“Peace and Justice”
[Isaiah 26:1-21]
April 28, 2019, Second Reformed Church
We return to our look at the book of Isaiah this morning, and chapter twenty-six is something of a continuation of the previous chapter – looking at what will happen “in that day.”
In chapter twenty-five, we read that when Jesus brings the Kingdom, sin and evil will be banished, Jesus will swallow up death and banish it from His people, and we will live with Him in unspeakable joy eternally.
We continue:
First, the Lord gives us perfect peace.
“In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: ‘We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.’
God’s people will sing a song when Jesus comes with the Kingdom. We will lift our voices and sing that the strong city that Jesus has prepared for us is strong because it is secured by the salvation that He has given us.
The city would fall as every human city falls, if it were not the Kingdom of God built and bought and protected through the salvation Jesus earned for us. He puts up the walls around the city and insures that there are bulwarks – defense walls built alongside of the walls of the city for the guards to stand and watch and keep anything foul and destructive and evil from entering in.
The Kingdom is assured for us. Our salvation is assured. All by the work of Jesus.
‘Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.’
Jesus opens the gates that the righteous – those that He has made righteous through His life and death – may enter the Kingdom. And He keeps us in perfect peace because our minds are focused on Him – because we trust in Him.
And our minds are focused on Jesus and we trust in Him for two reasons:
‘Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.’
Our God is the Eternal God Who never changes. He can be trusted in everything He has done and everything He has promised, because He does not lie.
James writes, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17, ESV).
‘For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust. The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.’”
And Jesus has defeated the wicked city – the city of evil – the city where people go and the evil that is done there is never spoken of outside of it. Those who are poor and needy – true believers – will walk over and trample the ruins of the wicked city.
The greatest pursuit is to focus our minds on Jesus and to trust Him.
The Psalmist writes, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1-2, ESV).
Our perfect peace is found in Jesus – knowing Who He is and what He has done and trusting Him for the future.
While we are in this fallen world, sin and evil and brokenness will disturb our peace, but if we train ourselves to keep returning to Jesus, we can maintain our peace. It is not easy – there is a lot fighting against us, but we can mature in this and be more at peace and more assured in this life, as we look forward with confidence to the next world.
Second, the Lord’s judgment teaches righteousness.
“The path of the righteous is level; you make level the way of the righteous.”
Through Jesus, our way through this life has been made level and smooth. And we might doubt that, but the truth of the matter is that God has removed many obstacles from our path that would have made our way much more difficult than it is. No matter how it looks now, if we could look at how our path would have been if we were not saved, it would be much more rough and, ultimately, more horrific than anything we have as a believer.
“In the path of your judgments, O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.”
As believers, we are drawn to God and the things of God. We desire to be with Him and His people and to know Him and understand His Word better and to be more obedient – and if you don’t – if you never feel that draw – that desire – then you may not really be a believer.
Believers can have times of despair and of not feeling drawn by the things of God, but there will be a draw – at least at times – if you are truly a believer – and that draw will strengthen and become stronger as we mature in our faith and obedience.
“For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD. O LORD, 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.”
One of the reasons that God brings judgments on the earth is to cause people to turn from their sin and believe. And we do hear of people who have gone through traumatic events and then confessed Christ.
If God only showed favor to the wicked, they would never repent and believe. They would continue to laugh at us and ask us what we have gained by following Christ. They have continued on in their sin and God has blessed them for it.
But the wicked do not always turn from their sin – only those God has called to be His people will turn and repent. The rest of the wicked will continue in their sin and think nothing of how their sin might be the cause of the tragedy that has befallen them. These will be consumed in their own fire.
Does this move us to tell others the Gospel? We don’t know who will believe, but we are instructed by God to tell them – tell them that their tragedy may be the way God is using to get their attention and cause them to believe in Him. Some will be angry with you, but others may be moved by the Holy Spirit to believe.
Third, the Lord ordains peace for us.
“O LORD, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works.”
Peace is ours – a gift from God and through our obedience to Him – and He is God Who does the good works through us. We can do nothing good on our own. It is only as God the Holy Spirit prompts us and leads us and gifts us and enables us that we are able to do any good. So, all the glory belongs to God.
As Paul writes, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13, ESV). That doesn’t make us robots – we freely and responsibly make choices – but it does show that God is Sovereign over our good works.
“O LORD our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance. They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.”
God, our Lord, the only one worthy of remembrance, will put down all those above us who never believe. Every wicked and evil person who never believes will die and be forgotten. At best, their names will be a paper word without any substance.
“But you have increased the nation, O LORD, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land.”
But the Lord is growing the Church. The Lord is growing the Church. God uses us, but God is growing the Church.
This is “church growth”: “But you have increased the nation, O LORD, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land.”
The Lord will bring every member of the elect into the Church. Not one person that Jesus died for will be lost – everyone will be brought into the Kingdom. The Church may seem to be getting smaller in the North-East of the US, but the Lord is growing His Church. And He is increasing its boundaries.
Is that like that Prayer of Jabez? (I hope you all forgotten about that book.)
Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5, ESV). The boundaries continue to enlarge – from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the whole world. The entire earth belongs to believers, and it will be ours in the Kingdom. And it will be the earth without sin and evil and corruption – as God created it in the beginning, but without the possibility of sin entering.
Fourth, salvation is the Lord’s work.
“O LORD, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them. Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O LORD; we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.”
Some of us remember a time before we became a Christian. Some of us know that we lived as an unbeliever for some years and then came to faith.
Isaiah speaks of a person who has suffered under discipline and desires salvation, but rather than turn to God and ask for forgiveness, she tries to cause it to happen to her.
Isaiah says this is like a pregnant woman crying out and writhing around and pushing when her time is due. If you have been pregnant, can you will the baby to be born? I have never been pregnant, but I have had kidney stones – which I am told is a similar pain to giving birth – and I have writhed and cried and desired stones to pass, but they didn’t until the time was right.
Isaiah says the best that we can accomplish in our writhing and crying and desiring is to “give birth to wind” – vanity. It’s useless – it’s folly. We have tried to save the world ourselves and we have tried to conquer sin and death and hell ourselves, but it is a fool’s errand. Only Jesus will conquer and save and deliver.
As R. C. Sproul has said, “We add nothing to our salvation except sin.”
If someone offers sixty steps to enlightenment, they will only end up giving birth to wind. Every human plan will fail, only Jesus is able. And it is a salvation of our whole self, brothers and sisters.
I don’t know how many times I have been told, Judaism has no teaching about physical resurrection. The Old Testament doesn’t teach a physical resurrection. Really?
“Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.”
At the end of the age, when Jesus returns, everyone who has died will be raised from the dead – body and soul – to receive the judgment. God will sort out all the molecules of the universe and every human who has ever lived – including all those children we have killed – will stand before Jesus – body and soul – to enter eternity in the Kingdom with Jesus – on the new and restored earth – or into eternal torment in Hell.
And so, finally, our hope is in the Lord.
“Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by. For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.”
The chapter begins with the song that proclaims “open the gates,” and now God calls on His people to shut the doors. God will protect His people when the judgment comes on those who never repent of their sins. God will come in the fullness of His Wrath against all those who never repent and believe, but we who believe will be safe because God has already poured out His Wrath for our sins on Jesus and we are forgiven.
If we think about the worst suffering we can every think of, going on for as long as we can image, that is nothing compared to the horror that God will justly bring for sin and to His Glory.
But our hope – our sure hope – is that we have a chamber – we have a safe place in Jesus. As Jesus said:
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going” (John 14:1-4, ESV).
Last Sunday, on Easter, 253 Christians were killed in their churches in Sri Lanka by Muslim terrorists. This was an evil act, and it may take God’s justice on earth to get the perpetrators of this evil to turn and repent and believe in the Savior – or they may never believe.
Yet, we know that those believers who were murdered will be physically raised and enter into the perfect peace of Christ with us – and all believers – because Jesus has taken our punishment upon Himself. And so we praise God for His salvation through Jesus and the promise of the Kingdom – the inheriting of the restored earth. We pray for the families of the dead and for the evil people involved – that they would believe in the only Savior, Jesus Christ. And we look forward with great and sure hope that we will meet those brothers and sisters when our God and Savior returns for us.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You that You sent Your Son and that since He physically rose from the dead, we will also physically rise from the dead. We thank You for the peace You give us in this life and for all of the obstacles that You remove for us in Your mercy. We thank You that salvation is Your work, and that Your Son is preparing a place for us. And we thank You that on the last day, total justice will come, for You are the Holy God. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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