Sermon Tone Analysis

©October 9th, 2022 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Isaiah

As we’ve gone through Isaiah, we’ve encountered all sorts of different things.

We’ve seen Isaiah’s call, Isaiah’s warnings to the people of Israel, the destruction of Israel, and the promise that God isn’t done with them yet.

This morning we turn our attention to Isaiah 62, where God makes promises about the future of Jerusalem and how God’s people should respond to these promises.

Isaiah 62 is a challenging passage because it raises many questions but doesn’t give answers to most of those questions.

· Who is speaking?

Is it God or Isaiah?

· When did this occur?

Was it before, during, or after the destruction of Jerusalem?

· Are the promises about Jerusalem about the earthly city or something bigger?

While there are some unanswered questions with this passage, it does have some clear teachings that are wonderfully encouraging, and that’s where we are going to direct our focus this morning as we unpack Isaiah 62.

God’s Plan for His People

The opening verses of Isaiah 62 offer some wonderful promises to God’s people.

1 Because I love Zion, I will not keep still.

Because my heart yearns for Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent.

I will not stop praying for her until her righteousness shines like the dawn, and her salvation blazes like a burning torch. 2 The nations will see your righteousness.

World leaders will be blinded by your glory.

And you will be given a new name by the Lord’s own mouth.

3 The Lord will hold you in his hand for all to see— a splendid crown in the hand of God. 4 Never again will you be called “The Forsaken City” or “The Desolate Land.”

Your new name will be “The City of God’s Delight” and “The Bride of God,” for the Lord delights in you and will claim you as his bride.

5 Your children will commit themselves to you, O Jerusalem, just as a young man commits himself to his bride.

Then God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride.

(Isaiah 62:1-5, NLT)

As I mentioned earlier, we aren’t sure whether God or Isaiah is the speaker.

Regardless, we know God has inspired these words and they give us a picture of God’s love for His people.

He does not give up on them and has a plan to restore and honor them.

These promises would have been precious to the people of Israel.

Especially after the destruction of Jerusalem and during the subsequent exile, they would have been a tremendous comfort, because it reminds the people that God hasn’t turned His back on them.

God had a plan to restore and redeem His people, no matter how things looked right now.

Imagine how we’d feel if God made such a promise to the United States.

It’s a wonderfully encouraging promise.

Throughout this passage, Isaiah makes promises referring to Zion or Jerusalem.

I believe it is clear from the context here (and elsewhere in Isaiah and throughout scripture) that these references are not so much about a specific earthly city as they are a symbolic term for God’s people.

When He speaks of Zion being the Bride of God, we know that image is often used in scripture to refer to the Church—God’s chosen people.

So when God makes these promises about restoring Zion and saying that it will no longer be called “The Forsaken City” or “The Desolate Land”, it is right for us to also hear that He is saying that His chosen people are not forsaken.

And we should hear in these verses not only a promise to the people of Israel in Isaiah’s day, but a promise to us as well—as everyone who believes is part of God’s chosen people.

So the promise that God does not abandon His people and has a plan for us is good news not just for the people in Isaiah’s day, but us as well.

It is interesting that He says that the salvation of Zion blazes like a burning torch.

Why does God’s salvation of His people burn like a torch?

It is because it’s God who is doing all the work, and as people see the changes in God’s people, it points them to the Lord, who is making these changes.

We must never forget that our hope and our salvation come from God alone.

If we are placing our hope anywhere else, we will be disappointed.

So these opening verses teach us that no matter what you are facing, you can keep trusting that God is working.

We can get discouraged for lots of reasons: because of sin, persecution, or because things just aren’t going the way we think they should.

It is often tempting to think God has given up on us, but these verses remind us that no matter what happens in our lives, God promises He isn’t done with us.

A Call to Diligent Prayer

The next section sees Isaiah calling people to diligent prayer.

The picture of prayer we see in these verses should challenge us greatly.

6 O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls; they will pray day and night, continually.

Take no rest, all you who pray to the Lord.

7 Give the Lord no rest until he completes his work, until he makes Jerusalem the pride of the earth.

8 The Lord has sworn to Jerusalem by his own strength: “I will never again hand you over to your enemies.

Never again will foreign warriors come and take away your grain and new wine.

9 You raised the grain, and you will eat it, praising the Lord.

Within the courtyards of the Temple, you yourselves will drink the wine you have pressed.”

(Isaiah 62:6-9, NLT)

Here Isaiah speaks to the watchmen of Israel and tells them to pray boldly and persistently for God to keep His promises.

This is the challenge I believe He issues to every believer today as well.

We should continue to pray boldly for God to do what only God can do.

Prayer is a difficult discipline, partially because we approach it differently from the way we have conversations with other people.

Prayer is nothing more than a conversation with God.

It’s also easy for us to neglect our prayer lives because no one will force us to do it and no one knows what our prayer lives are like but us.

But I think prayer is also difficult because often when we pray for something God doesn’t immediately do what we ask.

Because of this, we often give up, and our prayer life (and spiritual life in general) suffers.

So why doesn’t God always answer our prayers the way we want?

There are several reasons.

Sometimes it’s because we don’t know what we’re asking.

We think we know what is best for us, but sometimes we unknowingly ask God for things that would harm us.

And sometimes I think God tells us no because He has something even better planned for us.

It’s like a parent telling their child they can’t have a snack right now, because they know dinner is almost ready.

Sometimes I think it feels like God doesn’t answer our prayers because He has chosen to delay.

God isn’t necessarily telling us no, He is saying, “not yet.”

Isaiah says here that when we know that we are praying for things God has promised in His word, we should be persistent in our praying.

I love that Isaiah says, “Give the Lord no rest until He completes His work.”

That kind of makes it sound like we are just supposed to keep bugging God until He does what we want.

Jesus gives us a different perspective on this idea of persistent prayer.

He says that if you go to a neighbor in the middle of the night and ask for help, if you keep asking, he’ll eventually get out of bed and give you the help you need.

His point is that if even your grumpy old neighbor will eventually get up and help you, then how much more can we be certain the Lord will help us when we ask?

Our goal in persistent prayer is not to wear down God until He does what we want, it is to keep His promises ever before us as we ask Him to act and wait for Him to answer.

I love the acronym PUSH for prayer.

It stands for Pray Until Something Happens.

Sometimes God doesn’t change our situation until He changes our hearts or attitudes.

Spending time with the Lord and baring our hearts before Him has a funny way of changing us.

As we spend time with the Lord, we will find our hearts, our priorities, and our thought processes get more aligned with His.

Often prayer will change us before it changes our circumstances.

We should pray until something happens, recognizing that sometimes what will happen is God changing our hearts.

Verses 8 and 9 raise some potential questions for us, especially if you are familiar with the history of Israel at all.

When God promises that He will never allow Jerusalem to be handed over to its enemies again, question what that means.

We know that in 168 BC Antiochus IV Epiphanes came to Jerusalem and tried to set up his own rule, even desecrating the temple.

In AD 70, Rome completely destroyed Jerusalem.

Israel did not exist as a nation again until 1948.

And even today, Israel does not have control of Jerusalem, and a Muslim mosque sits on the temple mount!

So how can we say that God has kept His promises to never allow Jerusalem to be handed over to its enemies?

Remember when we read about Jerusalem and Zion in these verses, I don’t believe they are referring to the earthly city of Jerusalem.

Rather, I believe they are promises to God’s chosen people that He will protect and provide for them.

In addition, in the book of Revelation God promises that there will be a New Jerusalem, a place where God will dwell with man and where things will be restored forever.

He promises us that one day we will all live in this city where we no longer need to worry about war, or fighting, or destruction.

We will live in the Jerusalem built by God.

I believe this is the right way to understand the promises in verses 8 and 9.

Clear the Way