‘I’d like to inform the congregation this morning that, from now on, we’ll no longer be having a Sunday sermon. I’ve noticed that my messages have been making so little difference that it really isn’t worth all the hours it takes for me to prepare them or for you to sit there and listen to them. Next week, we’ll go straight to the closing song and get home for lunch as soon as we can’.
The prophet Isaiah says to his people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of the people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes’ (Isaiah 6:9–10).
‘Most of you have failed to grasp the Christian life. You are self-centred and worldly in your thinking. You do not understand the glory of God. You do not understand church. You do not listen to my voice. You persistently rebel against me. You have forsaken the Lord. You oppress the innocent. You do not love justice. You are stubborn, proud and arrogant. You do not proclaim my name amongst the nations. Instead you have become like them’!
Israel were shaken to pieces by the shifting tectonic plates of sin and rebellion. And with a tsunami-like force the world was pouring into the church.
Israel forget the size of God. They forgot what they learnt in Theology IIA. So back to school they went! Come with me to Isaiah 40:18, ‘To whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to? As for an idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple.
Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in’ (Isaiah 40:18–22).
And down to verse 25, ‘“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing’ (Isaiah 40:25–26).
Job received a similar lesson and he is brought to his knees, ‘My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes’ (Job 42:5–6). At least Job was moved to repentance. That’s more than we can say for Israel.
Not only did they forget the size and power of God, Israel rejected the glory and holiness of God. By the sixth century B.C. they had a proven track record. They were neither a holy nation nor disciple-making disciples. This diagnosis confronts us in Isaiah 1 which sets the agenda for the whole book. Turn with me to chapter 1:
‘The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: “I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him’ (Isaiah 1:1–4).
Israel have breached the covenant (verses 2 and 3), they have refused to be God’s people (verses 4 to 9), they have perverted their worship (verses 10 to 20). Israel have forsaken the Lord, rejected the Holy One and turned their backs on the Creator of the universe. We’ve stumbled upon the lowest point in the history of Israel.
But before we pass judgment on worshippers in a bygone era, we should confess the sins of the ‘worshipping church’ today. Praise God that he has given us his Spirit and we have the assurance that ‘there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus’ (Rom 8:1). Yet our obligation is to worship God in ways that please to him. As the ‘worship wars’ rage on, the most common feedback goes like this: ‘I don’t like this song’, ‘I don’t like this colour carpet’, ‘I don’t like this ways of doing communion’. As though worship is simply a matter of what I like! Good grief! What have we become?
Jesus says in John 4, ‘Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:23–24).
When we worship ‘in truth’ we worship according to the Scriptures and our worship is filled with the Scriptures. Joseph Pipa says, ‘We are confused about worship because we approach worship asking, “What am I going to get out of it”? “What kind of buzz am I going to have”? We are coming for all the wrong reasons and asking all the wrong questions. Our question ought to be, “What glory will abound to God”’ (Pipa, The worship of God, 60–61).
We are to worship in truth in accordance with the scriptures. And when we worship in Spirit we attend to the internal matters—our intent, our motives, the intensity, our sincerity, our reverence—these are critical as we come before God.
Israel took worship into their own hands (Isaiah 1:10–15). Although they went to the temple and offered sacrifices to the Lord, their hearts were far from God. Sacrifices alone can never please God. What the Teacher fears in Ecclesiastes was true of Israel and could be true of any religious community, ‘Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong […] Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God’ (Ecc 5:1, 7).
Israel didn’t stand in awe of God. They stopped loving God. They failed to listen because they had too much to say. They failed to love their neighbour as themselves. They prostituted themselves, Isaiah 1:21, ‘See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She was once full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her—but now murderers! Verse 28, ‘Rebels and sinners will be broken, and those who forsake the Lord will perish’. The news back then is the same news now. ‘Rebels and sinners will be broken, and those who forsake the Lord will perish’.
Israel rejected the size and power of God. They ignored the holiness and glory of God. The Book of Isaiah is a book which attends to this dire situation.
God’s first response is to point out his desire to make himself known. God didn’t have to stand up and announce himself—but he did so out of love and mercy. Flip to the other end of the book. Isaiah 65:1, ‘I revealed myself to those who did not ask me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, “Here am I, here am I”’.
Unless God descends and reveals himself we remain in ignorance. Paul says in Romans that God reveals himself in three ways: through creation (chapter 1), through our natural sense of right and wrong (chapter 2), and thirdly through a direct revelation of himself (chapter 3). In his mercy, God revealed himself to Israel and made a covenant with them—not to the exclusion of the world but for the sake of the world.
The first divine response to Israel’s rebellion is a history lesson. ‘Have you forgotten that from all the nations of the earth I chose you’? I hope you do not need a history lesson. You who twist the Christian life for your own convenience. Have you forgotten that from all the peoples of the earth, God has chosen you? God has chosen this church! Israel rubbished that choice. They neither cared for holiness or evangelism. ‘All day long I held out my hands to an obstinate people’, verse 2, ‘who walk in ways not good, a people who continually provoke me to my face’ (Isaiah 65:1–2).
The next response to Israel’s rebellion is the sending of the prophet Isaiah. Back to Isaiah 6. When God calls Isaiah like Israel he is confronted with the holiness and glory of God. Reading from verse 1:
‘In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty’.
The glory of the Lord brings Isaiah to his knees.
In 1996 there was a large meeting of a group of MEN in Atlanta belonging to a movement called the ‘Promise Keepers’. This particular meeting was for clergy only: 39,000 men came together in the Georgia Dome. And one particular speaker asked all the men to echo the sound of Isaiah 6, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, and the whole earth is full of his praise’.
As these clergy-men heard 39,000 voices in the STADIUM saying in unity, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, and the whole earth is full of his praise’ men got out of their SEATS and fell down on their faces because when you RIGHTLY understand the righteousness, the MAJESTY, the purity of our God, it will break you—as it did Isaiah.
Even in times of darkness, God wishes that no-one should perish. But Israel’s hearts are so hardened that the message of repentance becomes the message that seals their rebellion. We see this in Isaiah 6:9, ‘Go and tell the people, “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing but never perceiving”. Make the heart of the people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed’ (Isaiah 6:9–10).
The prophet will say, ‘Listen! (But of course you will not hear)’. The prophet will say, ‘See! (But of course you will not look)’. The fault is not with the message but with the receiving hearts. In his excellent commentary, Edward Young says, ‘Isaiah is charged to work in such a manner that his labours will bring about a hardening of heart and sensibility upon the part of the nation, so that there will be no possibility of its being saved’.
People come to church for years. They hear the gospel over and over again. They hear the call to repent and submit to the lordship of Christ. They know it off by heart. But They remain unmoved. Come to the Living God before your heart becomes so hardened! Come to the Living God before he message of life becomes the message that condemns you. Come to the living water and drink before you die. Come and feast on the bread which gives you life.
Listen to God when he says in Isaiah 1:18–19, ‘“Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken’.
The prophet speaks words of judgment and words of salvation. The organisation of the Book reflects these twin themes. Chapters 1 to 39 focuses on mainly on judgment and chapters 40 to 66 concern themselves mainly with restoration and salvation.
This brings us to the key for understanding this great book. Isaiah opens with the old, earthly Jerusalem under condemnation—and the book closes with the emergence of the New Jerusalem. The book moves from the perverse and discredited worship in the physical Jerusalem to the worship of God in the new, eternal Jerusalem. How we move from the old creation to the new creation is the concern of the book.
Isaiah is like a mini-Bible. For the theme of the whole Bible is how we move from the old creation to the new creation. The theme of the Isaiah is how we move from the old Jerusalem to the new Jerusalem. The same idea. This makes Isaiah is a big book, with a book message! Chapter 1 is perversion and sin. The old Jerusalem under condemnation. The close of the book looks forward to the new heavens and the new earth.
Listen to Isaiah 65:17, ‘“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more’.
This sounds much like the Book of Revelation. As St John looks into heaven, he sees heaven opened, ‘Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away’.
So how do we move from an old creation to this new creation? We cannot do it on our own. Israel’s condition is the human condition. They rebelled against God because people by nature rebel against God. As D.L. Moody once said, ‘I have more trouble with D.L. Moody than any other man I know’. Romans 3 says, ‘“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one”’.
This is your natural, unregenerate condition. This is my natural, unregenerate condition. How do people like us move from the old order of things to the new order of things? We need transforming. We need supernatural intervention for left to our own devices we rot and die. Whether it be early Israel, or whether it be us, we need a Saviour. Praise God that he has made himself known. Praise God that he sent his prophets to speak his words to men and women. Praise God that he comes to save his people. We need a Saviour.
Isaiah is a book that helps us understand Jesus. It does so by introducing us to the ministry of the Servant. This figure is introduced in chapters 40 to 55 and it’s pure eschatology. It’s a great word ‘eschatology’. I use it as a password on the computer all the time. It’s a word I can remember and it’s a word my boys can’t spell. ‘Eschatology’ means forward looking. So the ministry of the Servant, as described by Isaiah, is the ministry of one who will come later and redeem his people. He will come proclaiming the kingdom of God. He will take his people into the new heavens and the new earth.
There are four passages in Isaiah 40 to 55 which speak about the Servant. They’re listed in your sermon outlines. And these collection of four passages are known as the ‘Servant Songs’.
Over the next four talks we’ll be looking at the Servant Songs—and today has been a big introduction to these passages. But for the moment don’t forget that Isaiah is about the gospel. It explains the gospel in language that helps us understand Jesus. Like Israel, we must take seriously the character God. So:
Don’t forget the character of God. Don’t underestimate his size and his power.
Don’t ignore the glory and holiness of God. Israel did so and they were punished. You will be too.
Don’t forget that God must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. The way we worship God reflects our beliefs about God. We must worship according to Scripture, filled with Scripture, with humble and penitent hearts.
Don’t forget that God chose you from all the peoples of the earth to be a holy people and disciple-making disciples. You were called for a purpose.
Don’t let your heart become so hardened that you are impervious to the word of God which bring life.
