Perfect Peace
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Shalom Shalom!
Peace Peace!
If only such peace could be ours!
Last century we suffered two global conflicts that brought much of the world to it’s knees. In the wake of the 2nd world war we thought we had learned our lesson, and that we would strive to make the world a peaceful place. We thought that if we just put our mind to it that world peace was a possibility.
Yet we look around the world and we see that war continued on in many places, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan to name a few. In recent years that war seems to be multiplying: Israel is at war with it’s neighbors, Russia and Ukraine are going at it. Syria is in turmoil.
But you might say “even if there is conflict around the world, we have peace here in our part”. And that is true enough - we do enjoy relative peace here. But… even our relative peace is imperfect. There is strife in our communities, there is crime and corruption, there is injustice and oppression, there is pain and suffering.
All of us I’m sure could look back and see some great strife that we have endured. We have all known some level of pain and suffering.
We know what it is to long for pure peace.
Peace in our relationships, our family.
Peace in our community.
Peace in our nation.
Peace in the world.
Great peace.
Full Peace.
Perfect Peace!
Such Peace is a not an impossibility. It is within reach. But it will not be won by our Utopian human projects, or by the USA being the police force for the globe, or by woke ideologies being forced upon the population, or even by being a good person.
It will not be granted by a worldwide revival of religion.
Total peace must be granted by God. It must be won by him, and given to us.
There is a path to such peace held out to you. It is promised by the word.
The LORD will do it!
This is the peace that Isaiah lays out in the song we are looking at today.
It is a song for the Day of the LORD. It is a song that comes off the back of chapters and chapters of judgement on the nations of the world, and even judgment on the world itself. The LORD promises to de-create the world as punishes the wicked, but he will save His people, even from death itself.
Isaiah, a prophet in Judah some 700 years before Jesus, he rejoices in the Salvation of God. Join me in reading through this song and I hope that you can revel along with Isaiah in God’s salvation.
Trust in YHWH for Perfect Peace
Trust in YHWH for Perfect Peace
In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
the DoY is the establishment of God’s city with his people
God’s people will be redeemed, they will be secure. Those who belong to YHWY
God’s city is for a righteous nation, they are welcomed in.
All nations should seek to be righteous nations, but here this is a reference, I believe, to God’s people as a holy nation of people.
These people have peace, but only through the LORD!
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
The LORD keeps the one in peace. God does it.
Who does God do it for? The one who trusts in him, relies on him.
Why should you trust in him? He’s the everlasting rock - immovable, firm and strong.
Perfect peace allows you to face everything this world has to offer with joy and security.
Greatest trials and anxiety can be endured when we truly trust the Lord
Anxiety finds it’s root in not trusting the LORD.
Your mind
When you find yourself in an anxiety spiral, turn to God and give over your cares to him!
Repent of your mistrust, and rest in His grace.
Trusting in God means trusting in Jesus
God in flesh
Paid for sin, including sinful anxiety and distrust.
Trust him to receive eternal life.
The Lord has always proved trustworthy, he humbles the proud:
For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust. The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.”
God accomplishes the victory over the proud and wicked cities.
Even the weakest people will be trampling down the bad guys. The smallest of God’s people will be victors!
You must trust YHWY for perfect peace. In this world there is trouble and strife, but He is making all things new, and he will sustain his people to that future. We must wait and rely on him.
Wait for YHWH, Yearn for Him
Wait for YHWH, Yearn for Him
The song continues
The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous. In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.
God clears the way for his people. It’s a “straight way” made by
We wait for God, we long for him
My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
This is the attitude of heart we should all cultivate, a yearning for God.
This all comes in the wake of judgment. Salvation & Judgment come hand in hand.
It is the scheme of the enemy to turn judgment into bad thing, and love into a perversion of God’s love. What could be better than people being offended by God’s judgment and not knowing what love really is.
Judgment reveals God’s character, and teaches others righteousness (see Achan),
We yearn must year for God & his judgement.
If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the Lord.
We know there are those who see grace as an opportunity to abuse mercy. For those who are repentant, favour and grace is a blessing. For those who are insolent, he will not learn, he will not see God’s majesty!
O Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for your adversaries consume them. O Lord, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works.
The Lord’s hand is lifted up in judgment (even today) but the wicked do not see it. So in our song, we sing for the revelation of God’s judgment to bring them to shame and destroy them.
Salvation & Judgment go hand in hand. Peace comes with the destruction of God’s enemies!
Jesus overthew those enemies stranglehold, now we are driving them out, next stop is the lake of fire.
YWHW kills the gods
YWHW kills the gods
God’s people have a sad history, we have been idolaters.
O Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
YHWH or Elohe, other adonim have ruled over us… (when?)
But now we are faithful.
We call upon the name of the lord, no other master.
God will throw down these other gods:
They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.
They are the rephaim. They are no gods who cannot live, but ours is the God of the living!
While YHWH has deposed the other master, he enlarges his own people. His realm expands!
But you have increased the nation, O Lord, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land.
Jesus is taking over all the corners of the earth!
The Dead shall sing for Joy!
The Dead shall sing for Joy!
O Lord, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them.
Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O Lord; we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.
Take Refuge from YHWH’s Fury
Take Refuge from YHWH’s Fury
Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.
For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.
So What?
So What?
Trust in YHWH for perfect peace
Wait for Him, Yearn for him
Ditch all other masters, YHWH will kill them
There is a Resurrection from the grave, The dead shall sing for Joy!
Take refuge from the coming fury!