“The
Outcasts Received”
[Isaiah
56:1-8]
May
30, 2021 YouTube
To all those who fill the call to
believe – those whom God draws to Himself – God calls His people to obedience
and reveals who these people are.
First, God calls His people to
obedience.
We know this – it is not a surprise
to us or to Jerusalem. God commands us
to keep His commandments.
Jesus says, “If you love me, you will
keep my commandments” (John 14:15, ESV).
“Thus says the LORD: ‘Keep justice,
and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be
revealed.’
God tells His people to keep justice.
There are two senses of justice: justice can be impartially punishing of someone
according to the law, or justice can be working to restore someone who has been
oppressed or wronged – it is a restoration of someone.
It is the second sense of justice
that God refers to here. One of the
things that believers are called to do is to restore one who has been
persecuted, wronged, cheated, hurt, and so forth. We are to use the gifts we have in whatever
way we can to make things right for this person.
We remember Zacchaeus – after he
meets Jesus, he says, “And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord,
the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of
anything, I restore it fourfold’” (Luke 19:8, ESV). This is one type of this justice.
And we who believe in Jesus
throughout time and space are called to do righteousness. This means our
actions are to be morally correct – that they are justified – that nothing we
do is out of sin.
For example: if we give a donation to the church, it
should be done privately, quietly, so no one knows it. We ought not to become prideful and say, “I
just gave enough money to do this and that and isn’t the church lucky to have
me?” – that would be sin.
Why should Jerusalem and we believers
seek to be just and righteous? Because
salvation is coming, and God’s righteousness will be revealed.
Peter writes, “Since all these things
are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of
holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God,
because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the
heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are
waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (II
Peter 3:11-13, ESV).
The Exodus and Jerusalem’s
deliverance from the Babylonian captivity are foreshadowings of what Jesus will
do in saving His people and revealing His righteousness.
“Blessed is the man who does this, and the son
of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps
his hand from doing any evil.”
So, the person who keeps justice and does
righteousness is blessed – the one who does these things consistently in the
Name of God is blessed.
The person who is blessed by God
keeps the Sabbath, he does not profane the Sabbath, and he does no evil.
This might surprise us: why would God make a point of naming the
Sabbath as the law to keep or the representative law of the whole law? Might we not think that the first commandment
to have no other gods be more important and more appropriate for a representative
command?
After all, there are plenty of
Christians today who say that the keeping of the Sabbath doesn’t apply to
Christians – that it was for those people before Jesus came. Didn’t Jesus say that the Sabbath was made
for man and not the other way around?
Let’s remember what this law says:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a
Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your
son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your
livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the
seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus
20:8-11, ESV).
The Sabbath – one day in seven – is
to be kept holy. It is to be set apart,
other, different – a day in which our common work is put aside. The Sabbath is the first duty we are given
because it is the day that we proclaim that God is the Creator of all things,
and we proclaim what He has done through the Servant Savior, Jesus, that we
would be saved. It is the day that the
people of God gather together to profess their belief and to worship together. It is a time of our waiting on the Lord. The
other nations do not have a Sabbath – a time when believers gather together
under a God-centered theology.
As the author of Hebrews writes, “So
then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has
entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Hebrews
4:9-10, ESV).
And, if we are to be obedient
people, we are also to do no evil. We
are not to do those things that God has forbidden, nor are to neglect doing
those things that God has commanded.
God calls Jerusalem and all those
who believe in the Savior throughout time and space to believe all that God has
said and to obey Him and to not do evil.
Second, God receives believers who are
outcasts.
While Israel is in the wilderness,
God tells her that certain people are not allowed in the Tabernacle – and,
eventually, in the Temple. God says:
“No one whose testicles are crushed
or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD.
“No one born of a forbidden union may
enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of his
descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD.
“No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the
assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the
assembly of the LORD forever, because they did not meet you with bread and with
water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against
you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. But the
LORD your God would not listen to Balaam; instead the LORD your God turned the
curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loved you. You shall
not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever.
“You shall not abhor an Edomite, for
he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a
sojourner in his land. Children born to them in the third generation may enter
the assembly of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 23:1-8, ESV).
As we continue in our text, it would
seem as though God changes His mind about these people being outcasts – as
their being banned from entering the Temple of the Lord.
“Let not the foreigner who has joined
himself to the LORD say, ‘The LORD will surely separate me from his people’;”
God tells the foreigner that if he
has joined himself to the Lord, if He believes in the One True God and the
Coming Savior, he is not only not separated from God’s people, but he is one of
God’s people.
“and let not the eunuch say, ‘Behold,
I am a dry tree.’ For thus says the LORD: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in
my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and
daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.’”
To those who have had their genitals
mutilated either in an accident or in a pagan ceremony and are now unable to
bring forth a child, God tells them not to think of themselves as a dry tree –
as dead for their inability. Rather, God
says that if these eunuchs keep the Sabbath – remember we have seen that the
Sabbath is the center and summary of the Law as it shows Who God is, what He
has done, and the end for which all things are created – so if these eunuchs
keep the Sabbath, if they obey God and hold fast to the Covenant – to the
agreement that God made with humanity – they are welcome into the Temple, and
though they cannot have children, they will have an honored name.
Again, God speaks to the foreigners –
some of whom would have be forbidden to enter the Temple:
“’And the foreigners who join
themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and
to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and
holds fast my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them
joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will
be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all
peoples.’ The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, ‘I will
gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.’”
God chose a people to be His – holy and covenanted to
God, but some of them turned away and blasphemed against God – which is what
God planned – God was not surprised, and He did not change His Mind or His plan. All things happen according to the eternal
plan of God. God, indeed, chose the nation of Israel to be His people, but He
also chose people from the outcasts – from those who were not of the nation of
Israel. They will keep the Sabbath, hold
to the covenant, and bring their sacrifices to the Temple. God will gather His people from all the
peoples, and they shall worship in His house of prayer.
Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my
own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down
my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must
bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock,
one shepherd” (John 10:14-16, ESV).
Jesus came to save His people from the nation of Israel
and the spiritual Israel – all those outcasts who are drawn to believe in the
One True God and the Savior He sends.
Paul explains:
“They
are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the
giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the
patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is
God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
“But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For
not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are
children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall
your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh
who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as
offspring” (Romans 9:4-8, ESV).
The children of promise are considered offspring of God –
even those outcasts who believe in the Savior, Jesus, for their salvation.
All peoples are called to believe, repent of their sins,
and obey God, having been saved by Jesus as the spiritual Israel – His people. These people include those who believe and
obey – who were once outcasts according to the Law of God.
That being the case, we need to believe that no people is
beyond God’s salvation. In fact, God
will save people from every tribe and nation and people, though we do not know
who they are in this life. So, we
continue to be called to preach the Gospel and the whole Word of God, praying
that each one would believe to salvation.
This is an encouragement to Jerusalem as she prepares for
the Babylonian exile: God has not
forsaken His people. God will even widen
Israel to bring in other members of the spiritual Israel – even some they will
meet in Babylon.
We never know who God will call to faith: John Newton was a slave trader. Charles Watson was a murderer. Chuck Colson was the “hatchet man” for the
Nixon cabinet.
And then there is you.
You still have much racing to do – and striving after holiness. But what were you? What could you have been? If you keep the Sabbath, and keep to the covenant,
and obey the Word of God – even if you were an outcast, if you are one for whom
Jesus died, you are welcomed into the Temple Who is in the Kingdom.
And then there is me.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You that You do not leave us to
our own devices, eternally cutting off those who sin and the outcasts. We thank You for receiving outcasts like us –
peoples of Jesus’ other sheep. Strengthen our obedience by the Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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