“Forgiveness
and Restoration”
[Isaiah
44:21-28]
September
27, 2020 YouTube
Last week we saw God present Himself as the One God and showed
that idols are made by humans – who can’t create something greater than
themselves – and the idols are made out of the very creation that God
made. So, idolatry is foolish as well as
sin.
This morning, we see, first, reconciliation is achieved
by redemption.
“Remember
these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you; you
are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.”
God
commands Israel and Judah to remember three things:
First,
Israel and Judah are the servants of God.
God chose them to be the people who obeyed God – through whom God gave
the Law and the prophets and according to human generation the Savior. Remember that.
Remember,
Christians – all believers – you have been grafted into the vine that is Israel
so we might also be Israel through faith and obedience. “But if some of the branches were broken off,
and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now
share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,” (Romans 11:17, ESV). Remember that.
Second,
unlike the humans who formed idols out of the creation that God made, God formed
us and gave us breath to live, salvation through Jesus, the Savior, to live
forever with Him, and made us His people as a witness to the world. Remember that.
And
third, God will never forget those who genuinely believe savingly in Jesus the
Savior. God gifts us the ability to
repent and believe – as Israel and Judah did in their captivity in Babylon –
and all those who genuinely believe and repent are forever God’s sons and
daughters. Since we are saved by God, He
will never allow us to fully fall away.
We will never become so lost in our sin that our salvation is
negated. As Jesus says, “I give them
eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my
hand” (John 10:28, ESV).
Some
of Israel and Judah believed and repented in captivity, just as some of
humanity now repent and believe savingly in Jesus and receive His salvation. So, how does this happen?
Paul
reminds us:
“And
you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following
the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once
lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and
the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians
2:1-3, ESV).
And
what is a dead person able to do? Is a
person who is spiritually dead able to do spiritual good on his own? Is a spiritually dead person able to choose
the spiritual good of believing savingly in Jesus?
God
tells us:
“I
have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return
to me, for I have redeemed you.”
God
tells Israel and Judah and us – God is the One Who chooses to blot out our
transgressions – God makes the payment of the debt that is owed for our sins to
Him. Like a passing cloud or the morning
mist, God removes them from our sight and reveals blue sky. God does not wait until we are able to pay
the debt for our sins – which we could never do – God pays the debt for our sin
– through the Savior, Jesus, and we are forgiven.
Notice,
God says it is after God blots out our transgressions – it is after God redeems
us – that God tells us to return – to be reconciled to Him. Another way to express this is regeneration precedes
faith. Since we are born dead in sin, we
cannot have the faith to receive Jesus until the debt for our sin has been paid
and we are given the ability to receive Jesus through faith – then and only
then – are we able to be reconciled to God – to return to Him – to live a life
of obedience to Him.
The
result of God redeeming us through the work of Jesus is that we are reconciled
to Him, and since we are reconciled, He calls us to obedience – not to pay Him
back or to merit anything – but in thanksgiving and love for what He has done
for us. As the Scripture tells us:
“For
God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness” (I Thessalonians 4:7, ESV).
“for
at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as
children of light” (Ephesians 5:8, ESV).
“that
you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst
of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the
world,” (Philippians 2:15, ESV).
Our
reconciliation with God is achieved by God’s gift of redemption.
Second,
the Creation rejoices in God’s gift of salvation.
“Sing,
O heavens, for the LORD has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth
into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and will
be glorified in Israel.”
God
has redeemed Jacob and will be glorified in Israel. God has redeemed all of His people – His elect
– through the work of the Savior, and He will be glorified in the work that He
has done in redeeming us – all of His people.
This
is announced to the whole creation – the skies, the earth, the depths, the
mountains, the forest, and all the trees, and God commands them to shout and
break into singing. Why?
There
is a popular misunderstanding that Brian Fikkert calls “evangelical Gnosticism.” What this means is there are some in the
modern Protestant church who view the earth and the material world as something
we are to do what we want with and use to achieve our best life now, because
when we die, it will be destroyed and we will only live on as spirit beings.
That
is not what the Bible teaches us. When
we die, our bodies and souls are separated for a time, but when Jesus returns,
our bodies and souls will be reunited and perfected and made holy – as will be
all of the creation. Everything will be
like it was before Adam and Eve’s sin, but it will be impossible to sin.
Paul
writes, “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the
sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but
because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free
from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the
children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together
in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:19-22, ESV).
What
is Paul saying?
The
entire creation was punished – corrupted – warped – because humans sinned, and
the creation will suffer and not be what it was first created to be until Jesus
returns and reunites every humans’ soul with their bodies, and the elect – all
those who ever believe – will be received into the perfected earth to live
forever in the Kingdom.
So
all of the creation – somehow even the inanimate objects – are looking forward
with great expectation to our being perfected and being made holy at the end of
the age, because, at that time – the creation will be set from for its
suffering and be made perfect forever – no more to suffer.
So, our redemption is a joy to the creation. And if a joy to the creation – if it is
waiting patient with pent-up joy – we should also find ourselves patiently
waiting with pent-up joy until Jesus returns to make all things new – to
restore and perfect the creation and His people.
Third, the power of God confirms His promises.
“Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, who formed you from
the womb:”
Remember, we said the word, “LORD” in this context is the
Name “YHWH” that most personal Name of God that He gave to Moses in the burning
bush. This God, YHWH, is the Redeemer of
those who believe – He is the One Who saves His people by Himself and for Himself
with no help from us. This God is the
One Who formed us in the womb. Using the
same word that is used for the forming of our first father, God made us who we
are in the womb – it was not by chance or merely genetics, but by the Hand and
the Will of God that we are who we are – that we grow in the womb and become
who we are.
David writes, “For you formed my inward parts; you
knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my
soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being
made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my
unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that
were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (139:13-16, ESV).
And
“Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s
breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have
been my God” (Psalm 22:9-10, ESV).
Our conception, growth physically and mentally, and every
moment of our lives was decided by God and He made us and sustains us until the
day He has ordained our death.
God also made everything in all of existence:
“I
am the LORD, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who
spread out the earth by myself,”
God
did this all with no help from anyone, because before anything existed, God is
and nothing else.
Now
and on the last day, God, Who cannot lie and hates lies, puts down liars and
fools who make themselves out to be wise, astrologers, and He takes the wisdom
that He gave them from birth and twists it so they are exposed in their deceit.
“who frustrates the signs of liars and makes
fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish,”
God
is He Who confirms the word of the prophets and their counsel. God proves His Word delivered by the prophets
to be true, because He is God and His Word is true. And a truth of God
delivered by the prophets as the Word of God is that the inhabitants of Judah
will return and Jerusalem will be restored, and God will cause all of this to
come to pass because His Word cannot fail.
“who
confirms the word of his servant and fulfills the counsel of his messengers, who
says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited,’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They
shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins’;”
And
in 515 B. C., the Second Temple in Jerusalem was completed.
God
reminds Israel and Judah of His power, signaling back to their being freed from
slavery in Egypt and God’s powerful deliverance of them through the Red Sea
when God caused the waters to divide and flow up so that they walked on dry
land to the other side.
“who
says to the deep, ‘Be dry; I will dry up your rivers’;”
And
then the prophet Isaiah says something that would have made absolutely no sense
to them at the time.
“who
says of Cyrus,”
“Who? We don’t know of any Cyrus.”
That’s
right, Cyrus is not going to be king of the Medo-Persian empire for about one
hundred and seventy years. He hasn’t
been born yet. But God has chosen his
parents, and God will cause him to be knitted in his mother’s womb, and God
will cause him to be the man that he was to become, and God chose him – all
these years before – to be the man who freed Israel and Judah from the
Babylonian captivity.
And
because they saw God’s power in the Red Sea and in their own conception and in
all the other things that God did and promised, they believed with sure hope
that Cyrus would be born, that he would become the king of the Medo-Persian
empire, and he would free Israel and Judah from the Babylonian captivity, and
the Temple in Jerusalem would be rebuilt.
Do
we not have plentiful reasons to believe everything God has said about Jesus,
our salvation, and the life to come in the Kingdom?
Who
is this Cyrus?
“‘He
is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She
shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’”
Cyrus,
a pagan king, is the one God will use to shepherd the people of God, to care
for them and protect them even as if his life is at stake, to send them home,
to promise that they will rebuild and the Temple will be rebuilt.
Brothers
and sisters, do you believe that Jesus has forgiven you and restored you before
God our Father?
Hear
these words:
“But
Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, ‘I adjure you by the
living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You
have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at
the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven’” (Matthew 26:63-64,
ESV).
“’But
you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be
my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the
earth.’ And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was
lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing
into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said,
‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was
taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into
heaven’” (Acts 1:8-11, ESV).
“Behold,
he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who
pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so.
Amen” (Revelation 1:7, ESV).
Let
us pray:
Almighty
God we thank You for these words to the people of Israel and Judah as they
prepare for their exile in Babylon. We
thank You for showing them that this was not an end for them, but only the
discipline of their loving Father. Help
us to receive these words as well, as You are our loving Father. Help us to understand that reconciliation is
achieved through redemption – You save us!
Help us to believe and look forward to seeing the Creation rejoicing in
God’s gift of salvation in the restoration of the Creation. And let us take Your Word to heart believing
that the power of God confirms His promises.
Come, Lord Jesus, Amen.
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