Trails and Suffering as a Christian
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Alot of Is 30 would be familiar ground if you have been with us through the last couple chapters. You can go listen to them if you want to catch up later.
But to give you the brief overview:
We’re in the middle of 6 woes
Alot of this is judgment announced on God’s people for their rebellion, for the way they ignored Him and misttreated him.
The coming judgement is primarily the fall of Israel to Assyria and later on, Babylon in the South
but God has also promised a better future for his people, so that this will not be the end. There is a hope beyond the judgment.
Because the judgment sections are quite similar to the last two weeks, I have taken the liberty of passing over them to focus in on a section in the middle of Ch 30 where there is a beautiful illumination of God’s graciousness!
This passage highlights 3 aspects of God’s grace that we can look at in turn.
The LORD is Gracious In Repentance (v18)
The LORD is Gracious In Repentance (v18)
Even though I’m focusing from 18 onwards, it’s actually helpful to have a quick look at v15, because it helps set things up for us. Look with me:
For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,
God is interested in our repentance, and it is the path to salvation. This is not just a New Testament idea, as we see here it is offered to God’s OT people.
They are facing promised judgment, and God says, if you turn back and rest in me, you will be saved.
God sent them many prophets to warn them!
But what do the people do? They were unwilling. They didn’t want it.
Perhaps they were to entrapped and didn’t think there was a way back
Perhaps they thought their sin wasn;’t a big deal,
Perhaps they though God’s blessing would cintinue no matter how they lived,
Perhaps they started to perceive that they were in the wrong, and they just stopped up their ears. They refused to hear what God was saying.
That is how we respond to God too! God calls you to repent of your sin!
Perhaps you are to entrapped and didn’t think there was a way back
Perhaps you think sin isn’t a big deal,
Perhaps you thought God’s blessing would cintinue no matter how you live,
Perhaps you started to perceive that you are in the wrong, and just stop up your ears. You refuse to hear what God is saying.
If you turn back, if you repent, you will be saved!
Turn to Jesus and find rest.
Stop striving against the Lord.
You do not need to save the world and fix everything, instead you need to look to the LORD God almighty, who has come to you in Jesus Christ, you’ll find peace and strength in Him where you would otherwise find judgment.
Heare this balm for your souls! Read v18:
Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
The LORD created us, and sovreignly ordained our fall into sin. He is not the author or initiator of sin. But when he created the world he decided to make this timeline, the one in which mankind sins agaisnt God.
God could have stopped it. He could have prevented us from ever sinning and creating the awful things we see around us.
Yet consider this - in a world where there is only perfection, only ever obedience, only love how does one ever show mercy?
Grace?
Forgiveness?
Justice?
You can’t show mercy to perfect people.
You can’t firgive somone who never whronged you.
Grace is not grace when it is deserved.
You cannot execute justice without rebellion.
You see God needed to create a world where rebellion was permitted to exist in order that God might show his grace, show his mercy, show his justice.
He delights to be himself! To display his glorious character by being gracious, and merciful, and just.
And in the context of ancient Israel, Isaiah comforts his people with this knowledge - God is waiting to show you grace, he will delight to show you mercy, if only you will turn to him!
And if you turn to him, and you turn away from sin, then he will not cast you away.
He will not drive you off as if you were and inconveneince, or you weren’t good enough.
He will recieve you.
He will be your rest.
He will become your strength.
He will cleanse you.
He will forgive you.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God does this through Jesus Christ. Your sins can be atoned fro, that’s why Jesus died on a Cross. There God justly punishes sin, but Jesus steps in as your deliverer and cops the cost for you, in your place.
Now the forgiveness of sins os proclaimed, and received by all who trust in Jesus!
As those who have had our sins forgiven we wait upon the LORD, we wait for our final deliverance from our enemies, nameley Satan Sin & Death.
Israle was surrounded by their enemies, but if they turned to their God, he would deliver them.
The same promise is held out to us - we can find delivernace. We have already received the down-payment from Jesus. Now we wait upon the Lord to provide the rest of it.
The LORD is Gracious In Adverstity (v19-22)
The LORD is Gracious In Adverstity (v19-22)
All this talk of grace and strength is amazing. Yet for Isaiah’s listeners, they were still facing the prospect of Jerusalem being destroyed and their whole land being overun by attackers & opressors.
So here they are comforted with the news that GOd will save them, and will eventually deliver them from their troubles.
For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.
God does hear the cries of his people. He answers their pleas with grace.
Although the people had no right to exist, given their crimes against God, he will nontheless establish his holy city, and it will be full of people. Zion shall not be a place of mourning, Jerusalem shall not be a wasteland. God has plans for his people and he will carry them out.
When they do turn back to God, he will hear them
Sadly, this truning back to God is not going to come before they learn a very difficult lesson. They are continuing in rebellion, and God is going to bring upon them the consequences of that. They will suffer great adversity:
And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.
Isaiah prophesies the LORD will reveal himself on the other side of their affliction. They will suffer adversity and affliction as if they are eating it for rations, but the God will show himself.
They shall be instructed by God himself.
Remember at Mt Sainai, God came to give them the Law - the instruction, the teaching?
The LORD spoke and the people could not bear it - so Moses became their go-between. The people were instructed by God through intermediaries like Moses.
This looks to a day, through their aflliction, where God will come to them as their teacher, so they can see him, so they can hear him. No more intermediaries - they will be instructed directly.
This didn’t happen after Exile...
This is Jesus - Jesus is the promised Teacher!
He came preaching the truth, correcting their misunderstanding of the law, he brought them the vary words of Father.
He was tangible, in human flesh - they heard him and they saw him.
And Jesus himself said:
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus showed them the way to the Father - through himself. He became the Way, and now we walk in Him.
He sent his spirit to lead and guide us, applying the Teaching and keeping us from venturing off the path.
This filfills other prophesied promises - that God would come and instruct us personally, and apply his instruction to our heart.
And what is the result when this happen? The people turn back from their sin:
Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”
Ditch the Idols!
Idols were often wood or stone overlayed with a precious metal.
But the people will hate their sin so much, they will throw godl & silver away like garbage - pop gold & silver in the bin and put it out for collection.
Now the ESV has made this language more polite then it realy is. So i’m going to emphasise it for you in the way it is intended in the text - they will throw away the idols like used period-pads and say “Yuck, get it away”
Jesus teaches us to despise our sin and throw it off. Kill sin
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
When we come to terms with our rebeleion against God, and we turn away from it, it means we can’t keep living in it.
And while we still struggle in the flesh, we got kill sin.
Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
Hate what God hates! Love what God loves!
Although God may lead us through times of discipline, God is bringing his people to a place where there are no more tears, and where, through his instruction we will throw off our trasgressions to be faithful to God.
The LORD is Gracious In Restoration (v23-26)
The LORD is Gracious In Restoration (v23-26)
This last aspect of God’s grace paints a picture of abundance and fruitfulness that would have been beyond what Israel could ever experience. This is something that has happend in places and times of abundance, but this has not been fulfilled yet, it looks to a future beyond what we could ever hope to experience in a world where sin & death still exist. God is promising paradise in a way that the people of that day would appreciate:
And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork.
Israel relied on seasonal rain - God will supply it, which supplies bread.
There will be abundance! Richness, plenty!
Ideal land. Now while you might be able to imagine places around the world that are like this (Gippsland for example!) - there was nothing like this in Israel. It was beyond their experience.
Their livestock will eat highquality fodder!
A picture of abuncae and fullness and prosperity.
And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
You don’t get much water at the tops of mountains, and as I said, Israel doesn’t have big rivers, so this is a promise that there will be so much water, it will be abundant.
When does this come? After great judgment. I take this as an allusion to Judgement day, when all the wicked nations fall.
It’s where the whole cosmos will be transformed, so not only is the earth changed, the heavens are amplified!
Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.
In a world before cheap and abundant artificial light, darkness was a real problem and fear.
The moon will be so bright, it wll be like the sun!
The sun will be aplified in its greatness! It will be 7 times better! (perfect number)
Are you thinking about how the earth would be cooked if we were to get 7 times more light? Stop thinking like a modern, and see the poetic intention of the text. 7 times better!
This will be acompanied with the healing of God’s people. Their suffering and wounds will be taken away.
Your hope for the future - live in light of New Heaven and Earth.
So What?
So What?
The Lord is Gracious in...
Repentance - he waits for us to return, and he will gladly receive us.
Adversity - God will lead us through aversity, but he hears us, and he comes to teach us to put away sin.
Restoration - He is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory where properity and goodness reigns.
The LORD is gracious!
The Lord has set a table before you in the presence of your enemies!
