Doug McMasters: Take your Bible and go to the book of Isaiah, chapter 62.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah chapter 62.
Doug McMasters: We've been working our way through Isaiah since September 2024, and we're reaching the final few pages of this great and wondrous book.
Doug McMasters: We're in Isaiah 62.
Doug McMasters: Have there been times in your Christian life where you felt like God has gone quiet?
Doug McMasters: You're not alone in that.
Doug McMasters: William Cooper, a man you might know as the songwriter for a song like There is a Fountain Filled with Blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins.
Doug McMasters: You might know him as the hymn writer.
Doug McMasters: God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
Doug McMasters: Create him.
Doug McMasters: All of us should really have memorized, actually.
Doug McMasters: He said this in his journal or wrote this in his journal.
Doug McMasters: I feel unutterable despair.
Doug McMasters: God has cast me off forever.
Doug McMasters: Wow.
Doug McMasters: Cooper loved God, and yet he expresses there that what is a very painful way of describing that he feels God is silent and even left him.
Doug McMasters: Like us, sometimes we pray and we feel like uh the prayers are just bouncing back off of the ceiling right at us and didn't go any higher.
Doug McMasters: Or we read scripture and it just feels like we're staring at ink rather than the living word of God.
Doug McMasters: Cooper said at another time, he said, I cannot find the God I love.
Doug McMasters: I don't know where he's at.
Doug McMasters: Charles Spurgeon, pastor of the largest church in the world in the 19th century, pastor in London, went through a season of time that was so dark and so despairing.
Doug McMasters: He said, I could not pray, I could not read.
Doug McMasters: I could only trust.
Doug McMasters: And he described lying on the sofa in his study, even so down he was unable to lift his head.
Doug McMasters: And he said, This I felt as if I had never known the Lord at all.
Doug McMasters: Later, he talked about that, and he said a comment that maybe you've heard before.
Doug McMasters: When I couldn't trace his hand, I learned to trust his heart.
Doug McMasters: You might have heard that before.
Doug McMasters: In those seasons of darkness, they and we can lose the sense of joy and delight in the Lord that others often have and seemingly never never lose.
Doug McMasters: But in those times, God was holding them as much as when they were joyful and happy and delighted.
Doug McMasters: He wasn't silent and he wasn't absent.
Doug McMasters: He was working in ways that perhaps they didn't understand, but he was working in them nonetheless.
Doug McMasters: And so you might be here this morning, and you might have, or will have, might have had, or will have, those times where you're going to ask those same questions.
Doug McMasters: Where is God?
Doug McMasters: Has he forgotten me?
Doug McMasters: Well, Israel knew that feeling.
Doug McMasters: They had been sent into Babylon and were in exile.
Doug McMasters: Their land and their temple were in ruins.
Doug McMasters: Their identity as a nation, a people of God, had been shattered.
Doug McMasters: They became a mocking to the nations.
Doug McMasters: And in their own mind, they had etched in their hearts about themselves these words, forsaken.
Doug McMasters: That's a stark word.
Doug McMasters: And in this emotional landscape, Isaiah 62 speaks with shocking words.
Doug McMasters: And so let's take a look at it and let us feel and hear the heartbeat of God.
Doug McMasters: And we're going to look, first of all, at the first five verses where God determines to reverse his people's shame.
Doug McMasters: And we get to verse 1, and the very first thing that we hear in verse 1 is God speaking.
Doug McMasters: Now, without even seeing what he has to say, that alone is a pretty significant thing.
Doug McMasters: Just remember this emotional landscape that we just talked about about Cooper and Spurgeon and Israel and us.
Doug McMasters: Into this world that seems silent and full of confusion, God breaks in.
Doug McMasters: And he breaks in with a declaration that is very startling in its intensity.
Doug McMasters: Listen to it, verse one.
Doug McMasters: I will not keep silent because of Zion, and I will not keep still because of Jerusalem until her righteousness shines like a bright light and her salvation like a flaming torch.
Doug McMasters: Wow.
Doug McMasters: God speaks here before Israel even lifts her eyes.
Doug McMasters: And before she even prays, God declares his determinations.
Doug McMasters: Now pause there for a minute because this is not how we would expect this chapter to open up.
Doug McMasters: We would expect, you know, Israel to be crying out, a prayer of repentance, maybe.
Doug McMasters: We might expect a plea of mercy or some sense of awakening in them of spiritual need.
Doug McMasters: But it doesn't start there.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't begin with Israel's voice, it begins with God's voice.
Doug McMasters: And he's saying here, I haven't forgotten you.
Doug McMasters: And I'm not done with you.
Doug McMasters: Because this chapter that we're going to look at here is not about Israel clawing its way back to God.
Doug McMasters: It's about God having the people overhear his determination to love them.
Doug McMasters: It's about God speaking about his unstoppable resolve to accomplish a glorious future for them.
Doug McMasters: Now that's certainly a gospel pattern, isn't it?
Doug McMasters: Before we seek God, he seeks us.
Doug McMasters: Before we call on him, he calls us.
Doug McMasters: Before we move toward him, he's already moved toward us.
Doug McMasters: And here God is saying, I am not going to keep silent.
Doug McMasters: And he tells us why.
Doug McMasters: For Zion's sake.
Doug McMasters: Now remember, this is not a Zion who is improved.
Doug McMasters: This is not a Zion who is spiritually awake.
Doug McMasters: This is not a Zion who's finally repented.
Doug McMasters: This is not a Zion who's gotten their act together.
Doug McMasters: This is a God who loves these people.
Doug McMasters: That's why.
Doug McMasters: Why is he determined to act toward them?
Doug McMasters: Not because of what they have done, but because he loves them.
Doug McMasters: God told them that in Deuteronomy.
Doug McMasters: I chose you out of all the nations of the world, not because you were the greatest or the strongest or the mightiest or what have you.
Doug McMasters: He basically says, I love you because I loved you.
Doug McMasters: And here he's saying it again.
Doug McMasters: I will not be quiet because of you, because I love you.
Doug McMasters: And then he says, notice how he says this, I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, as a bright light, and her salvation like a flaming torch.
Doug McMasters: Now that's vivid language, the pictures of what it is, but the resolve is there, right?
Doug McMasters: The determination is there.
Doug McMasters: This active pursuit of God on the beheart of his people that's not going to stop until they shine with his own glory.
Doug McMasters: And it's not something that they're gaining, it's something that God is giving them.
Doug McMasters: And he says, your salvation will be like a burning torch, bright, blazing, unmistakable.
Doug McMasters: And he continues this resolve by giving us different ways of understanding it.
Doug McMasters: Nations will see your righteousness, all kings, your glory.
Doug McMasters: Now look at the end of verse 2.
Doug McMasters: You will be given a new name that the Lord's mouth will announce.
Doug McMasters: And what has been part of our discussions with uh Ben and Naomi?
Doug McMasters: What is GB2 going to be called?
Doug McMasters: Grandbaby 2.
Doug McMasters: It's got to have a name, right?
Doug McMasters: And so they've been rolling names out, and some of them are connected to each of them and some of the some people and things that are important to them and us as families.
Doug McMasters: They're not just labels, though, are they?
Doug McMasters: Names are important things.
Doug McMasters: And particularly in scripture, they they carry a significant weight about identity and about destiny, and even incorporated in the story of their life.
Doug McMasters: Their names are often very, very significant.
Doug McMasters: In Israel's old names, take a look at verse four.
Doug McMasters: You will no longer be called deserted, and your land will not be called desolate.
Doug McMasters: Well, those are horrible words.
Doug McMasters: Imagine in second grade writing, like, okay, folks, we're gonna do a little spelling exercise here.
Doug McMasters: We're all gonna write our names.
Doug McMasters: And here you are with your monster-sized pencil, and you're like, desolate, forsaken, deserted.
Doug McMasters: Imagine having that hang over you.
Doug McMasters: What's your name?
Doug McMasters: Forsaken.
Doug McMasters: Wow.
Doug McMasters: And it was about the land, but it was also about the people.
Doug McMasters: This was what they thought about themselves in their hearts.
Doug McMasters: They've been cast out of the land, they'd been taken away to Babylon, they were in exile, forsaken, were they?
Doug McMasters: God says, No more.
Doug McMasters: No more.
Doug McMasters: You're going to be given a new name that is going to come out of the Lord's mouth toward you.
Doug McMasters: The king of Babylon's not going to call you a new name.
Doug McMasters: You're not going to find some new name for yourself.
Doug McMasters: The Lord's going to give you a new name out of his own mouth.
Doug McMasters: He just strengthens it with that sort of picturesque term.
Doug McMasters: And what are those words going to be?
Doug McMasters: Verse 4.
Doug McMasters: Instead, you will be called, My Delight is in her.
Doug McMasters: And your land.
Doug McMasters: Married.
Doug McMasters: Wow.
Doug McMasters: Forsaken.
Doug McMasters: Desolate.
Doug McMasters: Deserted.
Doug McMasters: Gone.
Doug McMasters: What are you going to write your name now?
Doug McMasters: My delight is in her.
Doug McMasters: Married.
Doug McMasters: Wow.
Doug McMasters: Names of belonging.
Doug McMasters: Names of joy.
Doug McMasters: Names that say, you aren't forgotten.
Doug McMasters: You aren't forsaken.
Doug McMasters: You aren't desolate.
Doug McMasters: You're mine.
Doug McMasters: And you're going to be my bride.
Doug McMasters: How wonderful that is.
Doug McMasters: Jesus takes up the language of this very verse here.
Doug McMasters: And in two places, to two of the seven churches of the book of Revelation, chapter two and verse 17, and chapter 3 in verse 12, he says this let it let anyone who hears listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.
Doug McMasters: The one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him an a white stone, and on the stone a new name is inscribed that no one else knows except the one who receives it.
Doug McMasters: And then in chapter 3 and verse 12, the one who conquers, I'll make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he'll never go out.
Doug McMasters: And I'll write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven for my God, and my new name.
Doug McMasters: And envelops that new name into the idea of the bride, the bride of Christ, as it talks about later in the book of Revelation, that new Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: And so Isaiah's marriage language here becomes the New Testament's climatic picture of the fullness of redemption.
Doug McMasters: And God says this in very breathtaking ways.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse five.
Doug McMasters: As a young man marries a young woman, so your sons will marry you.
Doug McMasters: And as a groom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you.
Doug McMasters: God is determined to act in such a way, he's not simply forgiving, and he's certainly not forgetting his people.
Doug McMasters: He is going to be pursuing until they are in the place of full and welcome, wholehearted delight.
Doug McMasters: Some of you might have felt like, spiritually speaking, your name has been forsaken.
Doug McMasters: Spiritually speaking, you felt like your name is desolate.
Doug McMasters: Some of you have perhaps wondered, is God disappointed with me?
Doug McMasters: Uh is he tired of me?
Doug McMasters: Is he frustrated with me?
Doug McMasters: Is he forsaken and deserted me?
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 62 says no.
Doug McMasters: Says no.
Doug McMasters: No.
Doug McMasters: No, that that's not your name.
Doug McMasters: It's not your story.
Doug McMasters: It's not your identity.
Doug McMasters: You are to be called my delight is in you.
Doug McMasters: You are to be called mine.
Doug McMasters: Married.
Doug McMasters: Just keep that locked into your heart.
Doug McMasters: The next time you think your prayers are going nowhere.
Doug McMasters: The next time you wonder if I can't find the guy I love, like Cooper said.
Doug McMasters: The next time you say, I I can't, I I can't trace his hand.
Doug McMasters: Just remember, what you're feeling in that emotional landscape is not the reality of who God is.
Doug McMasters: Okay.
Doug McMasters: You may not be able to perceive it, but he's doing something.
Doug McMasters: He's doing something because he loves you.
Doug McMasters: I was talking to my son last night, and he was talking about having to give uh some medicine to his little to Callum.
Doug McMasters: And Callum's like, no more, no more, no, you know, and Matt Matt's like, he said it was the most heartbreaking thing to have to give this medicine to Callum, who didn't want any of it.
Doug McMasters: And I said, Boy, you're bringing back some memories, Matt.
Doug McMasters: I said, think about the Lord.
Doug McMasters: How often we think, I just don't want that in my life.
Doug McMasters: And God says, you need it.
Doug McMasters: It's going to be good for you.
Doug McMasters: Okay.
Doug McMasters: In verses six and seven, we move forward and deeper into this wondrous chapter.
Doug McMasters: We find that God is not only taking away the shame of his people, but he's also going to appoint intercessors to look out for redemption.
Doug McMasters: This is some remarkable language here.
Doug McMasters: He speaks about watchmen that he places, that God himself places on the walls of Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: Jerusalem, verse 6.
Doug McMasters: I've appointed watchmen on your walls.
Doug McMasters: They will never be silent day or night.
Doug McMasters: Well, who are these watchmen?
Doug McMasters: They're not soldiers standing for danger, and they're not, they're not guards standing there with weapons in their hands, and they're not defenders waiting for an approaching enemy.
Doug McMasters: Who are they?
Doug McMasters: Well, they're going to be there vigilant and vigil.
Doug McMasters: Verse 6 At the end, there's no rest for you, but look what these in it these people are to do, these watchmen.
Doug McMasters: There is no rest for you who remind the Lord.
Doug McMasters: Do not give him rest until he establishes and makes Jerusalem the praise of the earth.
Doug McMasters: Well, that's a strange way of talking, isn't it?
Doug McMasters: That God is appointing these people to stand, figuratively speaking, on the walls of Jerusalem, and they're not looking for enemies.
Doug McMasters: They're looking to God and saying, God, we are talking to you until all of your perfect will is fully accomplished.
Doug McMasters: And we're not going to leave you alone.
Doug McMasters: We're going to have 24-7 shifts of us speaking to you to do what you said you would do.
Doug McMasters: Wow.
Doug McMasters: These are people that believe God's word and they're going to persistently intercede until God fulfills that purpose.
Doug McMasters: And God says, I'm the one that set them there to do this.
Doug McMasters: I'm the one who's given them this assignment.
Doug McMasters: I'm the one who's put this burden on their hearts.
Doug McMasters: I'm the one who has raised them up on behalf of my people to keep my promises before me.
Doug McMasters: They will never be silent, day or night.
Doug McMasters: A little bit.
Doug McMasters: And why Habakkuk says, I've set myself as a watchman.
Doug McMasters: Or when Jeremiah announces God's future restoration, even while he's talking about their exile, standing where God set them.
Doug McMasters: And not just being a messenger to the people, but being a voice to God.
Doug McMasters: We get to the New Testament and we find this old, old, old man who's waiting for the consolation of Israel.
Doug McMasters: And Simeon says, God, you told me I wouldn't die until I see your salvation.
Doug McMasters: God, I'm still waiting.
Doug McMasters: And he goes in the temple and he sees baby Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And he says, Now I can die.
Doug McMasters: My watch on the wall is over.
Doug McMasters: I can quit pestering you, God, about bringing this deliverance because now I've seen it.
Doug McMasters: Jesus has showed up.
Doug McMasters: Anna, listen to what is how it describes her.
Doug McMasters: She speaks, listen to this, to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: There are people in real time and space who are doing exactly what Isaiah is recording here is what God said is going to happen.
Doug McMasters: That there are people who are persistently going to the throne of God and saying, We're not letting you go until this happens.
Doug McMasters: And God tells them, You who remind the Lord, no rest for you.
Doug McMasters: Do not give me rest until I establish Jerusalem and make it the praise of the earth.
Doug McMasters: What is he saying to us here?
Doug McMasters: To stay with what God has promised, to keep it anchored in our soul, to continue to bring God's word back to himself.
Doug McMasters: Now, is God saying, look, I need a Post-it note now and again.
Doug McMasters: You know, I'm busy.
Doug McMasters: I've made the whole universe, and you know, it takes a lot to take care of that.
Doug McMasters: And there are a lot of you people on earth.
Doug McMasters: You know, it's just like 24-7.
Doug McMasters: I've got to be God to everything and everybody.
Doug McMasters: And uh, you know, occasionally I could I could use a reminder here.
Doug McMasters: Could you could you just like tickle me now and again?
Doug McMasters: Is that what he's saying?
Doug McMasters: Of course not.
Doug McMasters: It's not that God needs the reminder that he forgets or that somehow he needs push to get involved.
Doug McMasters: What is he doing here?
Doug McMasters: He's telling us, I want you to love what I love.
Doug McMasters: I want you to look for what I'm going to do.
Doug McMasters: I want you to keep it focused on my behavior and my actions.
Doug McMasters: Even in the moments of quiet and stillness, keep looking for it.
Doug McMasters: Have an expectation of hope in your heart.
Doug McMasters: God wants us to share his heart.
Doug McMasters: And that's one of the biggest reasons why we pray.
Doug McMasters: Because the God who's determined the end has also determined the means by which that end is accomplished.
Doug McMasters: He's going to do his purposes.
Doug McMasters: But wondrously, he brings us into those purposes by putting those things on our heart and in our prayers.
Doug McMasters: We pray, we labor, we intercede, not to talk God into doing something, but because he already cares about those things and he's put that burden on our heart.
Doug McMasters: This is why Jesus took a widow and talked about her persistently begging for assistance and saying, This is how you should pray.
Doug McMasters: You should always pray and not faint.
Doug McMasters: Sounds like Isaiah 62, right there, doesn't it?
Doug McMasters: This is why, when you pray, our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name, right?
Doug McMasters: Your kingdom come, your will be done.
Doug McMasters: Pray in Isaiah 62, right there.
Doug McMasters: And this is where it touches us.
Doug McMasters: How often many of us have prayed for an unconverted child or spouse or friend, and we don't see any change yet.
Doug McMasters: We've prayed for a marriage that feels very, very fragile.
Doug McMasters: We've prayed for ourselves in a sin that seems to cling to us too closely.
Doug McMasters: We prayed for revival in our homes or in our church or in our country.
Doug McMasters: And we wonder if those prayers even matter after a while.
Doug McMasters: Come to Wednesday night prayer at seven o'clock, and we've prayed all the time these kind of things.
Doug McMasters: Does it really matter?
Doug McMasters: Is God really here?
Doug McMasters: Is anything gonna happen?
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 62 says, don't rest.
Doug McMasters: Don't rest.
Doug McMasters: Because he's inviting us onto the wall to be a watchman who persistently prays.
Doug McMasters: He invites us to join him in the work that he's accomplishing in his time and in his way.
Doug McMasters: This is why Wednesday night prayer is such a beautiful, beautiful, and vibrant part of our life as the body of Christ.
Doug McMasters: I know several of you, seven o'clock's thought, it's not an easy time to come.
Doug McMasters: And you live some distance and you make it here on Sunday, but Wednesday night would be impossible.
Doug McMasters: Understand that.
Doug McMasters: But it's a time when the watchmen gather.
Doug McMasters: The ones who can be on the wall, the ones who bring the promises of God back to God, the ones who persistently offer these petitions week after week, and say, Lord, do, Lord, hear, Lord, accomplish.
Doug McMasters: Because he is building his church and he is strengthening his people.
Doug McMasters: And he's brought our hearts into what he's doing when we pray.
Doug McMasters: Let's keep moving.
Doug McMasters: God has promised to restore them and remove their shame.
Doug McMasters: He's said he's going to set up watchmen who are going to persistently pray until his purposes are accomplished.
Doug McMasters: And then in verses eight and nine, he swears this oath to secure this reversal that he's begun.
Doug McMasters: He's not going to leave it to chance.
Doug McMasters: Verse 8: The Lord has sworn with his right hand and his strong arm.
Doug McMasters: I will no longer give your grain to your enemies for food, and foreigners will not drink the new wine for which you've labored.
Doug McMasters: For those who gather grain will eat it and praise the Lord, and those who harvest the grapes will drink the wine in my holy courts.
Doug McMasters: This is where the language just intensifies all the greater.
Doug McMasters: Up to this point, God has spoken about his determinations and his passion, that he's not going to keep silent, that he's going to keep his people talking too.
Doug McMasters: But now he speaks with determination, an oath to seal it.
Doug McMasters: The Lord has sworn with his right hand and his strong arm.
Doug McMasters: Whenever there's an oath that God makes in the Bible, it's time to pay a lot of attention because God doesn't do that very, very often.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't use these words casually.
Doug McMasters: And it's never just simply picturesque rhetoric.
Doug McMasters: This is meant to steady some trembling hearts so they know without without a shadow of a doubt, God is serious about this.
Doug McMasters: The Lord has sworn with his right hand and his strong arm.
Doug McMasters: In the ancient world, and also in our time, at least it used to be, that when somebody made a solemn pledge, they were meaning to keep that.
Doug McMasters: I remember even hearing the words that the shake of a man's hand was bond enough.
Doug McMasters: These days it's like, you thought I was gonna promise.
Doug McMasters: Or they'll go ahead and shake the hand and just stab you in the back while they're doing it with the other one.
Doug McMasters: But God, who has no one higher to speak about, everything's lesser than him.
Doug McMasters: He can't call to anything higher.
Doug McMasters: So he says, I'll swear by my own arm.
Doug McMasters: His power, his character, his nature is on the line here.
Doug McMasters: He's going to stake his very being on this promise.
Doug McMasters: That's how intense this gets.
Doug McMasters: Deuteronomy chapter 28.
Doug McMasters: If they failed to follow God, they were going to face the consequences.
Doug McMasters: And the consequences were very real and tangible on a seasonal basis.
Doug McMasters: Their harvest would be stolen, their vineyards would be plundered, their labor would be wasted.
Doug McMasters: They would feel like life is full of vanity and futility.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because they needed to examine their hearts, because they had been disobedient to their promises to God.
Doug McMasters: Their experience would be one of loss, of gnawing frustration, and of humiliation.
Doug McMasters: But now God is saying, No more, no more.
Doug McMasters: Those days of loss are going to be over.
Doug McMasters: Those days of shame are going to be over.
Doug McMasters: Those days of humiliation and being plundered by your neighbors are going to be over.
Doug McMasters: They're going to be over.
Doug McMasters: All of these curses are going to be rolled back.
Doug McMasters: And all of the covenant blessings are going to be restored.
Doug McMasters: And he adds something beautiful at the end of this.
Doug McMasters: Those who gather the grain, they're going to eat it, and they're going to praise the Lord.
Doug McMasters: And those who harvest the grapes will drink the wine in my courts.
Doug McMasters: This is more than just agricultural stability here.
Doug McMasters: This is about a life that's restored to wholeness and fullness in every way.
Doug McMasters: A fruitful land and feasting in God's presence.
Doug McMasters: As a consequence of their covenant abandonment, they had lived through seasons where everything they worked for was taken away and they didn't care to be in God's presence.
Doug McMasters: They planted, others harvested.
Doug McMasters: They labored, other people enjoyed the fruit of it.
Doug McMasters: Their lives were one long string of disappointment and loss.
Doug McMasters: And God says, no more.
Doug McMasters: You're going to enjoy, you're going to harvest, you're going to taste with joy, you're going to be happy in my presence.
Doug McMasters: That's what's going to happen.
Doug McMasters: You're going to flourish in every way, and you're going to flourish before me and with me.
Doug McMasters: Because worship isn't just something you're going to be doing.
Doug McMasters: Worship's going to be the center of all your blessings.
Doug McMasters: You're going to eat the fruit of all those blessings in my presence.
Doug McMasters: What wondrous words these are.
Doug McMasters: Now take a look at verse 11.
Doug McMasters: We're going to jump just ahead for a second.
Doug McMasters: And I want you to see a phrase here.
Doug McMasters: Look, the Lord has proclaimed to the ends of the earth.
Doug McMasters: Say to daughter Zion, look, your salvation is coming.
Doug McMasters: And note the last phrase: his wages are with him, and his reward accompanies him.
Doug McMasters: So it's going to happen.
Doug McMasters: And the New Testament gives us some indication of how that's going to happen and where that fullness is going to lie.
Doug McMasters: Because in Revelation chapter 22, just after describing the New Jerusalem and giving an indication to the not sure what that was, the wondrous bride of Christ, and all the feasting, you hear the feasting word, and all the fullness word, and the married word, and the eating in God's presence motifs.
Doug McMasters: Jesus himself says in Revelation 22, Behold, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me.
Doug McMasters: Jesus picks up these words and says to his people, that day is still coming.
Doug McMasters: That day is coming.
Doug McMasters: Because the reward is not a trophy or a prize or just some extra grapes on a table.
Doug McMasters: It's the new creation.
Doug McMasters: It is when nothing ever is going to be stolen again, when nothing ever is going to be wasted, when nothing ever is going to be lost.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 62 is giving us a window into the future of a day when everything is there before God with fullness and with complete and utter praise to him.
Doug McMasters: God swore an oath that he's going to bring the final restoration of his people.
Doug McMasters: And that final restoration still is anchored in our hearts as hope.
Doug McMasters: We're still looking forward to that day.
Doug McMasters: But God says, remember, I promised it on the basis of who I am.
Doug McMasters: It will happen.
Doug McMasters: And this is important for us.
Doug McMasters: Because we live and we pour ourselves out on behalf of our families.
Doug McMasters: We pour ourselves out on behalf of where we work.
Doug McMasters: We pour out ourselves in care of the Lord's people.
Doug McMasters: We give ourselves and our relationships, and sometimes it just feels like every effort we make just fizzles away, and any fruit of it disappears.
Doug McMasters: Because we still live in a world where that happens.
Doug McMasters: We live in a world where our labor sometimes feels wasted.
Doug McMasters: We live in a world where the harvest seems to be lost.
Doug McMasters: We live in the world where the sanctuary feels empty.
Doug McMasters: We live in a world where the curse is still visible in a thousand, thousand, thousands of different ways.
Doug McMasters: Broken relationships and weary bodies and broken hearts and anxiety of mind and spirit, and this gap between what we hope for and what we actually experience.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah speaks to us in this world.
Doug McMasters: And he says, I've promised a day.
Doug McMasters: And it's going to happen.
Doug McMasters: Just anchor yourself there.
Doug McMasters: Anchor yourself in that day when nothing will be stolen, nothing will be wasted, nothing will be lost, when you'll experience the fullness of joy and never again have frustration, and where worship will fill the whole sphere of who you are.
Doug McMasters: There'll be a bounty beyond your ability to capture.
Doug McMasters: Because Jesus said, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me.
Doug McMasters: It's with me.
Doug McMasters: You see, our future is not fragile.
Doug McMasters: It's anchored in who God is.
Doug McMasters: It's an oath-secured future.
Doug McMasters: Just like Paul told us, we have an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that doesn't fade away.
Doug McMasters: Kept in heaven for you, in which it'll be revealed in the last time.
Doug McMasters: Right, Paul?
Doug McMasters: Yeah.
Doug McMasters: Our security doesn't rest on our grip of God.
Doug McMasters: Our security rests on God's strength of who He is.
Doug McMasters: And that leads us to the last one in verses 10 to 12.
Doug McMasters: We've heard God's determination to restore his people.
Doug McMasters: We've heard his call to persistent intercession.
Doug McMasters: We've heard his oath-bound promise to reverse our shame and secure our future.
Doug McMasters: And now in verses 10 to 12, he turns to his people and he commands us to prepare for the salvation that he's bringing.
Doug McMasters: What does he say there?
Doug McMasters: Verse 10.
Doug McMasters: Go out, go out through the city gates.
Doug McMasters: Prepare a way for the people.
Doug McMasters: Build it up.
Doug McMasters: Build up the highway.
Doug McMasters: Clear away the stones.
Doug McMasters: Raise a banner for the peoples.
Doug McMasters: Look, the Lord has proclaimed to the ends of the earth.
Doug McMasters: Say to daughter Zion, look, your salvation is coming.
Doug McMasters: His wages are with him, and his war reward accompanies him.
Doug McMasters: God is saying, I'm bringing that salvation.
Doug McMasters: I'm going to be restoring my people.
Doug McMasters: I am gathering in the nations.
Doug McMasters: Now make room.
Doug McMasters: Prepare your hearts.
Doug McMasters: Make a way.
Doug McMasters: Remove the obstacles.
Doug McMasters: Lift up a banner that the peoples could see, so they'd know where salvation is found.
Doug McMasters: A highway.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah's talked about highways before in Isaiah chapter 40.
Doug McMasters: He talked about a highway that God travels to rescue his people.
Doug McMasters: In Isaiah 35, I think it is, he talks about a highway in which the people are returning back to God.
Doug McMasters: But notice this highway.
Doug McMasters: This is a highway for the nations to travel on.
Doug McMasters: This is a highway for the peoples to see the banner that the people of Israel are raising up, saying, This is where salvation is, and they don't have any impediments to come to that banner, because the highway has been laid clear.
Doug McMasters: You see, the people were not merely to be spectators, but participants in God's work, inviting pilgrims to the place of salvation, building the highway, clearing the stones, lifting the signal, because he wants the nations to see it and to come to it.
Doug McMasters: John the Baptist, no wonder, the very beginning of the ministry of Jesus Christ said to the people of Israel, It's time to prepare the way for the Lord.
Doug McMasters: Make the rough places plain and the crooked places straight, and the high places low, and the low places flat.
Doug McMasters: It's time.
Doug McMasters: Jesus took his disciples and he said, You're going to begin in Jerusalem, but you're going to be laying out a highway for the nations.
Doug McMasters: When you go to Judea, and then you're going to go to Samaria, and then you're going to go to the othermost parts of the earth.
Doug McMasters: You're going to make a banner of where salvation lies.
Doug McMasters: And the nations are to hear the message of life.
Doug McMasters: That God has come.
Doug McMasters: God has come to his people.
Doug McMasters: God has brought the deliverance.
Doug McMasters: And this messenger is us now as we continue this.
Doug McMasters: That we talk about this one who is his wages are with him, and his reward accompanies him.
Doug McMasters: And he identifies himself in Revelation 22 as our Lord Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And he said, Speak about it.
Doug McMasters: Because salvation is a person.
Doug McMasters: No wonder Simeon said, My eyes have seen your salvation, when he looked at Jesus.
Doug McMasters: No wonder Anna spoke with wonder to those who were waiting for the consolation of Jerusalem's deliverance.
Doug McMasters: When Jesus showed up, even as a little baby, before he could even utter a word, they recognized God was fulfilling his glorious purposes, that this was the moment.
Doug McMasters: Now look at the last word.
Doug McMasters: You will be called cared for, a city not deserted.
Doug McMasters: What a glorious reception it is.
Doug McMasters: To be those people who were once had forsaken, deserted, desolate, written across our chest.
Doug McMasters: To be now said, You're mine.
Doug McMasters: And I count you as holy because you are now bought and redeemed.
Doug McMasters: And you are forever cared for and sought out.
Doug McMasters: You will never be deserted.
Doug McMasters: I know in our experiences and in our emotional environments, we can often feel alone.
Doug McMasters: We can often feel like God isn't there.
Doug McMasters: We can often wonder if He's actually silent and never speaks into what we need.
Doug McMasters: I know.
Doug McMasters: But Isaiah 62 says that's not true.
Doug McMasters: It's not true.
Doug McMasters: Whatever momentary silences, whatever momentarily distance you might feel, is not an indication that God isn't there or doesn't care.
Doug McMasters: Or can't work because he said here he does and he will.
Doug McMasters: And the day will come when you'll see it and you'll be able to say, I am fully loved, because I have been fully seen and I am fully embraced and I am forever cared for.
Doug McMasters: And so now I'll forever rejoice.
Doug McMasters: What glorious truth.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Father, thank you for the glorious promises that you give in this word.
Doug McMasters: Thank you for how they extend not only to a people cast away in Babylon and exile, but to speak throughout the ages, even into our very room here, to give us hope and to anchor our hearts in you.
Doug McMasters: And Father, I pray that we might live in recognition that you're the God who refuses to be silent, that you're a God who will accomplish your purposes, that you're a God who has sworn an oath, that you're a God who brings salvation, that you're a God who restores and gives us new names.
Doug McMasters: Help us to act as what we are people who are delighted in, people who bear a new name, and people who are married.
Doug McMasters: And we pray this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.