Doug McMasters: Sacred Bible and go to Isaiah chapter 65.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah chapter 65.
Doug McMasters: There's some passages that hit us immediately.
Doug McMasters: Strike out when we're not even ready necessarily to hear.
Doug McMasters: They don't give us time to gather ourselves or to prepare ourselves, they just simply speak.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah 65 is one of those.
Doug McMasters: It opens with a voice that we're not expecting to hear, and before we decide what to do with it, is decided what to do with us.
Doug McMasters: Reminds me of a moment in the life of Augustine.
Doug McMasters: Augustine tells in his confessions of a story in which he was in a garden in Milan, sitting there, very troubled about the life he was living, restless and unsettled, pacing around in circles, trying to figure everything out.
Doug McMasters: At that time, he wasn't seeking God.
Doug McMasters: He wasn't even sure he wanted to, actually.
Doug McMasters: And he's wrestling with himself and wrestling with those things that he can't make sense of that drive his desires and that are pulling him apart.
Doug McMasters: And right in the middle of that moment in that garden in Milan, he hears something and he can't explain it.
Doug McMasters: It comes from outside the garden wall, and it's the voice of a child.
Doug McMasters: And he doesn't recognize the child's voice.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't even recognize what the child is saying.
Doug McMasters: Tolaloge.
Doug McMasters: Tolelog.
Doug McMasters: Or lege, I should say.
Doug McMasters: Take up and read.
Doug McMasters: What a weird thing to say.
Doug McMasters: What a stranger thing for a child to say.
Doug McMasters: And what an odd phrase that comes wafting over the wall into that garden of Milan.
SPEAKER_01: The word startled Augustine.
SPEAKER_01: Take up and read?
Doug McMasters: It doesn't fit anything.
Doug McMasters: It didn't fit any child's game that he knew.
Doug McMasters: It didn't fit any discussion that he might have understood.
Doug McMasters: It just comes out of nowhere and it lands right in his ears.
Doug McMasters: What does it mean?
Doug McMasters: He couldn't tell.
Doug McMasters: But it shook him.
Doug McMasters: And there close to him was a copy of Scripture.
Doug McMasters: And so reluctantly he opens it up.
Doug McMasters: And he's like, I think I need to take this up and read it.
Doug McMasters: And he lands on Romans chapter 13.
Doug McMasters: And right there is his heart.
Doug McMasters: All the things he had been wrestling with, all the things that had been disturbing him and disorienting him, are being exposed right in that passage.
Doug McMasters: And later he described that experience and he said to God, You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.
Doug McMasters: This is what I think of when I think of Isaiah 65.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at the first two verses.
Doug McMasters: I was sought by those who did not ask.
Doug McMasters: I was found by those who did not seek me.
Doug McMasters: I said, Here I am, here I am to a nation that did not call on my name.
Doug McMasters: Here's, like I said, a chapter that doesn't wait for us to begin searching, or for us to be spiritually alert or attentive.
Doug McMasters: God here is saying that he's speaking into places that are not listening for him, that have grown accustomed to their own patterns.
Doug McMasters: And when he speaks, as we'll find out, it's not only comforting, it's also unsettling.
Doug McMasters: It's going to name things that we wouldn't prefer to have named, and it will shine light in places we'd like to keep dim.
Doug McMasters: But it also blazes glorious light in places where we would long to see that light be.
Doug McMasters: So this morning, as we look at this passage, I'd like for us to hear those words tolalege, tolalege, that Augustine hurt.
Doug McMasters: Take up and read.
Doug McMasters: And may we not take it up reluctantly like he did at first, but may we take it up with amazement and reception as it speaks to us.
Doug McMasters: The first thing I want us to hear, we're going to look at three points, is that God stands ready.
Doug McMasters: God stands ready.
Doug McMasters: Verse 1, again, I was sought by those who did not ask.
Doug McMasters: I was found by those who did not seek me.
Doug McMasters: I said, Here I am, here I am to a nation that did not call on my name.
Doug McMasters: Now, when we step into this verse, we're stepping into God's answer to the prayer that started in chapter 63 and 64, where the people cried out, Where are you?
Doug McMasters: Why did you let us wander?
Doug McMasters: Are you ever going to restrain yourself more?
Doug McMasters: Why are you silent?
Doug McMasters: Prayer full of longing and confusion, as we looked at it last week, and this coming out of this deep sense that God is far, far away.
Doug McMasters: Life is a mess and it's trouble.
Doug McMasters: And where are you, God?
Doug McMasters: God doesn't explain his silence.
Doug McMasters: He actually reveals his presence.
Doug McMasters: He says, I've always been here.
Doug McMasters: I've always been here.
Doug McMasters: He gently towards to the people who are asking these questions, who are saying, Why aren't you speaking?
Doug McMasters: And he responds and says, I've been calling.
Doug McMasters: You just haven't been listening.
Doug McMasters: To these people who say, Why are you hidden?
Doug McMasters: And he's saying, I'm right here.
Doug McMasters: I'm right here.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah wants us to feel the weight of that.
Doug McMasters: God is not responding to people who are seeking him with all his heart.
Doug McMasters: He's stepping into people's lives when they aren't listening.
Doug McMasters: What's so sad about this passage, and we'll see this in a moment, it's talking to people who have become so accustomed to their patterns, so used to their spiritual drift, that they couldn't recognize the Lord even when he did speak to them.
Doug McMasters: It's sad.
Doug McMasters: But what the Lord is telling us in essence here is that he is ready to be found by people who are not ready to be found by him.
Doug McMasters: It shows something of the generosity of his heart, of his ability to move in grace to those who ignore him.
Doug McMasters: He's the one who speaks first, he's the one that steps forward first, and he's the one who finds them when they're not even crying out.
Doug McMasters: To reshape their lives.
Doug McMasters: Now, a lot of us in this room can look back on that, right?
Doug McMasters: And we can see those moments when God invaded our lives with grace and mercy when we weren't seeking Him.
Doug McMasters: Life was full, thought it was great.
Doug McMasters: Our responsibilities we took care of, our family we loved.
Doug McMasters: We weren't asking spiritual questions until something unexpected found us.
Doug McMasters: A conversation, a moment of clarity, a word from a friend.
Doug McMasters: I was in a bar in Plattsburgh, New York, sitting next to a friend named Chuck, who's still a friend, by the way, who sends me crazy things on Facebook from time to time.
Doug McMasters: And I look over at him and I'm saying, Chuck, why aren't you drinking tonight?
Doug McMasters: I started going to a church.
Doug McMasters: You could have pushed me over with just a finger.
Doug McMasters: I'm like, what?
Doug McMasters: You guys know what that's like.
Doug McMasters: All of a sudden, that one single moment, unexpectedly, completely out of the blue, you have no idea what it is, and there it is, that single moment when you're like, God is here.
Doug McMasters: There's others, and I'm grateful that you have this experience, not the kind I had, where you've grown up in church, but sometimes church is just part of the fabric of your life and your routines, and you're not tuned into it at all.
Doug McMasters: You're going on, and then all of a sudden there's that one sermon that just lands completely differently.
Doug McMasters: And you're thinking, I'm listening now.
Doug McMasters: Or that time when a friend reaches out and you realize that it's the extension of God's loving arm when that friend spoke to you.
Doug McMasters: Or a passage that you've read and you've ignored a hundred thousand times, and then all of a sudden, there it is, staring at you, and it awakens you.
Doug McMasters: What is that?
Doug McMasters: I was heard by a people who were not seeking me.
Doug McMasters: That's what that is.
Doug McMasters: Maybe you're here today and you said the last thing on earth I thought about doing today was going to church, but here you are.
Doug McMasters: On September 4th, 1983, walking out of my barracks room, and there's Chuck in the hallway saying, You're gonna come to a church with me today?
Doug McMasters: That was the last place I woke up, I thought about when I woke up.
Doug McMasters: And I look at him and I say, Well, okay, let me get my clothes on.
Doug McMasters: And I go to church.
Doug McMasters: Maybe you're here today.
Doug McMasters: Maybe for the first time in your life, you're listening to God's word.
Doug McMasters: It's not something you've sought, but now you realize he's got your attention and he wants to say something to you.
Doug McMasters: These are the kind of moments Isaiah is describing here, and we'll see how that fleshes out even more as we go forward.
Doug McMasters: When we look back, we get better understanding and we realize those those are the those are the moments, those are the cross crossroad places of my life that seemed so insignificant at the time, but were absolutely life-changing, that weren't anticipated at all, but brought me into an altering, eternally transforming moment.
Doug McMasters: And when we look back and see that happening, it should comfort our hearts in the realization that that isn't about how good we've become for God to accept us, but to recognize it's never been about that at all, anyway.
Doug McMasters: It's been about a God who reaches out in mercy, even to those who aren't asking for it.
Doug McMasters: But Isaiah doesn't stop there.
Doug McMasters: We need to progress through this.
Doug McMasters: He now turns to people whose voice, his voice is still distant, not because he's silent, but because they've closed their ears to him.
Doug McMasters: So not only does he stand ready, but he also stands against, against those who refuse him.
Doug McMasters: And here we get into a section of this passage that is rather striking.
Doug McMasters: We've just seen God's hands outstretched, his posture open, his invitation ready, his mercy extended all day long, but they don't want to turn toward it.
Doug McMasters: They want to keep moving down the wrong direction.
Doug McMasters: And in these verses that we'll look at, we'll see the indictment and the implication that God provides these people.
Doug McMasters: We'll begin with the indictment in verse 2.
Doug McMasters: Let's take a look at it.
Doug McMasters: I spread out my hands all day long to a rebellious people who walk in the path that is not good, following their own thoughts.
Doug McMasters: For the people of Israel, this was a direct confrontation.
Doug McMasters: These were people being talked to by their covenant God, who had rescued them, who had given them promises, who had instructed them, who had warned them not to be in the place that they're at.
Doug McMasters: And he says he's been standing there with outstretched arms.
Doug McMasters: And they just simply walked by it like they didn't even see his reach, following their own thoughts.
Doug McMasters: He said, These are people whose lives are shaped by their own instincts rather than my revelation, whose habits are reflecting the values of the surrounding world rather than the revelation of my person.
Doug McMasters: Ignoring God, ignoring his counsel, ignoring his invitations, and even ignoring his warnings, building their entire spiritual world in direct contradiction to God.
Doug McMasters: And the indictment lays that out really clearly.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 3.
Doug McMasters: These people continually anger me to my face, sacrificing in gardens, burning incense on bricks, sitting among the graves, spending night in secret places, eating the meat of pigs and putting polluted broth in their bowls.
Doug McMasters: Wow, the indictment is striking.
Doug McMasters: Now, these things seem a little odd to us, especially those of us who like bacon.
Doug McMasters: But there's something about how treacherous these practices are, because every one of them is a direct violation to God's covenant stipulations to them as a special people.
Doug McMasters: They sacrifice in the gardens, the places God forbade them to make those sacrifices.
Doug McMasters: They burn incense on bricks, rituals borrowed from pagan idolatry.
Doug McMasters: They sit among the graves and spend nights in secret places talking about their love of the occult, of trying to get a word of wisdom from the diviners and the soothsayers, eating the meat of pigs and polluting broth in their bowls.
Doug McMasters: These are not missteps, these are egregious and deliberate violations of God's law.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah wants them to see something that's even more sobering than that.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at the next verse.
Doug McMasters: They say, Keep to yourself, don't come near me, for I am too holy for you.
Doug McMasters: Wow.
Doug McMasters: These are people who are living in open rebellion to God's word.
Doug McMasters: At the very same time, they're claiming a superior holiness to other people.
Doug McMasters: What a contradiction.
Doug McMasters: It's deceived self-righteousness wearing the clothes of devotion.
Doug McMasters: And they think that their practices are legitimate.
Doug McMasters: They have wandered so far from God and have so closed their ears to hearing Him that they can no longer tell the difference between worship and idolatry.
Doug McMasters: They can no longer tell the difference between devotion and rebellion.
Doug McMasters: They can no longer tell the difference between the voice of God and the voice of their own desires.
Doug McMasters: God wants us to feel the weight of that too.
Doug McMasters: He wants us to see that sin left unchallenged will cause us to drift.
Doug McMasters: And that drift will harden and blind as it grows.
Doug McMasters: And it will harden and blind so much so that we can have a spiritual life that feels sincere and be in direct rebellion against God Himself.
Doug McMasters: And all the while thinking, wasn't that a great worship experience?
Doug McMasters: God warns us to listen.
Doug McMasters: Paul understood the dynamic of this, and he speaks about it in a developmental way in Romans chapter 10.
Doug McMasters: He looks at his own people in his generation.
Doug McMasters: People who had the scriptures, people who had the covenants, people who had the promises, people who had had the reception of the Messiah himself, and he sees in Isaiah 65 the tragedy that Isaiah saw in his generation.
Doug McMasters: Many of Paul's fellow Jewish people, as he was, were zealous, devout, sincere.
Doug McMasters: But their sincerity of religion was not submission to God.
Doug McMasters: It was actually self-righteousness.
Doug McMasters: Their devotion wasn't an expression of love and attachment to God.
Doug McMasters: It was actually denial of Him.
Doug McMasters: Their worship was not genuine.
Doug McMasters: And Paul in Romans chapter 10 explains the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: He explains its growth and its development in the world.
Doug McMasters: And he talks about whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, for the same Lord is rich over all to Jew and to Gentile.
Doug McMasters: Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Doug McMasters: And he talks about that message going forth.
Doug McMasters: And he says, faith comes from what is heard.
Doug McMasters: Have they not heard?
Doug McMasters: Yes, they did.
Doug McMasters: He says in Romans 10.
Doug McMasters: The voice has gone out to the whole earth, and the words to the end of the world.
Doug McMasters: But I ask again, and Paul brings in that question again.
Doug McMasters: Did they not understand?
Doug McMasters: First, Moses said, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation, and I'll make you angry by a nation that lacks understanding.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah says boldly, I was found by those who were not looking for me.
Doug McMasters: I revealed myself to those who were not asking.
Doug McMasters: But to Israel, he said, All day long have I held out my hands to a disobedient and defiant people.
Doug McMasters: Paul looks around him and he sees things happening.
Doug McMasters: He sees Gentiles, people who are not seeking God, turning to Christ in joy.
Doug McMasters: And he sees the people who are expecting the Messiah and waiting for him and letting Jesus walk right by them without saying, that's the one.
Doug McMasters: Who have every advantage but are refusing the gospel.
Doug McMasters: And so he uses Isaiah 65 and verse 1 and says, Those are the Gentiles.
Doug McMasters: I was heard by a people who were not listening.
Doug McMasters: And he uses verse 2 and says, Those are my fellow countrymen.
Doug McMasters: God has been stretching out his hands all day long to them, and they haven't responded.
Doug McMasters: He's put the voice of his wondrous grace in the Messiah out there, and they have not opened their ears.
Doug McMasters: What does Paul say?
Doug McMasters: What does Isaiah say?
Doug McMasters: It is possible to be deeply religious and deeply defiant against God at the same time.
Doug McMasters: You've got your truth, I've got my truth, you've got your way, as long as we're all just sincere.
Doug McMasters: Because really it's sincerity that matters.
Doug McMasters: Yeah.
Doug McMasters: Have you asked God whether that's Right or not?
Doug McMasters: Because here he says it isn't right.
Doug McMasters: It's actually defiance, not sincerity, that you're practicing in your worship time.
Doug McMasters: And it's not just an out there problem either.
Doug McMasters: There are people in churches today who live in patterns of sin just as sensuous and serious as what Isaiah describes here.
Doug McMasters: Patterns of behavior, while they're singing about the marriage supper of the Lamb, they're doing things that are destroying their own marriages.
Doug McMasters: Who are saying, I love the God who cannot lie, but then they're distorting the truth with their neighbor.
Doug McMasters: Who are saying, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner, and then they step all over vulnerable people in their business decisions, who violate the holiness of God and yet see themselves as faithful Christians.
Doug McMasters: Speaking the language of devotion, practicing the rhythms of worship, assuming they're walking with God, people today who are rewriting moral boundaries in order to accommodate their personal desires, reshaping scripture to fit their life choices rather than their choices being fit by what Scripture says.
Doug McMasters: Who's saying that the things that they're doing are simply their ability to have freedom or they're just showing their authenticity and using that as a cloak for their disobedience, or speaking of grace and love and peace to defend what they're doing rather than naming it what God says.
Doug McMasters: It's destructive and sin.
Doug McMasters: People who cloak greed or lust or gossip under the veneer of Christian respectability.
Doug McMasters: Learn how to appear righteous and yet nurture patterns that contradict everything God says.
Doug McMasters: And it's not just in the pews, it's in the pulpit, all over the place.
Doug McMasters: Pastors who use their sexual their spiritual authority to manipulate vulnerable women, who frame sexual sin as caring for the shepherd.
Doug McMasters: Or we have some special connection.
Doug McMasters: God has brought two hearts together.
Doug McMasters: How horrible and horrific that is.
Doug McMasters: Look, look, look, it's written in front of me, I will not keep silent.
Doug McMasters: I will repay.
Doug McMasters: I will repay them fully.
Doug McMasters: For your iniquities and the iniquities of your ancestors together, says the Lord, because they burned incense on the mountains and reproached me on the hills, I will reward them fully for their former deeds.
Doug McMasters: So now in verses 11 to 15, God unpacks what that chosen path of rebellion leads to.
Doug McMasters: And what is he doing?
Doug McMasters: He's using very stark language, very, very startling language to break through the illusion that you can be self-righteous and refuse God and still be blessed.
Doug McMasters: To show us that the consequences of turning from God are not just abstracts, they're personal, they're devastating, and they're real.
Doug McMasters: And he presses this down on us so that we might be awake, that we might be prompted to repentance, lest we be crushed by the judgment that this speaks about.
Doug McMasters: And just look at the verses, verse 12, all the way through 15.
Doug McMasters: I will destine you for the sword, and all you will kneel down to be slaughtered, because I called and you did not answer.
Doug McMasters: I spoke and you did not hear.
Doug McMasters: You did what was evil in my sight and chose what I did not delight in.
Doug McMasters: Therefore, this is what the Lord says.
Doug McMasters: And then in verse 13, he says, You're going to be hungry, you're going to be thirsty, you're going to be put to shame.
Doug McMasters: In verse 14, you're going to cry out with a broken spirit and heart.
Doug McMasters: In verse 15, you will leave your name behind as a curse for my chosen ones.
Doug McMasters: And then it ends up, the Lord God will kill you.
Doug McMasters: All of this to words, to people who are assuming that the direction of their life doesn't matter.
Doug McMasters: That God will always be there to bless, that God will always be there to comfort, that God will always be there to affirm, no matter how far they've drifted away.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah says those assumptions are deadly.
Doug McMasters: That's poison.
Doug McMasters: Because a life that continually pushes God away is going to discover that they're not able to find any of the things that they had hoped for.
Doug McMasters: Because the ultimate end will be no peace, no joy, no stability, no identity, no life.
Doug McMasters: None.
Doug McMasters: And that heart that started out refusing God's voice becomes a heart that can't hear God's voice.
Doug McMasters: But one day that voice will break through the deafness and silence.
Doug McMasters: And it will not be a word of welcome.
Doug McMasters: It will be barren and bitter.
Doug McMasters: These are hard, hard words.
Doug McMasters: But they are the consequences of refusing God that finally lands in ultimate judgment.
Doug McMasters: It begins with the slow erosion of the soul, the quiet hardening of the heart, the gradual loss of spiritual appetites, the growing inability to recognize God's voice, and the voice of your own desires, and the call of the people outside begins to speak louder to you than that, and then you eventually end up here.
Doug McMasters: Right here.
Doug McMasters: Simply to scare, but to awaken.
SPEAKER_01: To bring us to the end of ourselves.
Doug McMasters: For us to say, you know, what am I doing?
Doug McMasters: Why am I not listening to him?
Doug McMasters: Thankfully, this is not the end of this story here.
Doug McMasters: Because we've skipped over a little section and we've entered into a part that we've emphasized only half of.
Doug McMasters: It tells something else.
Doug McMasters: And it goes back to those first words in verse 1 of this God who says, Here I am.
Doug McMasters: Here I am.
Doug McMasters: And he shows us here that God not only stands ready to receive, he's ready to reward all those who are his.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 8.
Doug McMasters: And listen to it now.
Doug McMasters: The Lord says this as the new wine is formed in a bunch of grapes, and one says, Don't destroy it, for there's some good in it, so will act because of my servants and not destroy them all.
Doug McMasters: I will produce descendants from Jacob and heirs to my mountain from Judah.
Doug McMasters: My choice ones will possess it, and my servants will dwell there.
Doug McMasters: God now turns our attention to his mercy, mercy, that he is going to act even amongst those who are not paying attention to him.
Doug McMasters: And he draws an understanding from an imagery in a vineyard about a worker who's about to discard a cluster of grapes because, well, it just looks ruined.
Doug McMasters: And someone says to that worker who's about to throw those grapes away, saying, Look, don't destroy those.
Doug McMasters: Give them here.
Doug McMasters: There's still something good in that.
Doug McMasters: And God says that's how He's going to deal with Judah.
Doug McMasters: He's not going to utterly crush the people.
Doug McMasters: He's not going to leave them utterly left dead in the wasteland.
Doug McMasters: He's going to do something there.
Doug McMasters: He's going to take people from what looks like a ruined bunch of grapes, and he's going to make sure that they're alive, that some of them are still responsive, that some of them are still capable of bearing fruit.
Doug McMasters: And to those, he's going to protect and keep.
Doug McMasters: And in verse 9, he talks about bringing forth descendants from Jacob and heirs of my mountains from Judah and his choice ones possessing it.
Doug McMasters: What is this?
Doug McMasters: This is language of God's promise of his covenant keeping promises.
Doug McMasters: And what he's saying here is he's not simply preserving individuals, he's preserving his promise.
Doug McMasters: He's safeguarding the line through which his purposes will come to final completion.
Doug McMasters: And even though the nation of Judah is bleak and worthy of judgment, even though they have nothing to offer and have not been listening to him for generations, he's going to keep a remnant among them, to keep the line of his promises intact, so that his redemptive plan will continue to move forward.
Doug McMasters: Because here we see that this remnant theme is not just a side note in a poetic expression, but it is the theme that carries the story of Israel forward into the New Testament.
Doug McMasters: Because God keeps his people alive and preserves them.
Doug McMasters: And from those preserved people will come their Messiah.
Doug McMasters: And some of them will believe.
Doug McMasters: And the remnant that will receive this Redeemer will also be those who will open the doors to the nations that they might believe.
Doug McMasters: And this is why Paul reached for Isaiah 65 in Romans chapter 10.
Doug McMasters: I was found by those who did not seek me.
Doug McMasters: Even among the Jewish people as well as among the Gentile people.
Doug McMasters: Because God here is saying he's going to keep his promise.
Doug McMasters: He's going to be found by people who aren't thinking about him right now.
Doug McMasters: He's going to give mercy that will guard the remnant in order to give mercy to an unseeking world.
Doug McMasters: And then he talks about how delightful that's going to be in verses 13 and 14.
Doug McMasters: My servants will eat.
Doug McMasters: My servants will drink.
Doug McMasters: My servants will rejoice.
Doug McMasters: My servants will shout for joy from a glad heart.
Doug McMasters: Some people are going to do that today during the Super Bowl.
Doug McMasters: They're going to eat, they're going to drink, they're going to rejoice, and they're going to shout for joy.
Doug McMasters: Especially if you're a Patriots fan, right, Royal?
Doug McMasters: She's the only one in the room who's a Patriots fan.
Doug McMasters: She's already talking new dynasty.
Doug McMasters: Now these are simple images, right?
Doug McMasters: And we could put them into the framework as something as really as unimportant in the big sphere of things as a Super Bowl.
Doug McMasters: Eating, drinking, rejoicing, shouting.
Doug McMasters: We could do that this afternoon.
Doug McMasters: But this isn't just because they're simple and familiar words to us, they speak of something far better.
Doug McMasters: My servants will eat, my servants will drink, my servants will rejoice, my servants will shout.
Doug McMasters: Why are they shouting?
Doug McMasters: Why are they eating and drinking in gladness and delight and joy?
Doug McMasters: Because their sins are forgiven.
Doug McMasters: Because they're restored to God.
Doug McMasters: Because they're now His.
Doug McMasters: This is not a shallow joy.
Doug McMasters: This is a shout of people who deserve judgment, who have been preserved and welcomed.
Doug McMasters: And he goes on in verse 15.
Doug McMasters: He said, I will give, he will give his servants another name.
Doug McMasters: Another name.
Doug McMasters: These are people whose identities have now been changed.
Doug McMasters: Shaped not by their failures, but by God's faithfulness and his grace.
Doug McMasters: Their old name, one that was tied to rebellion, it's not going to define them anymore.
Doug McMasters: God's going to give them a new name.
Doug McMasters: And he himself will name them.
Doug McMasters: And he wants them to know that his relationship to them is not reflective of what they were in the past, but reflective on who he is and his grace.
Doug McMasters: This is the new name.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah just drops this in as a seed of thought here.
Doug McMasters: But when we get to the New Testament, Jesus talks about having his people and calling them out by name.
Doug McMasters: And Paul talks about people being part of a new creation, and all things are new.
Doug McMasters: Something's different about all of us.
Doug McMasters: And then Peter talks about us being a people for God's possession.
Doug McMasters: And then it culminates in the book of Revelation in Revelation 2.17, where Jesus speaks and he says, I will give them a white stone, and on that stone a new name.
Doug McMasters: And then in chapter 3 and verse 12, I will write on him the name of my God and my new name.
Doug McMasters: And they're going to be identified as his.
Doug McMasters: Lord, where are you?
Doug McMasters: Why are you silent?
Doug McMasters: Remember God's answer.
Doug McMasters: Here I am.
Doug McMasters: If he was a God who made his voice be heard in your heart when you weren't seeking him, you don't need to doubt if his ears are toward you now that you're one of his.
Doug McMasters: You don't have to cry, where are you?
Doug McMasters: You can say, My troubles have so overwhelmed me, I'm not sure I can listen well.
Doug McMasters: But you never have to say in truth, where are you?
Doug McMasters: Because he's here.
Doug McMasters: Certainly he can speak into the places of your weakness and your thirst and your hunger.
SPEAKER_01: He can speak into your uncertainties.
SPEAKER_01: He can speak into your pain.
Doug McMasters: If you're here this morning and you're and God forbid, one of the ones who's just making a show of being here, I have to warn you the way Isaiah warned, that end is destruction.
Doug McMasters: This is no place to be playing games with God or with God's people.
Doug McMasters: And if you're here this morning and you're saying, I feel like Augustine sitting in a garden in Milan and hearing the words tolalegay, tolalegay, take up and read.
Doug McMasters: I wasn't expecting to hear anything.
Doug McMasters: I just showed up because a friend yanked me here, and now I'm listening.
Doug McMasters: What's going on?
Doug McMasters: Think of it this way.
Doug McMasters: This might just seem like another day on your calendar at the moment.
Doug McMasters: But maybe in a week or a month or a year, you'll look back and say, that was the day that changed my whole life.
Doug McMasters: When God's word broke in, and I finally heard him, and I heard him say, Come unto me and I will give you rest.
Doug McMasters: And I finally wanted him to be the one who does.
Doug McMasters: Listen to him.
Doug McMasters: Listen to him when it's pleasant, listen to him when it's painful.
Doug McMasters: Listen to him when it's comfortable.
Doug McMasters: Listen to him when it makes you squirm.
Doug McMasters: But don't ever close your ears to him.
Doug McMasters: Because if you close them now, you may never be able to hear it again.
Doug McMasters: Listen to him.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Oh Father, thank you for these words that come to us this morning.
Doug McMasters: Words that have been written nearly 3,000 years ago, and yet are as contemporary as today's news.
Doug McMasters: And much, much more important.
Doug McMasters: Father, thank you that you're a God who is found by those who do not seek.
Doug McMasters: And that you say, Here I am, to people who are not calling on you.
Doug McMasters: Father, we don't want to be those who are passing by your outstretched arms and to walk in a path that's not good.
Doug McMasters: We want to be those who are embraced by those outstretched arms.
Doug McMasters: And so, Lord, we come.
Doug McMasters: And we say, Lord, help us to hear better, to hear you.
Doug McMasters: Father, I pray that what we've heard today will bring, as you design it, comfort to those who need comforting, distress who are too comfortable.
Doug McMasters: And Lord, truth to those whose eyes are filled with falsehood.
Doug McMasters: But bring security to the troubled, those who are wondering, Father, whether you could ever love them.
Doug McMasters: We pray that it will be words that will give their hearts rest, renewal and hope, security and safety, life and vitality, as they find their days anchored in the promises that you grant here, that if they come to you, they will be a part of that new heaven and new earth.
Doug McMasters: And they will be part of that experience where the past events come to their end and the newness opens up into everlasting joy.
Doug McMasters: Father, cause them to see that.
Doug McMasters: The sound of weeping and crying will no longer be heard.
Doug McMasters: One day.