"Repent and Trust" Sermon: Isaiah 22:1-25

“Repent and Trust”

[Isaiah 22:1-25]

February 10, 2019, Second Reformed Church

            Many of us will be familiar with the song written and sung by Frank Sinatra, “I Did It My Way”:

“And now, the end is near

And so I face the final curtain

My friend, I'll say it clear

I'll state my case, of which I'm certain

I've lived a life that's full

I've traveled each and every highway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way

“Regrets, I've had a few

But then again, too few to mention

I did what I had to do

And saw it through without exemption

I planned each charted course

Each careful step along the byway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way

“Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew

When I bit off more than I could chew

But through it all, when there was doubt

I ate it up and spit it out

I faced it all and I stood tall

And did it my way

“I've loved, I've laughed and cried

I've had my fill, my share of losing

And now,…”

(https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=lyrics+to+i+did+it+my+way)

            Frank Sinatra well presents the sin of the people of Jerusalem:  they saw themselves as self-sufficient.  They didn’t need to rely on God or trust God or obey God – they took it all in stride, and in all things, they did it their way.

            Chapter twenty-two of the book of Isaiah is an oracle against the Valley of Vision – which quickly becomes clear is the city of Jerusalem – though Isaiah does not explain the name that he gives it.  It is a warning to the people of God both not to think that we are self-sufficient and to constantly turn to God in all things.

First, the people of Jerusalem party when they should weep.

            The prophet opens the oracle asking Jerusalem, “What are you doing?  What’s wrong with you?  Why are you on your rooftops shouting and being rowdy and joyful – partying – when the city is being besieged?!”

            “Don’t you understand – your leaders have not been killed by the sword – they have run away in cowardice.  They have run off to distant lands to save themselves, and they have left you here to face the incoming hoards.  And you are drinking champagne on the roof, listening to your favorite band, dancing around – are you nuts?  You will be captured and taken away into captivity.”

            And this did come to pass in 586 B.C., as we read:

            “And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. And they built siegeworks all around it. So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king's garden, and the Chaldeans were around the city. And they went in the direction of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered from him. Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they passed sentence on him. They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in chains and took him to Babylon” (2 Kings 25:1-7, ESV).

            Isaiah can’t believe the self-centeredness – their total self-absorption – and he tells them to look away while he weeps – to not even consider trying to comfort him because he is devastated about the coming destruction of the daughter of his people – Jerusalem.

            This is especially devastating to Isaiah because this is supposed to be the people of God.  These were the people that God chose out of all of humanity to be a holy nation for Him on earth – and they are throwing up their hands and saying, “nothing to be done – might as well party while the ship goes down.”

            Consider if you hear about a church or a minister involved in sin that becomes public and he suffers or the church suffers for it – Jimmy Swaggert used prostitutes – the Roman Catholic Church has some pedophile priests in it.  Do we laugh and say, “Oh, well”?  Do we party on because they are not part of our denomination or our church?  If our denomination decides in 2020 to split into two denominations – will we rejoice and party that we don’t have to be associated with them anymore – or should we weep because part of our people have accepted the idea that not everything in the Bible is to be believed?

            Second, Jerusalem looks to their weapons when they should be looking to God.

            Whatever our view of gun control and the like, can we not all agree that weapons have been used to stop evil and to protect?  It was God, after all, Who commanded Israel to kill everyone in Canaan.  And God fought for Israel against her enemies.  And our police officers have guns if, God forbid, they have to use them to stop crime and bloodshed by those unwilling to obey the law.

            But, if you have a gun, or a knife, or a bat, are you guaranteed to be safe?  Of course not.

            And if there is crime in our neighborhood or home, shouldn’t we first go to God in prayer, before we get our weapons – excluding immediate danger, of course?

            God warns Judah and Jerusalem that the day is coming – in 586 B.C. – when the Babylonians will invade and breach the walls of Jerusalem.  We can read of the horror of this attack in the book of Lamentations.

God tells Jerusalem that He has set a day when there will be “tumult and trampling and confusion in the valley of vision,” and the walls of the city will not hold against the invaders.

Elam and Kir – neighboring nations to the east – will join in attacking Jerusalem, with shouts and bows and chariots and horsemen and shields, and they will be successful because the Lord God has taken away His protection from Jerusalem.

            The response of God’s Word to the people is to run to the armory.  They collect water.  They break down their own homes to try to fortify the walls.  But, as Isaiah tells them, “But you did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago.”

            “You hear the enemies are coming.  They begin to break down the walls.  You look for weapons and supplies and water and try to shore up the walls, but none of you thinks to call out – to pray – to the Almighty and Sovereign God Who planned for this to happen from before the foundation of the world.”

            How stupid.

            When you have trouble at home, when you are sick, when the nation is at war with itself, when you are having financial difficulties, when the Church is at odds with itself, when everything you can think of outside of you and around you and in you is going wrong – yes, go to all the means that we have on earth – doctors, financial planners, political figures, and so forth – but don’t neglect to go to God first – to plead before God first – to ask for help and direction and courage to trust God first, because God is the One Who is Sovereign and is bringing His plan to pass, including everything that we don’t understand and fret and seek solutions to.

            I’ve been to a number of these church growth seminars that our denomination has put out, and inevitably, they say that we need to begin with a survey of this or that or the other thing.  No, we ought to begin with prayer – ongoing intense prayer until God gives us an answer or moves us in a certain way.  Go to the Word of God and pray and pray and pray, and then seek the wisdom of these other things.  One that was told to us years ago was that if we removed the weeds from between the slabs of cement in the sidewalk people would come to this church.  Really?  Do you pray?

            Third, God calls Jerusalem to repent, and they party.

            “In that day” – sometime in the future from when Isaiah is preaching, the Lord God of hosts will call upon Jerusalem to repent of her sins – to weep and mourn and show the signs of repentance such as sackcloth and baldness.  God will call on them to show with all sincerity that they repent of their sins against God.

            However, their response will be to ignore God – to rejoice and be glad – to slaughter oxen and sheep – to eat and drink and say, “You know what, God?  We’re not going to repent.  We’re not sorry.  We’re going to party until we drop dead, because we might as get all the pleasure out of life we can and then call it a day.”

            And God tells them that if they do not repent – if they continue unrepentantly in their sin – God will never forgive their sin – they will suffer eternally under the Wrath of God.

            It is not surprising that there are unbelievers in the Church.  Jesus says there will be weeds amidst the wheat until the harvest at the end of the age.  But to not even pretend – to hear God’s call to repentance and to throw it back in God’s face and say, “no!”  To go on living in the Church, working in the Church, claiming to be a part of the Church, and yet saying that you will never obey God, much less repent of your sin.

            Bishop John Spong of Newark, NJ, claims to be a Christian.  He says that God does not exist.  Original Sin is a myth.  The Virgin Birth is a myth.  Jesus is not God.  Jesus was not sacrificed for our sins.  There are no miracles.  Jesus did not ascend.  And there is no objective morality.  And unless Bishop Spong repents of his sin and believes in Jesus Alone for salvation, he will suffer eternal Hell.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong).

            You can’t say you’re a Christian an unrepentantly continue in your sins.  Yes, we all sin.  We ought to be quick to repent of our sin and believe all that God has said.  But, if we hear the Word of God and say, “I don’t care.  I’m going to keep on sinning and enjoying my life until it is over” – then it doesn’t matter if you have been a member of the Church for eighty years, and paid for a new wing, and are a fourth generation parishioner, and wash the feet of widows and bring them food.  You will go to Hell and suffer eternally.  And, if you know anyone so deluded, it should break your heart and bring you to tears and to prayer to God on their behalf.

            Fourth, God removes a leader in Jerusalem as an example to them.

            Shebna is a high official in Jerusalem, but he was full of himself – self-absorbed – assured of his own importance and ability – and he wants to be remembered for all generations for how great he knows he is.  So, Shebna carves out a tomb for himself in Jerusalem where everyone would see him day in and day out throughout the generations.  And God asks him, “Who does that?”

God tells him, for his sin, he will be taken away with violence.  He will be thrown around like a ball and cast out into the wilderness.  He will lose his office and die in disgrace – away from all the people who fawn over him.

In his place, God appoints Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, And God gives Eliakim Shebna’s position, and Shebna’s robe, and Shebna’s sash, and he is given the legislative authority that Shebna had.  And God installs Eliakim like a peg in the wall to be a force of stability for Jerusalem, but God will take him out like He took out Shebna, if Eliakim becomes like him.

And we might look at all of this and say, “Who can blame Jerusalem?”  They were under attack.  Their leaders deserted them.  God has withdrawn His protection.  What hope did they have?  How could they know that God would forgive them, even if He did not save them from the invasion?  Wouldn’t we have acted the same way – turned to our weapons, tried to stay alive, and then just said, “It’s over; let’s go out with a bang?”

Hear how Jesus reacted, knowing much worse was about to befall Him:

 “And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation.’ And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.’ And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, ‘Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation’” (Luke 22:39-46, ESV).

Jesus, in His humanity, knew He was about to suffer more horrifically than any person in all of human history.  His response was not to give up.  His response was not to party and be in denial.  His response was not to engage in sin.  He response was to go to God in prayer and to submit to the Will of His Father.  And if we think that was easy for Him because He is the Son of God, notice that Luke records that He was so traumatized by what He was willingly doing, that His blood vessels burst and mixed with His sweat and fell to the ground like great drops of blood.  No, this was not easy for Jesus to do, but it was the right thing for Him to do – it was for the glory of His Father and our salvation that He did and endured all these horrific things.

What about you and me?

Pray to God our Father.  Trust Him and repent of our sins.  Pray.  Seek to follow Him in all that He calls us to do and be – and pray.  Pray for wisdom and strength – for the ability to obey and be satisfied in God through Jesus whatever may come.  Pray for revival.  Pray that God would look down upon us and grow us in faith and obedience and draw His people into this congregation and into the true churches in our town.  Pray that God the Holy Spirit would change the hearts of those people who are just “playing Christian” in our congregations – may their hearts of stone be torn out and be replaced with hearts of flesh.

Let us all pray silently right now…in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

"Pervasive Darkness" Sermon: Isaiah 21:1-17

“Pervasive Darkness”

[Isaiah 21:1-17]

February 3, 2019, Second Reformed Church

            Come to the wilderness of the sea and hear the Word of God:

            The whirlwinds that sweep on from the Negeb – from the desert – are stronger and wilder and darker than the ones that come up from the inhabited lands.  They have more time to gain strength and darkness.  They fill the land as they move across it and then all is pervasive darkness – nothing can be seen.  Yet, somehow, it comes up from the terrible land – darkness has overcome all its obstacles.

            God gives Isaiah a stern vision – the traitor is traitorous and the destroyer destroys – the darkness darkens.  Who can see?

            And God calls the Persians and the Medes to come up to have her sighing relieved

            Isaiah is filled with anguish at this news – why – the darkness is pervasive.  His legs give way, his stomach is filled with the ache of a woman in the midst of hard labor.  He is bowed down in pain and he cannot hear.  He is dismayed by God’s Word and he cannot see.  He had been looking forward to twilight, but his heart is now erratic, he is filled with horror, darkness has completely enveloped everything.

            And the Medes and the Persians – they are preparing dinner – they are laying out rugs to sit on – they eat and drink.  The princes oil their shields.  They have no concept of the darkness they are in and how pervasive it is.

            God sets Isaiah to be a watchman – God tells Isaiah to climb to the watchman’s tower and to watch for what he sees.  And, when he sees the riders coming across the horizon – when he sees the first horsemen in pairs – when he sees the riders on donkeys and the riders on camels – then he is to listen diligently – very diligently.  As the whirlwind continues to swirl from the terrible land across the desert of the sea, with darkness, heavy darkness, pervasive darkness cutting off all light – he is to listen through the darkness.

            And Isaiah stays in the watchtower as the Lord commands.  He stands there by day and he stays there through the night.  And then, through the darkness – he sees the riders – horsemen in pairs!

            And the rider cries out, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the carved images of her gods he has shattered to the ground.”

            And Isaiah says, “O my threshed and winnowed one, what I have heard from the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, I announce to you.”

            Babylon is the discipline for our sin – first amongst the sins in the darkness being our idolatry.  Any time we put anything in God’s place, we commit idolatry.  Any time we make a decision and God has said, but we say, “Nah, I’d rather do this,” we turn deeper into the darkness.

            Think about your favorite sin – maybe you don’t like to call it your favorite sin – what sin do you sin the most?  Greed?  Lust?  Lying?  Pride?  What god do you go to in the darkness?

            The idols will be smashed – shattered – and you can walk away and leave them behind, or gather up the pieces and take them with you into Hell.

            Isaiah is still in the watchtower when one man from Edom – the nation to the southeast of Judah – sometimes enemies of Judah – arrives and asks when these things will happen.

            “What time of the night will it happen?  When in the pitch of the darkness will it be?”

            And Isaiah tells him, “There will be morning and night again and morning and night again.  If you want to know, ask.  If you want to know, ask again.  If you want to know, come back and ask again.  But the time is not yet.”

            God tells Isaiah that in the darkness of that darkness the Arabs will be slaughtered – and as they make camps in the wilderness – as they live under the scraggy bushes, Judah is to bring the survivors water and bread – bring the fugitives water and bread.  They have survivied the sword and the bow and the men of war.

            “For thus the Lord said to me, ‘Within a year, according to the years of a hired worker, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end. And the remainder of the archers of the mighty men of the sons of Kedar will be few, for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken.’”

            Within a year, the Arabs would be slaughtered to a remnant as the darkness moved over them.

            Darkness can symbolize evil and sin, and we see this most profoundly in the death of Jesus:

            “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour” (Matthew 27:45, ESV).

            As Jesus hung on the cross, the darkness was allowed to descend on Him – as He bore the sins of all we who believe, and He suffered God’s Wrath for the sin and the darkness we delighted in.

            Jesus explains what He came to do to Nichodemus:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God” (John 3:16-21, ESV).

We are delivered from our bondage to sin and darkness – our Babylon, but we are still drawn towards the darkness – the old man in us still longs for the darkness – it is seductive – it is pervasive – it is a liar.

Paul explains:

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Romans 7:15 -25, ESV).

“The phrase ‘post tenebras lux’ (after darkness, light), a rallying cry of Protestant Reformers, refers to the rediscovery of biblical truth in a time of spiritual darkness. Because the darkness of heresy and immorality constantly creeps in, the church must always be seeking to rediscover the light” (https://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/pillars-of-christian-orthodoxy-2011-ligonier-academy-conference/post-tenebras-lux/).

            In this life, we are continually drawn towards the darkness, but as believers, we must constantly fight by the power of God the Holy Spirit to turn away from the darkness, to come out of the darkness, to repent of the darkness and sin and evil we desire to pursue – to seek holiness – to seek to be thoroughly cleansed by the Blood of Jesus.

John writes:

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:5-10, ESV).

Beloved, the darkness – sin and evil – will make itself look like whatever will entice you to follow it into pervasive darkness.  It is comfortable and exciting and deadly.  And God is Sovereign, even if you and I can’t see through the whirlwind in the dark.  Walk in the light as Jesus is in the light. 

Let us pray:

Almighty God, You sent Your Son into the darkness we created by turning away from You.  Thank You for sending Him to live and die for us, and cause us to turn from the darkness, walk in the light, and seek after holiness.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.