At one point while preparing this sermon I was tempted just to read the article I picked for my closing illustration and sit down. It’s a sermon in itself, and illustrates exactly what I had to say about this passage of Isaiah. But after thinking it over, I felt that the least I could do was explain how it fits, and how we can apply it to our own lives.
The story is the genocide in Sudan. You’re not going to read about it in the mainstream press, unless something really unusual happens, like the Touched By an Angel episode that shone a spotlight onto the slavery issue. I’m not even going to speculate on why it’s being ignored. But the facts are these:
The war between the Muslim north and the Christian and animist south has been going on for at least forty years. The last sixteen years have seen the worst atrocities. Casualties in the south number over two million; there are at least twice that many displaced persons. Northern troops routinely bomb hospitals and churches. Unpaid irregulars are paid in slaves. The U.N. has designated the worst hit regions - especially the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains - as “no go” areas, which has effectively given Khartoum a free hand to stop delivery of food and medical supplies to those areas. The last of the big NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) like the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, CARE, Oxfam, World Vision, and Save the Children, were sent packing - with hardly a peep of protest - last March. Only a handful of much smaller organizations - like the Blue Nile Project and Voice of the Martyrs - have managed to get any supplies in over the past year.
This is civil war, religious persecution, and ethnic cleansing on a larger scale than any of the places we’ve sent peacekeeping troops into since Cambodia. And yet our administration has not even so much as protested to the U.N.
“Yes, I agree that’s terrible, but what does this have to do with Isaiah?” I hear you ask.
Well, what’s happening in Sudan today is a lot like what happened in Samaria 2,800 years ago. At the time Isaiah was preaching, the Assyrians were in the process of polishing off the Northern Kingdom. Every time they chewed off a piece of Israel’s territory they’d sell the local residents into slavery and resettle the land with their own people. And Isaiah was watching from down south in Jerusalem, doing regular commentary on the situation for the nightly news, warning that the very same thing was about to happen to the southern kingdom of Judah, and hoping that someone would pay attention and start working on a plan to avert the coming disaster.
During the first half of the book, Isaiah alternates between pointing out Judah’s sinfulness, issuing oracles against Judah’s enemies, and promising that if his people would only mend their ways, God would protect them from their enemies and establish a just, righteous and peaceful kingdom for them.
Later on during Isaiah’s forty plus years as a prophet, King Hezekiah does listen to him, and Judah gets a few years’ reprieve - as a matter of fact, the story of Jerusalem’s miraculous deliverance from the armies of Sennacherib is an absolutely fascinating story - but that’s for another time.
At this point in the book, Isaiah has made it crystal clear that God’s judgment on his disobedient people will be devastating beyond description.
"Now YHWH is about to lay waste the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.... The earth shall be utterly laid waste and utterly despoiled; for YHWH has spoken this word. The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the earth. The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left." [Is 24:1-6]
After grabbing their attention, and bringing home to them the seriousness of their situation, Isaiah goes on in Chapter 25 to describe the glories of the restored Israel under the just rule of God.
"...YHWH of hosts ... will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for YHWH has spoken. It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is YHWH for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation." [Is 25:7-9]
And that brings us to Chapter 26, which is a hymn, a song of praise which the people are to sing “in that day.” But the interesting thing about the hymn is that not only will they sing it after God establishes his kingdom, they are also singing it beforehand. They sing it even while they are waiting for God to act, they sing it even while they watch the wicked deal unjustly, they sing it before the righteous have been restored. They sing it in faith, before they have seen what God has promised, because they believe.
Why? How?
The prophet Habbakuk said, and Paul repeats his words in Romans 1:7, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” That phrase has a double meaning: on the one hand, it means that the righteous will live faithfully, obedient to God; on the other hand, it means that their faith assures them of God’s protection and their survival. And this song from Isaiah provides an illustration of both of those meanings.
The key verse is v. 3, “Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace - in peace because they trust in you.” It both asks and answers three questions.
The first question is, "What is this peace Isaiah is talking about?"
The most obvious meaning is, of course, the absence of war, and the absence pf fear of war. And yet it is also obvious that this promise can’t be taken in its simplest, most literal form, because the people of Jerusalem are about to be besieged by the Assyrian army and will eventually be conquered by the Babylonians.
And yet it is not a metaphor. Let me explain. For as long we have been aware of God’s righteous demands, as the great preacher Charles Spurgeon put it: “the ten great cannon of the Law were turned against our walls; all heaven and earth mustered for battle; God Himself was against us, at least, so conscience reported from her look out.”
Even God’s covenant with Israel was partial, imperfect - a ceasefire, so to speak, rather than a peace treaty. Even so, the Israelites could get a taste of that peace which we through Jesus Christ are able to experience in full.
Remember Jesus’ own words: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” [Jn 14:27] Later on, Paul encourages the new believers, “If God is for us, who is against us?” [Rom 8:31b] “Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?” [Rom 8:33a]
What that means is that we have been given perfect reconciliation with God. No matter which way you look, there is the promise of peace. Look upward, and there is Jesus preparing a place for us; look backward, and our sins have disappeared, because “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” [Rom 8:1] Look around, and understand that “all things work together for good for those who love God.” [Rom 8:28] Look inward, and “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” [Phil 4:7]
Now if any of you are like me, especially as a young Christian, you may be saying to yourself, “I must not be a very good Christian because there are times when I’m really not at peace.” But that isn’t anything to worry about. God’s peace is something to seek, to believe in, to rest upon - but guess what? If we’re not there yet, God is still greater than our fears, greater than our disbelief, greater even than our sinfulness. We can be at peace even about our own inability to be at peace. Paul knew that at times the believer’s hearts would fail, which is why he wrote to the Thessalonians,
"May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this." [1 Th 5:23]
“But how can I be at peace,” you might ask, “when my son has rebelled against God, when my wife has left me, when I have lost my job?”
That is why Isaiah qualifies his statement with “those of steadfast mind.” The King James version actually puts it better, I think - “Thou wilt keep him whose mind is stayed on thee in perfect peace.” Because if your mind is stayed - that is fastened to, focused on - God, you won’t lose your perfect peace - even through these ordeals. For, as Jesus puts it in the Sermon on the Mount, “Will being anxious about anything help?” Will it make your rebel child mend his ways? Or your unfaithful spouse repent? Or get your job back?
Those of steadfast mind have peace because they trust in God. That trust enables you to bring your sick child, your broken home, your wrecked career, whatever is today’s cross for you, and lay them all at Jesus’ feet, for him to cure or to help you bear, as he chooses. That’s what “the just shall live by faith” means. It means that in times of trial you will seek God’s way, rather than a way out, because you know that Jesus is the only way.
Now, even though I told you not to worry about those times when God’s peace seems far away, unattainable, an empty promise, it is, of course, much better actually to experience that peace. How do you get it? How do you come by that peace which comes of trusting God? Since that peace belongs to those of steadfast mind, those who are “stayed upon God,” the real question is “How do you develop a steadfast mind?”
And the answer to that is threefold. Praise, Prayer, and Practice.
First, praise. Paul was not only inspired to teach us to “Rejoice in the Lord always,” [Phil 4:4] but he also was able to do it. That came with practice. And the interesting thing about practicing praise is that what the Psalmist says about God inhabiting the praises of his people [Ps 22:3] is true - God is powerfully present when we praise him.
Second, prayer. If we follow Paul’s teaching and “pray without ceasing,” [1 Th 5:1] then our first reaction in tough times will be to seek God rather than resort to any of the other possible responses - which don’t result in peace. Now, once you have prayed, you might very well find that God has directed you to take some specific action. But until you have prayed, you can be sure that you’re going to waste a lot of time and energy spinning your wheels, and you might actually do something that makes the situation worse. Stopping to pray ALWAYS makes sense. But it takes practice before it becomes a habit.
Third, practice. Practice doing what pleases God. Which requires knowing what pleases God. Which requires reading the Bible. Practice praise, practice prayer, and practice obedience.
Those three things create a steadfast heart, and result in peace.
And now back to the Sudan.
Walking to church at Chali in the Blue Nile district requires an armed escort. The soldiers carry automatic weapons and scan the hills; government troops are just 5 miles away. But what’s under your feet is more important. The area around the church was sowed with land mines.
The first Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) workers arrived in Chali Station in 1939, appointed by the British to oversee church planting and education. The first missionaries, the Forsbergs, worked among the Uduks, a tribe notable for substituting grease and red ocher for clothes. The last SIM workers were forced out by the Islamic government in 1964. Uduk Christians now number well over 15,000 - over 95 percent of the tribe.
Today, Chali is ground zero in the ongoing sixteen-year civil war. In 1983, when the government made Sharia, the strict Islamic law, the law of the land, the Uduks were a second generation Christian tribe. The refused to adhere to Sharia or to send their children to the Koranic schools. The government’s forces moved on them in 1986, and they were defeated.
The school building is rubble. The few houses that are left are impossible to visit because of land mines. The church is roofless. Only one solid wall remains, the one with a stone cross, and it is punctured by bullet holes. Government soldiers took the bombed church apart piece by piece. They ripped Bibles, page by page, from their bindings, and used the pages to roll cigarettes. Other pages showed up later as food wrappers in local markets. They burned Uduk houses and crops and looted their livestock. The church building was mined, to ensure that it would not be rebuilt.
According to one resident, soldiers herded some of the believers into one room of the church, closed the door and set fire to it. Sex with the soldiers was “compulsory” for the women, according to another villager. Soldiers killed most of the men immediately; some were crucified.
Today, the survivors and their descendants recite what happened when the soldiers invaded, in the same way that Jewish people at Passover dip bitter herbs in charoset and remember their slavery in Egypt. “We were particularly targeted because we are Christians,” says Talib al Fiel, the Uduk chief.
He was thirty years old when the Forsbergs arrived at Chali in 1939. He has been imprisoned and tortured by government soldiers but escaped to Ethiopia in 1986. Now that SPLA fighters have retaken most of the Blue Nile Province, Talib and his people began returning late last year. A new Chali is being built on the red plain below the old Station, with a round hut called a tukul for each returning family. In the center stands the rib cage for a church, its poles ready to be covered by grass walls and a thatched roof. Already the church has rough-hewn pews and an adult remnant of more than two dozen, plus children, who gather daily for prayer and worship. Church pastor Simon Mamud grew up in the Uduk refugee camp in Ethiopia. Now Chali is his Jerusalem. “We have nothing, but we have everything,” he said.
Refugees and formerly displaced people who were chased away by government forces in the last 10-15 years are beginning to return to their homelands. “The land has been liberated,” said Talib, “and we are coming back to rehabilitate.” Newly displaced people from western parts of Sudan are coming into the area, too, pushed out by government forces, and welcomed by the returned Christians. In Wadega, another Blue Nile town, the permanent residents have offered to take in the thousands of new homeless who are camped nearby. “We are determined to make a place for them,” said Michael Yerko Nadi, the primary school teacher in Wadega and an elder in the local church. Mr. Nadi, who is probably in his 60’s, walks more than five miles every day from his home in Wadega to meet with leaders in the displaced camp and determine how they can work together. At present, there is not even enough food for the residents of Wadega; without outside help, they will all starve. “But we will starve together,” says Mr. Nadi.
Churches - simple rectangles with grass walls topped with wooden crosses - are rising out of the ashes of persecution at astonishing rates. One group, the Sudan Interior Churches, has grown from 30 to almost 45 just since January. In one village of 4,000, an existing church has doubled in size this year, and another congregation has been added. There are 32 schools where last year there were two. Plans are in the works to build a hospital.
During the past sixteen years, "YHWH has laid waste the earth and made it desolate. He twisted its surface and scattered its inhabitants.... The earth has dried up and withered ...The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants... a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer... therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left." [Is 24:1-6]
During their time of exile, the Sudanese Christians have not stopped praying, praising, or practicing their faith, and now they have returned. They are singing a new song in the midst of danger and hardship, living by faith between destruction and redemption. They are singing the song of faith in the promises of God even in the midst of desolation. Let the wicked who refuse to learn righteousness take note.
"O YHWH, 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 YHWH, you will ordain peace for us, for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us. O YHWH our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but we acknowledge your name alone."
