doug McMasters: I read this morning.
Doug McMasters: And uh I'm I'm not quite altogether fully righteous in my anger here.
Doug McMasters: There's a there's a bit of dug anger mingled in here, but I hope you can appreciate it.
Doug McMasters: Where a guy was moaning and groaning from Texas, mind you, about the election of the New York City mayor.
Doug McMasters: Now, I'm not going to speak about whatever good or ill he may bring to the city of New York.
Doug McMasters: That is not my position.
Doug McMasters: But this guy was a Christian.
Doug McMasters: And he he once lived in New York City.
Doug McMasters: And he said this morning, I'm so glad I left New York City.
Doug McMasters: I got out of there just in time.
Doug McMasters: Serious?
Doug McMasters: C.T.
Doug McMasters: Studd said, There are people who would love to dwell under the sound of chapel bells.
Doug McMasters: But I want to start a mission, a yard from the gates of hell.
Doug McMasters: We're New Hyde Park.
Doug McMasters: We are a stones throw from the gates of hell, if you want to use that as a metaphor.
Doug McMasters: Why wouldn't we set a mission up?
Doug McMasters: A mission based upon the work of the servant, a mission based upon the expansive promises that God is going to bring a multitude to Himself.
Doug McMasters: And so we live in view of this gospel promise.
Doug McMasters: Yes, it's going to be difficult.
Doug McMasters: And yes, it might just be like those French missionaries who lost their lives for the sake of the gospel.
Doug McMasters: But the work of that gospel fruit bears its witness even in our midst today.
Doug McMasters: So let us make room in our hearts, in our lives, for others to come in, to share the gospel with our family and our friends and our neighbors.
Doug McMasters: By us collectively continuing to pray for the nations.
Doug McMasters: For us to be discipling leaders for the next generation, by giving into our Timothy fund and inviting people into internships and equipping them for gospel ministry and taking our best and sending them out.
Doug McMasters: Let us continue.
Doug McMasters: This passage calls for bold faith.
Doug McMasters: Do not hold back.
Doug McMasters: And it's not because we're strong, it's because the Savior is risen.
Doug McMasters: That's why.
Doug McMasters: The servant has secured a harvest, and he means to bless even the childless ones with the fullness of that blessing.
Doug McMasters: So let's not shrink back.
Doug McMasters: Let us stretch our ropes.
Doug McMasters: Get in the tent.
Doug McMasters: Just get in the tent.
Doug McMasters: Why would you be outside the stretch of the mercy of God?
Doug McMasters: Outside the wondrous promise of forgiveness and eternal hope and life everlasting.
Doug McMasters: Really is hanging on to your sin better than that?
Doug McMasters: Is it really?
Doug McMasters: Does it offer you more fullness?
Doug McMasters: Does it offer you anything after your last breath?
Doug McMasters: Can it grant in your greed and your lasciviousness any profitable thing?
Doug McMasters: This tent is a glorious tent, and it can reach into your life.
Doug McMasters: This brings us one last point.
Doug McMasters: We have been told to be glad.
Doug McMasters: We have been exhorted to grow.
Doug McMasters: We can sing and we can stretch.
Doug McMasters: But now we're told about something of glory here.
Doug McMasters: A confidence in which we can stand.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 4.
Doug McMasters: Do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame.
Doug McMasters: Don't be humiliated, for you will not be disgraced, for you will forget the shame of your youth, and you will no longer remember the disgrace of your widowhood.
Doug McMasters: What tender words these are.
Doug McMasters: Deep reassurance that this community of exiled, disobedient people in Babylon are going to be secure.
Doug McMasters: That they're going to be loved.
Doug McMasters: That they're going to be protected.
Doug McMasters: And they're going to be enveloped in such a way that they won't even remember the shame before.
Doug McMasters: Look at verse 5.
Doug McMasters: Indeed, your husband is your maker.
Doug McMasters: His name is the Lord of armies, and the Holy One of Israel is your redeemer.
Doug McMasters: He is called the God of the whole earth.
Doug McMasters: For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and wounded in spirit.
Doug McMasters: A wife of one's youth when she's rejected, says your God.
Doug McMasters: I will take you back with abundant compassion.
Doug McMasters: This is the reversal of that covenantal judgment that they faced by way of their exile.
Doug McMasters: This is Judah once disgraced, once cast off as a forsaken wife, once storm-tossed and not comforted, as it says in a verse just below this.
Doug McMasters: But now, because the servant has borne her iniquity, the Lord is reclaiming her.
Doug McMasters: The Lord has called you.
Doug McMasters: I hid my face from you for a moment, but I'll have compassion on you with everlasting love.
Doug McMasters: And so he now speaks to these people that didn't want to hear him.
Doug McMasters: Words of restoration and beauty and permanence.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 10.
Doug McMasters: Though the mountains move and the hills shake, my love will not be removed from you, and my covenant of peace will not be shaken, says your compassionate Lord.
Doug McMasters: He envelops all of these words in beautiful terms.
Doug McMasters: He's not just a guy who's on a Coast Guard boat that throws you a rope.
Doug McMasters: He's a husband.
Doug McMasters: He's not merely a protector, he's a redeemer.
Doug McMasters: He's not merely the God of Israel, he is their compassionate Lord.
Doug McMasters: And then Isaiah shifts into a stunning image of glory and restoration in verses 11 and 12.
Doug McMasters: Poor Jerusalem, storm-tossed and not comforted.
Doug McMasters: I will set your stones in black mortar and lay your foundations in lapis lazuli.
Doug McMasters: I will make your fortifications out of rubies and your gates out of sparkling stones and all your walls out of precious stones.
Doug McMasters: And then all your children will be taught by the Lord, then their prosperity will be great, and you will be established on a foundation of righteousness.
Doug McMasters: You'll be far from oppression, you'll certainly not be afraid.
Doug McMasters: You will not be far from terror.
Doug McMasters: On it goes.
Doug McMasters: Into a glorious future, in which all of the most precious of items on earth are simply the foundations upon which they'll walk.
Doug McMasters: These people, cut off from the land of the living, disgraced, are now adorned and walking in a city of jewels.
Doug McMasters: And their foundation is one of righteousness.
Doug McMasters: This is not just a gloriously prophetic vision, it is a statement of reality.
Doug McMasters: This is about a bride adorned by her husband.
Doug McMasters: And it's no wonder why the Apostle John in Revelation chapter 21 picks this up.
Doug McMasters: And he says, Come with me.
Doug McMasters: I'll show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
Doug McMasters: And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven.
Doug McMasters: Remember the heavenly Jerusalem, Galatians 4?
Doug McMasters: Our mother?
Doug McMasters: You remember that?
Doug McMasters: The fulfillment of the new covenant?
Doug McMasters: Coming down out of heaven from God, arrayed with God's glory.
Doug McMasters: Her radiance, like a precious jewel, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.
Doug McMasters: A city had massive high walls and twelve gates, twelve angels at the gates.
Doug McMasters: Now listen, the names of the twelve tribes of Israel's sons were inscribed on those gates.
Doug McMasters: There is out of that barren woman.
Doug McMasters: People out of their midst that are bejeweled just like Isaiah promised.
Doug McMasters: But there's more.
Doug McMasters: Yes, there were three gates on the east, and three on the north, and three on the south, and three on the west.
Doug McMasters: And the city wall had twelve foundations, and the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb were on the foundations.
Doug McMasters: Because the children of the childless one include Jew and Gentile.
Doug McMasters: That glorious heavenly Jerusalem, bejeweled when it was once forgotten, is now gloriously filled and populated with Jew and Gentile believers in the Lamb who was slain.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah saw this centuries before.
Doug McMasters: He saw the fruit of the servant's work, a people, Jew and Gentile together, beautified by grace and secured by Christ bringing them into the promises of the new covenant.
Doug McMasters: Now let's take a look at verse 13.
Doug McMasters: Then all your children will be taught by the Lord.
Doug McMasters: Their prosperity will be great.
Doug McMasters: Who are these people inhabiting this bejeweled city?
Doug McMasters: The ones who are taught by the Lord.
Doug McMasters: John chapter 6.
Doug McMasters: Strange place, right?
Doug McMasters: Let's go over there for just a second.
Doug McMasters: John chapter 6.
Doug McMasters: People are watching Jesus perform miracles, feed people, and they're thinking, we've got our king, we've got the next ruler, we're going to take down these dirty, rotten Gentiles.
Doug McMasters: We are going to be unshackled from Rome.
Doug McMasters: We are going to conquer.
Doug McMasters: We are going to have glory, glory, glory.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus walks away from them.
Doug McMasters: Because he's building a different kind of people.
Doug McMasters: Not people who are filled with indignation and selfish ambition, but a people humbled and a people broader than the people of that day would even understand.
Doug McMasters: And as he's speaking to them in John chapter 6, and he says in verse 43, stop grumbling among yourselves.
Doug McMasters: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
Doug McMasters: It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 54, verse 13.
Doug McMasters: Now, who are these people?
Doug McMasters: Everyone who has listened to and learned from the Father, everyone who understood Isaiah 54 comes to me.
Doug McMasters: Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God.
Doug McMasters: He has seen the Father.
Doug McMasters: Truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.
Doug McMasters: I am the bread of life.
Doug McMasters: Here he's speaking.
Doug McMasters: And if they listen to the Father, like they claim to be able to do, they would embrace Christ even when he goes to the cross.
Doug McMasters: Because then they would see him come out of the grave.
Doug McMasters: Now keep your finger in John 6 just for a second because we're going to come back here.
Doug McMasters: Let's go back to Isaiah 54.
Doug McMasters: Because we need to move past verse 13 into something amazing.
Doug McMasters: You will be established on a foundation of righteousness.
Doug McMasters: You will be far from oppression.
Doug McMasters: You will certainly not be afraid.
Doug McMasters: You will be far from terror.
Doug McMasters: It will certainly not come near you.
Doug McMasters: If anyone attacks you, it's not from me.
Doug McMasters: Whoever attacks you will fall before you.
Doug McMasters: Look, I've created the craftsman who blow on the charcoal fire and produces a weapon suitable for its task.
Doug McMasters: I've created the destroyer to cause havoc, but no weapon formed against you will succeed.
Doug McMasters: And you will refruit any accusation raised against you in court.
Doug McMasters: This is the heritage of the Lord's servants, and their vindication is from me.
Doug McMasters: This is the Lord's declaration.
Doug McMasters: There is a confidence to stand because there's a vindication in the courtroom of God that no accuser can bring and rightly hold on to these who are the children of the barren one.
Doug McMasters: Now let's go back to John 6 for a second.
Doug McMasters: Now let's go to verse 37.
Doug McMasters: You've heard these words, many of you?
Doug McMasters: Everyone the Father gives me.
Doug McMasters: Huh?
Doug McMasters: Who gives these people to the Father?
Doug McMasters: Or who the Father gives to the Son, these people?
Doug McMasters: Sounds a bit like Isaiah 53, doesn't it?
Doug McMasters: Sounds a bit like Isaiah 54, doesn't it?
Doug McMasters: Well, it should.
Doug McMasters: Because Jesus, as we just saw in a few verses later, has Isaiah 54 very firmly in his mind as he's saying all these things.
Doug McMasters: What?
Doug McMasters: He is saying this.
Doug McMasters: He is saying that those who come, everyone the Father gives me, will come to me.
Doug McMasters: And the one who comes to me I will never cast out.
Doug McMasters: For I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53, the servant.
Doug McMasters: This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose none of those he's given me, but should raise them up on the last day.
Doug McMasters: For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
Doug McMasters: Where is the security of your eternal hope found?
Doug McMasters: In Christ alone.
Doug McMasters: Right.
Doug McMasters: Remember these words.
Doug McMasters: After his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied.
Doug McMasters: By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will carry their iniquities.
Doug McMasters: Therefore, I will give him the many as a portion, and he will receive the mighty as spoil, because he willingly submitted himself to death.
Doug McMasters: This is the Lord granting to his son, the servant, the offspring of his obedience to the Father's will.
Doug McMasters: And that's who we are.
Doug McMasters: And this is why he said that they are in his hands and in his father's hands, and they will never ever be released.
Doug McMasters: Where do you have your hope?
Doug McMasters: In this, in this alone, that the servant has secured our future, and our future is one so glorious that jewels strewn across the city are simply there to bejewel the pieces of furniture and the artifacts of foundations and walls.
Doug McMasters: And the streets, well, they're gold.
Doug McMasters: But the greatest thing of all is in the center of that city, is a place where there's need of neither night nor day, because the Lamb is in the midst, and flowing from him is a never-ending stream of health and life and benefit to all who believe.
Doug McMasters: There'll be no want, no need, no darkness, no sorrow, no sadness, no tears.
Doug McMasters: Just everlasting joy.
Doug McMasters: This is it.
Doug McMasters: We can do this.
Doug McMasters: Let this steady your heart.
Doug McMasters: And let this let this embolden your witness.
Doug McMasters: He has brought us from disgrace into glory.
Doug McMasters: He's brought us into a place where no accusation will ever stand.
Doug McMasters: No weapon formed against us will succeed.
Doug McMasters: This is Isaiah 54.
Doug McMasters: Could it not now be named among one of your most favorite chapters?
Doug McMasters: Just remember this.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53 and 54 are not simply adjacent because one is fifty-three and the next number is fifty-four.
Doug McMasters: They are inseparably linked to one another.
Doug McMasters: And this chapter is not just some poetic interlude, it is a prophetic unveiling of what the servant's work would accomplish.
Doug McMasters: A new people, a growing family, a secure city, an unfailing future.
Doug McMasters: This is the growth of the gospel in Christ.
Doug McMasters: This is the barren woman who started with eleven men, fearful in an upper room, who went out into the streets of Jerusalem with a few others in Acts chapter 2 and preached Christ.
Doug McMasters: This childless woman started to have children.
Doug McMasters: And those children began to proclaim.
Doug McMasters: Trouble came, and they scattered, and they went as far away as to Antioch, but they carried the message there, and lo and behold, it took root there.
Doug McMasters: And from Antioch, men like Barnabas and Paul were called out, and they shared the gospel in places of Greece and Turkey and as far away as Rome.
Doug McMasters: And the gospel took root and it grew and it grew and it grew.
Doug McMasters: And the tent stretched and stretched and stretched.
Doug McMasters: Oh, sing, childless one.
Doug McMasters: Sing.
Doug McMasters: For the children of the childless one will be more numerous than the children of the married one.
Doug McMasters: Don't hold back.
Doug McMasters: Stretch while you sing and stand in the confidence that God gives us because our end is glorious.
Doug McMasters: This is Isaiah 54.
Doug McMasters: This is who we are.
Doug McMasters: And so when we move in the next few minutes next door, into that gem, we're not just packing pencils into a box.
Doug McMasters: We're not just sticking erasers into the hands of a little child who made a mistake on a paper and needs to rectify it.
Doug McMasters: We're not just giving a little girl or boy a little toy to hug and to play with until it becomes like all of our toys.
Doug McMasters: We're putting into that gospel hope, into the hands of little boys and girls around this world a message of life.
Doug McMasters: We're stretching the tent.
Doug McMasters: We're lifting the stakes and lengthening the ropes and then driving them down deep again before we uproot them and lengthen them some more.
Doug McMasters: That's what we're going to be doing.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Father, we thank you for the glorious words that this chapter holds for all who believe.
Doug McMasters: We thank you for your immeasurable mercy to include us into these words.
Doug McMasters: That they don't just speak of someone else.
Doug McMasters: They speak to us.
Doug McMasters: They don't just talk about some people in a faraway time and a faraway place, of just temporal encouragements for a time.
Doug McMasters: They speak of eternal life and hope and glory.
Doug McMasters: They speak of the significance of our days, of the ability for your power to work through our weaknesses, to accomplish your eternal purposes, for you to take even the worst moment of our life and turn it into a point of dramatic change.
Doug McMasters: And so, Father, we pray.
Doug McMasters: We pray with song in our heart.
Doug McMasters: And we pray with the confidence to stretch.
Doug McMasters: And we pray, Father, with the courage to stand, because your word is true.
Doug McMasters: Amen.