Isaiah 56 - The Harvest

SERMON TEXT:

Let’s open our Bibles together this morning to the 56th chapter of Isaiah. We will be looking at verses 1-8.

[READ ISAIAH 56:1-8]

In the way scholars and commentators often divide the book of Isaiah, they tell us that chapter 56 begins a new section of the book, a third major division that goes all the way to the end of chapter 66.

But if I may be forgiven for stealing a quote from sportscaster Lee Corso, I would say - “not so fast, my friends.”

I do think a new section of the book begins in this chapter, but because of the way the chapters are divided, it begins in verse 9 of this chapter.

The verses we will look at this morning are the crown upon the head of the preceding chapters.

I remind you that chapter 53 was all about the foundation of the church, Jesus Christ, and the price He paid to redeem His people.

And then chapter 54 was the great promises of God made to the church.

Chapter 55, which we looked at last week, is the message and mission of the church.

So you may be asking yourself what’s missing?

These first verses in chapter 56 show to us the RESULT of the message of the gospel.

This is the picture of the HARVEST that the gospel brings.

When the church is saved by grace through faith, built by the Holy Spirit of God, and sent into all the world to preach the gospel, what then?

We looked at the promise last week of what comes next:

Isaiah 55:10–11 ““For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

So chapter 56 is a picture of God’s gospel word doing what it is intended to do.

For the church, with the gospel on our hearts and on our lips, we hear the words of our Lord: Matthew 9:37–38 “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.””

And we see example after example in our text today of the effect of the Spirit of God working through the word of God.

The first effect of the gospel is that it makes holy people.

It makes a people who are separated from the world and gathered close to God Himself.

That’s what we see in verses 1-2:

Isaiah 56:1–2 “Thus says the Lord: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.””

If we walk in the door declaring only the forgiveness from God for sin, many people will be drawn to it, overjoyed to have their sins erased and their slate wiped clean.

Everyone wants a second or third chance, or an inexhaustible number of do-overs in their lives.

Mega-churches are filled with people who are looking for that kind of forgiveness.

I go out and sin, but then I just confess it and everything is better; I can go back out and sin again.

For many Roman Catholics, that is the magic of the confessional box: forgiveness so they can go out and sin more.

For many Protestants, the only difference is we don’t have to tell anyone our sin; we just forgive ourselves in Jesus’s name.

But the gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t just there to forgive our sins; it’s there for a purpose:

To make us into holy people.

To make us into righteous people.

To mold us into just people.

To remake us, re-create us, convert us into the image of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 1:3–4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”

1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

How many people stumble over the simple truth that every single person is thoroughly warped?

“Totally depraved” is how we see it written often.

One could also say “thoroughly corrupt.”

It doesn’t mean we are as bad as we COULD be, but it does mean we are too evil, too sinful in our nature to be of any use or pleasure toward God.

We are bent from the very beginning by the guilt of sin we inherit from our first parents, Adam and Eve, and all our sin flow out of that corruption and ruin.

But many would object.

They would point to some good things they or others have done as evidence of the abiding good creation still in them.

They would say “See, I gave a generous donation and offered selfless service on behalf of someone else, asking nothing in return. Surely this merits something before God. Surely this offsets a sin or two. Surely it proves I am not a bad person, certainly not ‘totally depraved’.”

The other day, I saw a bicycle that had been run over by a truck.

It still had two wheels with tires,

It still had handlebars and pedals.

It still had a seat.

But it was warped so badly that it was almost folded in two.

Is there any way you would describe that bicycle as “useful”?

Could it even be described as “good”?

Or perhaps you consider a beautiful vase, crafted by a master potter a thousand years ago.

And that vase falls to the ground and shatters into a thousand pieces, none larger than an inch square.

Sure, you may find a piece large enough to see the glaze or paint on the surface.

But in its ruined state, it is useless for what it was created for.

It is completely ruined.

Thoroughly useless.

You can polish the larger pieces, buffing them until they shine,

But they will never be able to hold water or flowers.

You can sand, paint, and polish the gnarled metal of that bicycle,

But in its state, it will never carry a person from one place to another.

That is the great offense of the gospel:

That a person must be remade, re-created.

That we cannot simply be shined up, polished, and thus make our entrance before the God of all Creation.

We are too ruined for that.

We are too broken to be of use.

There is no amount of forgiving the wrecked bicycle for being ugly that will make it ridable.

There is no amount of forgiving the shards of the vase that will cause them to become the original beautiful, masterful, useful object.

And there is no amount of forgiveness that can make a person useful or pleasing to God.

WE MUST BE REMADE.

And that is what God does through Jesus Christ.

He takes us, ruined and warped, and remakes us for His use.

Your salvation, your conversion from death to life, is for the glory of God, not to find acceptance for your warped-ness.

He didn’t shed His precious blood to preserve you and your sin; He did it to FREE you from your sin for His glory.

He did it to DESTROY your sin without destroying YOU.

That’s what Isaiah is telling us.

He isn’t saying to keep justice and do righteousness to GET God’s salvation;

We do those things BECAUSE OF God’s salvation.

We do those things BECAUSE we are saved.

When we see these fruits of the Spirit flowing from our lives, we have assurance, confidence before God, knowing by faith that we belong to Him because He is remaking us.

And because we have endured, persevered in following Him, we have confidence we are His.

2 Corinthians 3:2–4 “You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.”

The second effect of the gospel is that it brings in outcasts.

Isaiah 56:3–5 “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”

Throughout your life, you will be amazed at the people God will bring to Himself.

We proclaim Christ to our children because no one is too young to hear of the merciful Creator.

We proclaim Christ to the broken-hearted because it is only in Him that healing will come.

We proclaim Christ in nursing homes because no one is too old to come to Him.

We proclaim Christ in prisons because no one is too vile to come to Him.

And everywhere we preach Christ, we have the assurance of God that His word will accomplish His purpose.

Consider how many times we see foreigners come to Christ.

Foreigners as in “Gentiles”, non-Jews.

No one who comes to God through Jesus Christ will be cast aside or cast out.

John 6:37 “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”

And then we see the Ethiopian eunuch, an ACTUAL eunuch, come to Christ.

Those are not all who come to Christ; they are representatives.

They show that if THEY can come to Christ, anyone can.

Even the great persecutor of the early church, Saul of Tarsus, was brought to Christ:

1 Timothy 1:15–17 “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Who are the ones you have overlooked or given up on?

Who is the person you think is the least likely to bow their knees willingly before God?

Who requires great grace and mercy from you?

Who needs the mercy and grace of our Father?

The third effect of the gospel is that it assembles God’s people for Himself.

See the harvest brought in, represented by the threshing floor-turned-temple of Zion:

Isaiah 56:6–8 ““And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.””

Now it would be really easy to read into these verses some kind of “works salvation”.

We might read this and summarize it in our heads to “Obey My Law and I will bring you to Myself”.

But look at the criteria He lists:

Join themselves to God

To serve the Lord - that is, like the priests - worshipping Him

To love the Lord

To keep the Sabbath - that is, to REST in Him.

To cling to His covenant - the covenant of Grace.

And it all culminates in the statement Jesus cries out when He is ejecting the merchants and moneychangers who had so crowded the Court of the Gentiles that no worship could occur there:

My house shall be called a house of prayer

There are many names God could give to His holy hill, but the House of Prayer is the one He declared.

Not the “House of Sacrifice” – that focuses on what WE give.

Not the “House of Work” – where our works are tallied and collected to make a good showing before God.

But “House of Prayer” – where God’s people acknowledge our reliance and dependence on Him alone.

Prayer is the truest measure of how reliant you are upon God.

Those who are full and healthy find it often more difficult to pray, feeling it more of a duty than a need.

But those who are hurting, suffering, are needy or weak - they pray truly, authentically from the depth of their need.

The Pharisee raises his hands as if he offers something God needs;

The tax collector beats his breast knowing nothing but need.

It is in prayer that we find weaknesses we never knew we had, and we find the strength of God that is perfected in us through them.

It is in prayer that we ask for daily bread, knowing that both the bread we eat and the other daily things we need come from our loving Father.

It is in prayer where we consider God’s glory and long to see it.

It’s in prayer that we can discover our true needs rather than our selfish desires.

Prayer is powerful - not because we are powerful or our praying is powerful;

Prayer is powerful because we go before our great Father, the Sovereign Lord of the universe, and beg for His power to be used on our behalf.

Prayer is powerful because your Heavenly Father WANTS to give you every good and perfect gift.

Recall that in His ascended state, Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, is constantly lifting the prayers of God’s holy ones.

Romans 8:34 “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

Hebrews 7:23–25 “The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

So we see in this passage the harvest of God, the ingathering of all His people from every tribe and tongue.

To gather a holy people.

To bring near those who were once far off.

And to gather us to Himself.