Day of Judgment: Day of Darkness; Day of Light

“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence— as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!” (, ESV)

64 pOh that you would rend the heavens and come down,

qthat the mountains might quake at your presence—

2 1 as when fire kindles brushwood

Isaiah 64:1–2 ESV

1 Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence— 2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!

and the fire causes water to boil—

rto make your name known to your adversaries,

and that the nations might tremble at your presence!

p [; ; ]

q ;

Isaiah is lamenting the state of apostasy and rebellion against the Lord that he sees among his fellow Israelites. He appeals to God to come down from heaven in might, with shock and awe, and visible signs of his majesty and glory. The reason Isaiah prays for this is because he thinks that if God would come down with such a show of might, with great signs and wonders, then surely his enemies, the unfaithful Israelites, and others, would know the he is God and tremble at his presence.

1 Ch 64:1 in Hebrew

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I don’t know if you have ever thought the same as Isaiah–I know I have. There have been so many times that I have thought to myself that if God would perform some great sign or wonder, then maybe more people would recognize that he is God. It is a very human way of thinking about things. We tend to respond to and respect might and power and shows of strength.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

But this is not necessarily how God works. His ways are not our ways. Often, God works under the appearance of opposites. The wicked seem to prosper and the righteous suffer. The innocent die and the guilty go free. Right is regarded as wrong and wrong celebrated as right.

It appears to our human eyes and reasoning that God isn’t doing anything, or not much at all. But God has promised not only present salvation to his people through his Son, Jesus Christ, but also final salvation and the new heavens and the new earth. And God is at work accomplishing his purposes whether or not we can discern what he is doing. We walk by faith and not by sight this side of Christ’s second coming.

gives us a glimpse into these things.

The One to Whom I [the LORD] Will Look

The One to Whom I [the LORD] Will Look: The humble and contrite in spirit

Those who are humble and contrite in spirit are those who recognize their sinfulness and their need for God’s mercy and forgiveness

Those who tremble at the Word of God are those who receive his Word with reverence and in faith

Isaiah 66:1–2 ESV

1 Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? 2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

God seems to be responding to those who think that they can procure his favor by the splendor of their buildings. They seem to think that they have built the temple as if God needed such a building from them. Instead of being the place where God dispensed his gifts of grace, it became a place that demonstrated human accomplishment and became, in essence, their gift to God. (Lessing, 456)

God responds by asking the question,

“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be” ()

Imagine it, if you can: heaven is the throne of God and the earth his footstool. How immense and massive is God! He fills the universe and sits down on the heavens as if it were his throne. And he places his feet upon the earth as upon a footstool. What is any building constructed by us compared with that? How foolish we are to think that any building can contain God or that he would be impressed with the dim majesty of our most grandiose buildings.

And yet, as we will see, God does indeed condescend to come down to us and meet us even in our most humble of buildings when he comes to us in Word and Sacrament. God is present with us in his Word and our Lord Jesus is present with us also in the Holy Sacrament. God has indeed come down to us, but this is his gift, not on account of our impressive building and construction skills.

So often we think that God will have regard for the rich and powerful, or for the “spiritual all-stars.” Or if we have thousands of people attend our church or our building is massive and top-notch, the best there is. If people like Joel Osteen are to be believed, and he shouldn’t be believed, but if he is to be believed, God has regard for you when you basically demand that God bless you–with material wealth and prosperity, of course–and this brash, arrogant demanding of God’s blessing is somehow thought to be faith.

And we’re tempted to believe that they speak the truth because they’re popular, wealthy, they don’t seem to have problems, they look good with their high-end clothes and cars, and they pack out a professional sports arena week after week. We are often tempted to chase after people like that and so often we try to be like them.

But such buildings and people are not impressive to God. He will not have regard for those who despise and ignore his Word. God is not impressed with money, large buildings, fancy cars, a great following among the masses, well-tailored and delivered speeches and gripping emotional appeals. None of these things are impressive to God or incline him to give any gracious attention to you.

No, God says this in ,

Isaiah 66:2b ESV

2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

“But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and [who] trembles at my word.”

Isaiah 66:2b ESV

2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

The one who is humble and contrite in spirit is the one who recognizes, according to the Word of God, that he or she has nothing to offer God that would incline God to give gracious attention to him or her. Such a one recognizes that they live by the gift of God and that they have no righteousness of their own, but are dependent completely upon the righteousness of God in Christ. The one who is contrite in spirit knows that they have sinned against God and deserve nothing but his temporal and eternal punishment. They acknowledge their sins and sinful condition through confessing their sins before God. We could also speak of this condition as the poverty of spirit.

They are the “bruised reeds” and “dimly burning wicks” that Isaiah speaks of in chapter 42:3, in which he also declares that the chosen Servant of God, Jesus Christ, will not break or snuff out. It is not the one who exalts himself or herself to heaven before God, but the one who is lowly and humbles himself or herself before the Lord in confession of sin and repentance. This is the one to whom the Lord will look with compassion and kindness.

The one who is humble and contrite in spirit also trembles at the Word of the Lord. This trembling speaks of a proper reverence and fear toward God–not so much the fear of punishment kind of fear, but reverence and respect, acknowledging God to be God, instead of exalting ourselves as gods. The one who properly fears and reverences the Lord will hear and give attention to his holy Word.

Those who are humble and contrite in spirit and tremble at the Word of the Lord are the faithful people of God who trust his Word, and they are variously described in Scripture as God’s servants, his chosen ones, and his people who seek him. (Lessing, 459) In short, they are God’s chosen people to whom he has granted faith in his Son, the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. And that includes you, saints of God in his congregation here at St. Luke’s.

Think about it: the God of the universe, who created all that exists, both that which is visible and invisible, who dwells in heaven in unapproachable light, turns his gracious gaze toward you. Instead of gazing on the splendor of the planets and galaxies and solar systems that he created, he turns his gracious gaze to you. (Lessing, 459)

This verse is one of comfort to those who are “the afflicted, the broken in spirit, and those who tremble at [the Lord’s] Word.” (Lessing, 459) How amazing it is and comforting, too, that the God who cannot be contained by any temple or building made by human hands condescends to us, his lowly, chosen people who by his grace trust his Word and acknowledge our sins and sinfulness and are forgiven by the blood of Jesus.

The Lord will Judge His Enemies

Even if it seems like the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer, God will execute judgment upon those who reject the Lord and his Word

Syncretism is the mixing of orthodox (right) worship of the one true God with the worship of anyone or anything else

Isaiah 66:3–6 ESV

3 “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck; he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig’s blood; he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol. These have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations; 4 I also will choose harsh treatment for them and bring their fears upon them, because when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen; but they did what was evil in my eyes and chose that in which I did not delight.” 5 Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word: “Your brothers who hate you and cast you out for my name’s sake have said, ‘Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy’; but it is they who shall be put to shame. 6 “The sound of an uproar from the city! A sound from the temple! The sound of the Lord, rendering recompense to his enemies!

In these verses, God describes the wicked, his enemies. We see in this passage what is called “syncretism.” Syncretism is mixing the worship of God with idolatry. And so a man slaughters an ox–appropriate in the context of offering sacrifice to God as he commanded–and he also kills a man–a clear and capital violation of God’s commandment not to murder and an assault on God himself, for human beings are the image-bearers of God. The other comparisons reinforce the same point: sacrificing a lamb is appropriate, killing a dog is barbaric. A grain offering is good, pig’s blood was an abomination because pigs were unclean animals under the Old Covenant. A memorial offering is good, blessing or seeking a blessing from an idol is, of course, idolatry.

The Lord says that these apostates, these ungodly rebels, have

“chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations…when I spoke, they did not listen; but they did what was evil in my eyes and chose that in which I did not delight.”

This kind of mixing of the worship of God with that of idols has been around since the fall into sin, and it is no different in our day. I’m sure we could think of numerous examples. One that particularly comes to mind is that of the ELCA. Their churches often still retain the historic liturgy that we use in our own services and that the Lutheran church has long used. And so there is something of an appearance of orthodoxy, or right worship, in their churches. But at the same time, they embrace and celebrate that which the Lord hates and has declared as evil. They celebrate homosexuality and homosexual “marriage” and they embrace and promote transgenderism, which confuses and deceives people and is a twisted lie about how it is that God created human beings. They ordain women and call them “pastors” even though this is contrary to God’s Word.

They also promote the killing of children through their support of abortion and they make a mockery of sex and promote evil, calling it good. They have chosen that in which the Lord does not delight. Even though they have something of orthodoxy in their liturgy, they willingly choose to rebel against and reject God’s Word. It is sobering to consider that God has declared his judgment against such people.

We should note that not every individual in the ELCA thinks this way, but they certainly do as a denomination as a whole.

The ELCA provides a good example of this, but we must also look at ourselves and examine our own lives. Do we put on an outward pretense of orthodoxy and holiness, while at the same time think nothing of breaking God’s commandments? The severity of God’s judgment against those who act hypocritically, giving the appearance of holiness and orthodoxy while at the same time willfully and without conscience doing that which is evil in God’s sight should sober us and when we realize that we so often do the same kinds of things, we should repent of our sins and cling to the mercy of God in Christ. The hypocrite whom God judges and will bring to destruction is the one who refuses to repent, not the one who confesses his or her sins in repentance and clings to Christ. To that one he gives his grace and forgiveness, life and salvation.

God Rent the Heavens and Came Down in Jesus Christ

Jesus is God in human flesh. In the Incarnation (the taking on of human flesh by the Second Person of the Trinity), God himself indeed came down to earth.

As God created Eve from the side of Adam, so God created the Church from the side of Christ, as blood and water flowed from his side on the cross. The blood and water speak to us as to how the benefits of Christ’s death in our place are delivered and applied to us: Holy Communion and Holy Baptism.

Isaiah 66:7–14 ESV

7 “Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. 8 Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children. 9 Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?” says the Lord; “shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?” says your God. 10 “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; 11 that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.” 12 For thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees. 13 As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. 14 You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bones shall flourish like the grass; and the hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants, and he shall show his indignation against his enemies.

If you remember, Isaiah prayed in chapter 64 that God would rend the heavens and come down. Isaiah prayed that God would come down with visible displays of power and might, shock and awe, and bring about the fear and reverence of himself through a show of judgment on God’s enemies.

Well, God did rend the heavens and come down, not through a visible display of power and might, but through the seeming weakness of a baby. Jesus is God in human flesh. Indeed, St. Paul says in ,

“For in him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (, ESV)

In Christ God himself came down to earth in human flesh. And it was through the apparent weakness of an infant born to a virgin, and through the apparent weakness of the suffering and death of Jesus that God brings people to himself. The fear and reverence of the Lord and trust in his Word comes through the person and work of Jesus Christ, suffering, bleeding, and dying on a cross for the sins of the world.

Indeed, as Eve was created from the side of Adam, so the Church was created from the side of Christ as blood and water flowed from his side on the cross.

In these verses in , God describes the creation of the Church. It is described in terms of the miraculous: as a woman giving birth before enduring labor pains. God then asks some questions: Who has heard of such a thing? Answer: no one. He asks, “Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? The answer is no. But yet, amazingly, God did this. For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth children.

Zion here refers to the Church, and the Church has often been described as the mother of the people of God, for it is through the Church that God brings people to faith in his Son, for there His Gospel is proclaimed and applied in the Sacraments and so faith is born. God is the one who causes the Church to be fruitful and for believers to be born.

And God will sustain his church until the end. He speaks to his church peace and comfort and the Church rejoices in the comfort that God brings to his people in Christ. And even though the church looks defeated, beat up, and a failure, yet God will nurture his people as a mother does her children and he will bring his Church to her glorious end in the New Heavens and New Earth.

All this he does through the apparent foolishness of the Gospel. Through Jesus Christ, God makes himself known to his servants and he sustains and keeps his Church.

God will also speak later in this chapter about bringing in faithful believers from Gentile lands, even making out of them Levitical priests. If you remember, under the Old Covenant the Levitical priests came from the family of Aaron, who was himself of the tribe of Levi. For God to say that he will take Gentiles and make them Levitical priests looks ahead to the New Covenant when Jew and Gentile are one in Christ. It also tells us that God’s intent from the beginning to include the Gentiles in his salvation in Jesus Christ.

And God will continue to add to his church until the Day that Jesus returns to raise the dead and gather to himself all who belong to him.

God Will Again Rend the Heavens and Come Down in Jesus’ Second Coming

Christ will again come down to earth on the Last Day to judge the inhabitants of the earth: the righteous will enter the New Heavens and New Earth; the wicked will enter eternal torment and fire.

Until that Last Day, Christ continues to gather to himself a people for himself through the Church being sent into all the world to proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation of sinners.

This Day of Judgment is pre-figured by the judgment God brought upon Jerusalem in 586 B.C. by the hand of the Babylonians, and again in A.D. 70 by the hand of the Romans.

Isaiah 66:15–24 ESV

15 “For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. 16 For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many. 17 “Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating pig’s flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the Lord. 18 “For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, 19 and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. 20 And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. 21 And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord. 22 “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. 23 From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord. 24 “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

In this section, God describes to Isaiah both the ongoing work of redemption that he is accomplishing through the sending of his Church out into the world to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ–his suffering and death on behalf of sinners and his resurrection from the dead–and he also describes the final Day of Judgment when Christ returns a second time and judges the inhabitants of the earth.

God first declares the end of the wicked. He promises that he will come in fire, the fire of his holiness to consume evil and he will judge the wicked in his righteous anger and fury and wrath. He will put to death the wicked on that Last Day. He declares that those who mix the worship of the one true God with pagan idolatry are simply engaging in idolatry and St. Paul tells us that those who engage in idolatry are really worshipping demons. ()

It is impossible for sinful human beings to sanctify themselves, or make themselves holy. True holiness that avails before God is a gift of God that he gives to sinners through giving them Jesus Christ as their righteousness. Those who attempt to sanctify themselves reject and spurn the grace of God in Christ, and their righteousness only amounts to filthy garments (). All these shall come to an end on that Day of the Lord.

This is important for us to take note of. Earlier in this chapter, in verse 5, God speaks to Isaiah and references those who mock the Lord and his people. The wicked mock the promises of God and they mock his people for holding to the Lord’s Word and his promises. St. Peter speaks of this as well when he talks about those who, following their own sinful desires, scoff at the promises of God and say,

2 Peter 3:4 ESV

4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

2 Peter 3

“Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” ()

And so it has continued ever since. We experience this today as well. People scoff at and mock the Word of God and his promises. Where is God, they may say, when suffering and calamity strike. They mock Christians when we pray to God because they cannot see anything visible happening and so they write us off as crazy people who need to believe in God because we can’t handle the real truth about the world.

It may appear that those who do evil are the ones who are winning and prosperous and so they grow increasingly arrogant, thinking that they can sin with impunity and God will do nothing.

We may be tempted to despair or to doubt whether what God has said will come to pass. This is why God declares for us the end before it happens. We can know the end of the wicked and see how terrible it is, and be encouraged to continue to hold fast to God’s Word and trust him that he is working all things according to the counsel of his will.

And that Day will be terrible for those who reject God and the salvation and redemption that he has provided in the life, suffering and death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When Christ comes on that final Day of Judgment, he will put to death the wicked. And this death, called also the second death, will be an eternal death, eternal torture and torment in the lake of fire. Describing those who suffer such a fate, God says that “their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

Graphic terms. We think of worms eating the flesh of a corpse. God says that for the wicked the worm shall not die. Eternal experience of suffering. God says their fire shall not be quenched. Eternal fire that is inescapable. This is the imagery that Jesus will pick up on in the New Testament. He describes hell, the second death, as eternal fire. The picture he uses to communicate this is the Valley of Hinnom, which was just outside of Jerusalem. You may have heard the term “gehenna” as a term for hell. It is a Greek word that translates the Hebrew “ge hinnom,” which means the “Valley of Hinnom.” In this place in the past, child sacrifices were offered to the pagan god Molech. In Jesus’ day it was a trash dump that was constantly burning.

There have been and are those who claim that hell doesn’t exist or that it isn’t eternal. Those who go there will eventually simply cease to exist. The Scriptures support neither of these conclusions. Jesus certainly believed in the existence of hell, in fact, he created it for the devil and his angels. And Jesus describes hell in terms of everlasting fire and torment. This is the end of the wicked.

And this doesn’t happen in some remote location, out of sight. God says to Isaiah, “And they [the faithful] shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men [and women] who have rebelled against me.” ()

Jesus affirms this in the account that he tells of the Rich Man and Lazarus in . After both the Rich Man and Lazarus die, they can see each other. The rich man in hades can see into Paradise and see Abraham and Lazarus, and they can see him. It’s possible that part of their torment is that they will forever look upon that which they rejected in their unbelief and not ever participate in it. This is not ceasing to exist, but rather conscious unending torment.

Revelation speaks in a similar manner, describing the suffering and torment of those who reject Christ and his Gospel as unending and carried out in the presence of the Lamb and his holy angels.

Revelation 14:9–13 ESV

9 And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” 12 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. 13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”

Revelation 14:9–11 ESV

This is indeed hard for us to comprehend this side of the Resurrection. But in the New Heavens and the New Earth, we will understand things better because we do not have the impairment of sin. We will be able to rightly grasp and comprehend the justice and rightness of God’s holy judgment upon those who in unbelief spurn and reject the redemption he accomplished in his Son. But for now, we accept the Word of God by faith, even if it is a hard word and it makes us uncomfortable.

And so God tells us of the end of the wicked. He also tells us the end of the righteous, those who trust in his promise of the forgiveness of sins because of Christ’s death on the cross as our substitute. God says,

Isaiah 66:22–23 ESV

22 “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. 23 From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.

God tells us that the end for the faithful, for those who trust in Christ is the New Heavens and the New Earth, the dwelling place of God with men and women that endures forever. There we will dwell with the Lord forever and worship him in purity and faithfulness.

This promise is for you today. Though you are sinners, as you confessed at the beginning of the service, Christ has bled and died for you. You are baptized children of God. Christ has taken your sin and given you his righteousness. Your end will not be death and eternal torment and fire. Your end, rather, will be eternal life with God and his Christ forever.

In the meantime, until this Last Day comes, God has commissioned his Church, his faithful children, to be his ambassadors, his missionaries, to go throughout the world and proclaim the Gospel of Christ crucified for sinners, that sinful human beings may hear the Good News of Christ and be spared the awful, though just, wrath of God to come, and instead join God and his Christ in the new heavens and new earth forever.

God help us to be faithful to your Word and faithful witnesses of your grace and kindness toward sinners in your Son, Jesus Christ.