You may know the famous saying often read at the start of the new year, written by Louise Haskins and quoted by King George VI of England in his 1939 Christmas message to the British Empire.
“I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, “Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown,” and he replied, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
“Put your hand into the hand of God.” This new year will be both exciting and challenging. We all need to put our hands into the hand of God!
I have spoken before on wonderful God’s promises to his chosen people in Isaiah 43.
16 This is what the LORD says—
he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters,
17 who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together,
and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:
18 ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
20 The wild animals honour me, the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,
21 the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.

We face this new year with the God who is always doing new things. God encourages us to look for the new things he wants to do in our lives and in His Church. God is indeed the God who can do immeasurably more than we can ask, or even imagine!
So we look for the new things He is going to do in 2022.
Holy Spirit, we welcome You. Holy Spirit, we welcome You.
Please accomplish in me today Some new work of loving grace, I pray;
Unreservedly have Your way. Holy Spirit, we welcome You.
We need God to do new things among us, for a number of reasons. These are exciting days as we are stepping out in faith in our new Building Development Project. This will stretch our finances more than we anticipate and I suspect also interfere with our activities more than we are prepared for. But we are starting this new adventure at a time when the church is actually weaker than it has been in the eleven years since I arrived. Covid has taken its toll on our events and activities. Attendance at our morning services is low – many have not returned to worshipping in person with us yet and some have moved on. Some of our activities have not begun again and our circle of contacts is much smaller than it was before the lockdowns began. Of course, we are not the only church facing these challenges – very many churches have been hit even harder than we have. But we certainly need God to do new things among us. As Psalm 127:1 tells us, Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labour in vain.
We cannot rest on our laurels just remembering the things God has done among us in the past.
Isaiah 43 18 ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
As we seek to perceive the new things God is doing and seek God’s guidance for the way ahead , for tonight here in Isaiah 30 we find four pointers.
Isaiah 30 15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.
16 You said, “No, we will flee on horses.” Therefore you will flee.
You said, “We will ride off on swift horses.” Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away,
As we go forward with God, we must avoid making the mistakes the Israelites made. It was always God’s plan and God’s desire that His chosen people would find their strength in him. God always wanted His chosen people to trust in Him and depend on him and let His power be revealed in them and through them. But time and again they struggled in their own strength. They put their trust in earthly resources and their own efforts. So things went wrong for them. But that is not how God intended things to be!
Psalm 20 6 Now this I know: the LORD gives victory to his anointed.
He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of his right hand.
7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
8 They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.
As we go forward into 2022 we much put our trust completely in God and not in the least in our own human efforts – not in our own strength or wisdom.
God always wanted his power and glory to be manifested in His chosen people. But they didn’t trust him enough! We must make sure we are depending on God alone.
Isaiah 30 15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.
WE need to find our strength in quietness and trust, in repentance and rest. We need to stop trying to do God’s work for him all the time and let God do his mighty deeds among us. I believe that the new things God will do among us in the coming year are exactly that – new things which GOD will do. Not new things we will invent and work at and make succeed. But new things GOD will do in our midst by his sovereign power.
He longs to do much more than Our faith has yet allowed,
To thrill us and surprise us With His sovereign power.
Where darkness has been darkest The brightest light will shine,
His invitation comes to us, It’s yours and it is mine.
Come on in and taste the new wine, The wine of the kingdom,
God is waiting and longing to do new things among us!
Isaiah 3018 Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
19 People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.
God is just waiting for us to cry out to him for help. To acknowledge our complete dependence on Him. Not on our own skill or experience or ideas. But on God’ grace without which we can do nothing.
Jeremiah 29 11 For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
God has great plans to do new things amongst us. He is just waiting for us to pray to him and seek him with our whole heart! But the new things God is planning to do amongst us will not necessarily be comfortable or easy.
Isaiah 30 20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
The people of the Exile to whom Isaiah wrote knew all about the bread of adversity and the water of affliction. And that is the destiny of the people of God in every age. Forget the heresy of health, wealth and prosperity. The children of God will not have an easy ride to heaven. 1 Peter, James, 2 Corinthians all, say the same thing.
2 Corinthians 4 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.
Following Jesus is not easy or comfortable. The destiny of all Christians is to follow Jesus Christ the suffering servant. If you do not bear the cross you will not wear the crown
2 Corinthians 12 9 But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
So in the midst of all the excitements of 2022, we should not expect the road to be easy. Many of us could well indeed experience the bread of adversity and the water of affliction in the new things God is going to do. But that will not be a sign that we are failing God or wandering from his path. Rather our sufferings will be the channel through which the glory of God will be revealed. So in the new things God is going to do it will be vitally important that we allow Him to guide us every step of the way. And he gives his chosen people a wonderful promise of his guidance.
Isaiah 30 20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. 21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’
Good News Bible If you wander off the road to the right or the left, you will hear his voice behind you saying, “Here is the road. Follow it.”
We all need that voice behind us telling us which way to go. Especially when God is doing new things among us. Especially when the going gets tough. We need to hear the voice of God saying “This is the way, walk in it.” God will speak to us in many ways: through his word the Bible; through spiritual gifts of prophecy and discernment and words of knowledge and wisdom; through dreams and visions. But above all God will speak to each one of us through that still small voice of calm, the Holy Spirit inside each one of us as we seek God’s face in prayer separately and especially together.
We will need God guiding us to the right ways to help back into the church those we have lost contact with over the last two years. We will need God guiding us to the best ways to share the love of Jesus as we emerge from Covid omicron. Probably starting before the end of the year, the church will also need God’s guidance and wisdom to navigate a period of pastoral vacancy, which may be especially challenging if Covid is still casting any kind of shadow over our country by that stage.
So as we step out in faith into this new year and we need put our hands into the mighty hand of God. We need to put our trust in God and not in ourselves.
‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,
We need to call out to God in prayer.
Jeremiah 29 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
And we need to make time and space to listen to the still small voice of calm guiding us.
Isaiah 30 . 21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’

In the sixth Century BC two generations of the people of Israel found themselves a long long way from home! In 587 BC the Babylonians overran Israel and completely destroyed the Holy City of Jerusalem and especially the Temple built under King Solomon which had been the focal point of the faith of Israel for hundreds of years. The vast majority of God’s chosen people were wiped out and just a few thousand remained to be taken away into captivity in Babylon. This was God’s hand of judgment on his chosen people for their complacency, for taking their salvation for granted, for worshipping idols, for neglecting the Law and for neglecting the poor and needy.
Of course God’s judgment on Israel had a purpose. God’s intention was never to abandon his chosen people, but rather to refine and purify Israel. He never destroyed them completely – he kept a faithful remnant alive. In the middle of their exile, through prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, God gave his chosen people hope – the hope that one day they would return and reclaim the promised land once again – the hope that they would go home.
The Israelites were allowed to return Jerusalem in groups from 537 BC and gradually in the years of Ezra and Nehemiah they rebuilt the city and the Temple. But life just wasn’t the same for those who returned. Israel was no longer a major political or military power. It felt as if the nation was still in Exile, cut off from God and under judgment. For almost five centuries their hopes were looking forward again, to the day when God would send a Saviour, the Messiah who would come to Jerusalem rebuild the Temple and restore Israel to glory.
The story of Israel in captivity has given strength and hope to God’s people throughout the ages. It has inspired Christians through this year when life has seemed so different from everything we have ever known. When life seems tough, perhaps when it seems that the world is against us. When we feel like WE are exiles in captivity in a foreign land the hope is always there – one day we will be home! The hopes and the promises which the faithful remnant clung on to in the years of Exile have been an inspiration to believers through the ages. It is a picture for us of our salvation as we experience it now as aliens and strangers in a world which has rejected God. And it is a picture too of the home which awaits us in glory forever.
It was the so-called Major Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel who encouraged God’s people in Exile and they have so much to say to us as well. So let’s hear how they held out the promise of hope to the captives in Exile, and the promise of the Messiah who was to come. Let’s listen to some of the scriptures which encouraged those exiles so much and let those promises encourage us too. Isaiah 35 gives us six beautiful pictures of the amazing salvation we have received through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Picture 1 – The desert bursting into bloom
Isaiah 35:1 The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendour of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendour of our God.

Life without God is like living in a desert. Everything is empty and dry and dead. In contrast, life in the presence of God’s splendour and God’s glory is like living in a garden full of the most beautiful trees and flowers, filled with all kinds of delicious fruit and vegetables. Like being back in the Garden of Eden. When God brings his salvation, even the desert will be glad and the wilderness will rejoice.

Picture 2 – God’s strength for the weak and fearful

3 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; 4 say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.’

We all need God’s help all the time. Especially through this past year we have realized our need of God’s amazing grace to sustain and support us. There are so many places in the Bible where God promises to help us in our times of need.

Isaiah 40 29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

God’s salvation brings us all the strength we need to live for him and worship and serve him.

Picture 3 – God bringing healing

5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. 6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.

The fall of Adam and Eve brought sickness and pain and suffering and death into the world. The people of Israel were looking forward to the day when the Messiah will come and bring God’s healing and wholeness and peace to everybody, the blind, the deaf, the lame and the mute. Even death will be defeated. This is our hope as Christians as well. However difficult our lives here on earth may become, we have the certain hope of heaven where God will wipe every tear from our eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.

Picture 4 – Streams in the desert

Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. 7 The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

I have only ever seen pictures of deserts, although we have visited hot countries where the temperature is 110 or 120 degrees in the shade, but there wasn’t any shade. We once walked down a gorge on Crete in that kind of heat. We weren’t even half way down before we had drunk all the water we had brought with us. Perhaps you have had similar occasions when you have been desperately thirsty. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. Cooling and refreshing streams springing up in the desert, bringing life where there was only death. What a marvellous picture of salvation! God bringing life-giving water to his chosen people. Isaiah 43 picks up the same imagery.

Isaiah 43:18-21 18 ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
20 The wild animals honour me, the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen, 21 the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.

Wonderful pictures of salvation. Fulfilled for us in God’s gift of the Holy Spirit living inside us, bringing streams of living water.

Picture 5 – The highway for God’s people – the road home
8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it. 9 No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast; they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there, 10and those the LORD has rescued will return. #

“There’s No place like HOME” Home is so important to us all. Home is our place of comfort, our place of safety. After a long hard day’s work it is so good to arrive home. Even more so after weeks and months of travelling, While we have to be away, home is where we long to be. “Home is where the heart Is”. The Israelites in Exile clung on to this wonderful promise. One day they would be going home – going back to Jerusalem. Scattered across the Babylonian empire, however far away they were, God would create a highway to take them home to Jerusalem. The road would be completely safe, with no evil men or dangerous beasts. Once they set foot on the highway their journey home would be guaranteed. Those the Lord has rescued WILL return on it. And arriving home will be even better.
Picture 6 – Returning home to everlasting joy!

They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
This was Israel’s hope. No more sorrow or sighing. Just gladness and singing and everlasting joy. Indeed the whole of creation will join in the celebration when God brings his chosen people home to himself.
Isaiah 55 12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
I can only imagine how soldiers must have felt at the end of the war, being demobbed and arriving home to be reunited with family and friends. Home at last! Isaiah gives us a picture of the joy of the people God has redeemed, when they return home to him. Everlasting joy will crown their heads!
So here were just some of the promises God made to his chosen people while they were far from home in Exile in Babylon. These were the hopes the Jews had of the salvation which the Messiah would bring to them. And they give us six pictures of the amazing salvation which we have received through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We aren’t experiencing the fullness of these blessings just yet – because we haven’t arrived home yet. But we are on the highway!

There was a man whose birthday fell in the middle of December. For most of his life his brother had given him just one present to cover both birthday and Christmas, and he always saved that combined present to open it on Christmas Day. But last year most unusually the brother gave the man a present specifically for his birthday. With great excitement he tore open the wrapping paper to find a box. He opened the box and inside he found two things. The first was a single slipper for a left foot. The second thing was a simple card. “Happy Birthday. Guess what you’re getting for Christmas!”

That little story is actually the perfect parable for this morning’s message, which I have entitled, “The best is yet to come.” You may know that phrase particularly from the song.
Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum
You came along and everything started to hum
Still it’s a real good bet the best is yet to come
The best is yet to come and, babe, won’t it be fine?
You think you’ve seen the sun but you ain’t seen it shine
We usually associate Frank Sinatra with the song “My way”. In fact the epitaph on Frank Sinatra’s tombstone is those words, “The best is yet to come”. A fitting epitaph, and a most fitting message in this season of advent.

Advent comes from the Latin meaning “coming” or “arrival” which was itself a translation of the Greek parousia which also means coming but is actually much more often used to refer to Christ’s second coming! The season of advent not only prepares us to celebrate as we look back at the events of Christ’s first coming, the Nativity. This season of advent also looks forward to the return of Christ in glory.

Because the Christmas story is actually only half the story, the first instalment, the left slipper sitting all by itself in the box. We have yet to see the fulfilment of God’s cosmic master-plan to redeem the whole of Creation. And the best is definitely yet to come!

The people of Israel had been waiting for centuries. Waiting for the day when God’s salvation would come. Looking forward to the day when God would act as King, punish those who were not His chosen People and establish His Kingdom in the world. The prophets had pointed the way forward. The Word of God the Old Testament was brimming over with promises of God’s salvation, promises of all the blessings God has in store for his people. The prophets spoke from God so many times about this promised salvation and so for centuries the people of Israel had been waiting the person who would bring in that God’s wonderful salvation – The Messiah.

The prophet Isaiah tells us a lot about who this Saviour will be.

Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Wonderful counsellor – a figure of wisdom

Mighty God – a figure of strength and power

Everlasting Father – a figure of Creation

Prince of Peace – a figure bringing Salvation

Isaiah 11:1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him- the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD- 3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.

So the Messiah will be a descendent of Jesse, who was the father of Great King David. The Messiah will be a human king even greater than David. Because He will be empowered by the Holy Spirit who will rest on Him, the Spirit who gives understanding and wisdom and power and knowledge. The Holy Spirit who fills people with reverence and awe for the Almighty and Holy God.

The Holy Spirit will empower this mighty deliverer. This is the Messiah foretold by Isaiah. And Isaiah also looks forward to the kind of the salvation the Messiah will bring

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

Good news for the poor
Bind up the broken hearted
Freedom for the captives
Release from darkness for the prisoners
The year of the Lord’s favour
Comfort for all who mourn and grieve – gladness and praise instead of mourning and despair.

Isaiah 9: 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and for ever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

A kingly rule characterised by justice and righteousness and peace.

Isaiah 11 3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash round his waist.

Kingdom will be the perfect expression of God’s shalom, God’s peace. The Hebrew word “shalom” means much more than the absence of conflict and war. Shalom means wholeness and harmony and that is what the Messiah will bring to the earth.

6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.

This is what the world will be like when the Messiah is in charge. Taking things back to the perfection of Creation and the way things used to be like in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve spoiled everything by rebelling against God. The barrier of sin which separates human beings from God the Creator will be dealt with. Relationships will be restored and there will be complete harmony again.

9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.

This was the Messiah the people of Israel had been expecting and this was the wonderful salvation he would bring to the world. And indeed Jesus did begin this reign of righteousness and justice – but He did not bring it to completion. Jesus brought the first instalment of God’s wonderful peace – but not the fulness of the harmony and wholeness which was promised. So far there are many glorious promises which have only been partially fulfilled. God has started but he hasn’t finished yet! The best is yet to come

In His birth and his incarnation and his earthly ministry Jesus began to fulfil so many of these Old Testament prophesies about the Messiah and the End Times, the Day of the Lord, and the Year of the Lord. He began to fulfil those promises, but many of them await their ultimate fulfilment when Jesus will return again in glory with the Holy angels, on that day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. While we wait for that day, we have only experienced a foretaste of God’s blessings – the best is yet to come!

This was the message Jesus brought. The kingdom of God is here. But not actually, “the Kingdom of God has completely arrived.” That would have been a different word. What Jesus preached time and again was “The kingdom of God has come near you.” “The kingdom of God has touched you.” “The kingdom of God has brushed up against you.” The kingly rule of God has begun. But it did not fully arrive in Jesus’s lifetime or even in his glorious resurrection. The best is yet to come.

So for this morning, let me just share with you some more of God’s wonderful promises, especially from the prophet Isaiah, which have begun to be fulfilled in Christ’s first coming, but which will only be fully expressed at the Second coming. Let us look forward with anticipation!

God promises SALVATION – that’s just an umbrella word which embraces all the wonderful blessings of his grace which God gives so freely to his people.

Isa 45:17 But Israel will be saved by the LORD with an everlasting salvation; you will never be put to shame or disgraced, to ages everlasting.

God’s wonderful salvation has begun – but it has yet to be completed. As far as SALVATION is concerned, the best is yet to come.

One aspect of salvation is RESCUE

40:10 See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. 11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.
35:3 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; 4 say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

That experience of rescue which God promised to his people Israel is now for all people everywhere who will humble themselves and accept God’s grace. RESCUE The best is yet to come.

JUSTICE

Isaiah 11:3 He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; 4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.

Our world is still spoiled by injustice. The return of Jesus will bring an end to all forms of injustice. The best is yet to come.

CLEANSING and FORGIVENESS

55:6 ¶ Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

One day we will be completely pure and holy – but none of us have arrived there yet! We all need CLEANSING and FORGIVENESS The best is yet to come!

GOD’S PRESENCE

40:3 ¶ A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it.

60:19 The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. 20 Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end.

What a wonderful day that will be – when we will see God face to face! Many Christians look forward to the Second Coming because it will mean the end of the troubles and problems of this world. But the better reason we look forward to Christ’s return is that we will be with him forever. Jesus promised,
John 14 3 … if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

GOD’S PRESENCE The best is yet to come!

There will be PEACE – as we saw prophesied in Isaiah chapters 9 and 11.
Perfect harmony. No more harm – no more destruction. In this life we only experience a foretaste of the wonderful peace which life in God’s presence will bring to each one of us.

OVERFLOWING BLESSINGS

55:2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.
25:6 ¶ On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine- the best of meats and the finest of wines. 7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; 8 he will swallow up death for ever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth.

The promise of the Banquet of the Messiah, the Marriage Feast of the lamb. Overflowing blessings. Earthly kingdoms rise and fall but God’s eternal kingdom will stand forever! OVERFLOWING BLESSINGS The best is yet to come!

EVERLASTING JOY

35:10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
55:12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
25:9 ¶ In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

The joy which we experience in this life is just a foretaste, a glimpse of the joys which await us when Christ returns. Salvation, rescue, justice, cleansing, forgiveness, God’s presence, peace, safety, healing, overflowing blessings, joy. So here are God’s glorious promises. We are already experiencing the first instalment of these blessings – the foretaste, the appetisers. Until Christ returns again we simply wait with anticipation. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad! The best is definitely yet to come!

Last week we started to look at the four passages in the second half of the book of the prophet Isaiah collectively called “The Songs of the Servant.”
We saw how Isaiah pointed forward to the Messiah, the servant anointed by God not only to bring salvation to Israel but also to be a light to the Gentiles. The servant would be a mighty prophet, empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring justice to the world. And more than that:
Isaiah 42 6 “I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles,
7 to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

We saw that in his person and throughout his ministry Jesus fulfilled the promises in the Servant Songs of Isaiah. Then in the third song in Isaiah 50 we began to get a glimpse of what being God’s servant would demand. The servant would be obedient, not rebelling or turning away from God’s plan. But that would lead to beatings and needing to turn the other cheek. The servant would face mocking and spitting and accusations and charges. There would be times when all the servant could do is set his face like flint and put his trust in the God his helper who will not let him be put to shame, simply relying on God for his vindication. That is what it would cost for the Servant of God to bring Israel back to God and to be the light to the gentiles and to bring God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. And that brings us to the end of Isaiah chapter 52 and the whole of chapter 53, the Song of the Suffering Servant.
It is very clear that the Early Church understood the ministry and especially the death of Jesus as a fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah 53. Tonight I am going to simply take us through the Song of the Suffering Servant and point to echoes of that passage in the New Testament. This will help us to appreciate what the death of Jesus means to Christians and to each one of us. The fourth Servant Song begins at Isaiah 52:13
ISAIAH 52 13 See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness—
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.
The song begins by acknowledging that many people will not recognize God’s servant. They will be shocked and appalled at him and he will be rejected.
53 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

So the Servant will be “the arm of the Lord”, God himself at work bringing salvation. But people would not recognize him. Worse than that, people would reject him.

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Echoing 52:14 his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness—

Despised and rejected. Suffering and pain. A vivid description of the last hours of Jesus’s life. We see all the prophecies of rejection and suffering of the Servant fulfilled in the ways Jesus was flogged and scourged and mocked with a crown of thorns by the soldiers and the crowds on the road to the cross.
John 1 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

People misunderstood the cross. To the Jews death by crucifixion was an unclean death – a sign of God’s curse on a person. A sign of rejection not only by the community but by God himself. But the first Christians explicitly saw this verse being fulfilled throughout the ministry of Jesus.

Matthew 8 16 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all who were ill. 17 This was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.’ (Isaiah 53:4)
The whole of Jesus’s ministry was taking up the pain and bearing the suffering of a sin-spoiled world.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Various places in the New Testament look back to Isaiah 53:5

Romans 4 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Hebrews 9:28 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many;
Now let’s take verses 5 and 6 together

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

2 Corinthians 5 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The punishment that brought us peace was on him. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
There are so many other places in the New Testament where Isaiah 53 verses 5 and 6 are echoed in the New Testament. The most obvious comes in 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
22 ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’
23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 ‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’ 25 For ‘you were like sheep going astray,’ but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Jesus carried our sins in his body on the cross. We are those sheep who are going astray. The punishment which brought us peace, which reconciled us to God, was laid on God’s Suffering Servant. That image of the sheep going astray was surely the background to a number of important things Jesus said and did.

(Matthew 9 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.)
Matthew 10 12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.
And Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.
(John 10 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. ,,, 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”)

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

The song of the Suffering Servant goes on:
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
The picture changes from the sheep who are lost, saved by the shepherd, to the sheep which is the sacrifice, the lamb led to the slaughter. Which is of course the picture used by John the Baptist to describe Jesus.
John 1 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! …. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, (John the Baptist) said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’
We saw last week how the baptism of Jesus fulfilled the first Servant Song in Isaiah 42. So it seems to me very likely that when John described Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, he then had Isaiah 53 in mind.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
Isaiah prophesies there towards the day of his trials, when Jesus would be silent in the face of his accusers, of Caiaphas and of Pilate and of Herod. We just saw how 1 Peter 2 picked up that prophecy.
22 ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’
23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

It is also clear that the Early Church made this link between Isaiah 53 and Jesus’s death. You remember how in Acts 8 the evangelist Philip was led to the chariot of the Ethiopian Official and the passage he was reading was Isaiah 53.

Acts 8 34 The eunuch asked Philip, ‘Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?’ 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

Led like a sheep to the slaughter.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Again this is the verse quoted in 1 Peter 2 22 ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’

The Servant is punished by death not for his own sins but for the transgressions of the people. Assigned a grave with the wicked, crucified between two thieves (Luke 23:32), and yet a grave with the rich – foretelling that Jesus would be buried in the tomb belonging to the rich man Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:57)
10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

At last a verse bringing a glimmer of hope – the promise of resurrection And a recognition that God is actually in control and everything is unfolding according to God’s will. But before then the suffering servant will have to give up his life as a sin offering, or a guilt offering. Paying the price for the nation guilty of breaking their covenant with God (Leviticus 5:14-16).
11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

Peter clearly understands the death of Jesus in those terms in 1 Peter 3 18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
So the Suffering servant bears the sins of the people, and brings justification to many. But with the hope of a glorious resurrection to follow.

12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

The Suffering Servant who dies to take away the sins of the nation. Some people mistakenly think that Jesus being a sacrifice for sin originated with the apostle Paul, or with the Early Church. But it is very clear that Jesus understood his death in terms of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53:12 because he actually quoted that verse. At the end of the Last Supper, when Jesus had been foretelling his death, he said this.
Luke 22 37 It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”
Jesus quotes Isaiah 53:12. “He was numbered with the transgressors.” And he says, what is written about me is reaching its fulfilment. In other words, in Jesus’s own mind Isaiah 53 is indeed prophesying the death of Jesus the Suffering Servant.
Moments earlier Jesus had broken bread and passed around the cup and used the words which we will quote in a few moments at the Lord’s Table.
Mark 14:24 24 ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,’
Dying “for many.” Again in fulfilment of Isaiah 53:11 and 12. Pouring out his life – for many.
V.11 by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

v.12 because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

The Suffering Servant would be dying for the many and he would bear their iniquities and bear the sin of many.
And this is just how Jesus had foretold his death in Mark 10:45 = Matthew 20:28.
Mark 10 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’
A ransom (lutron) is the price paid to set a slave or a prisoner free. And Jesus says that his life will be a ransom for many. Probably a better translation is “a ransom in place of many”. Although the exact words are not the same, when he said he was going to “give his life as a ransom for many,” Jesus could hardly have offered a better summary of the sacrifice of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53. Let’s finish by hearing again how the death of Jesus was prophesied more than seven centuries earlier.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.

Bow down and worship – for this is your God!

We have said before that Isaiah is sometimes known as the Fifth Gospel or the Gospel in the Old Testament. No other Old Testament book is as full of God’s wonderful promises of salvation. No other book contains as many prophecies concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. And so many of those promises are wrapped up in just four passages in the second half of Isaiah which have been known for more than a century as the Songs of the Servant. Isaiah chapters 40 to 54 contain so many passages about the sins of Israel, which are being punished by a time of Exile, and God’s judgment on all the nations. (B.Duhm commentary 1892) But in the middle of that there are wonderful promises of hope, focussed on some individual far into the future who would bring justice and freedom and light in the darkness. The Servant of God.
Isaiah 42:1 ‘Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.
2 He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.
3 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
4 he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his teaching the islands will put their hope.’

Here is my servant. Some people think this servant refer to the nation of Israel as a whole. Others think it is more likely to refer to the faithful remnant within Israel, because part of the servant’s mission is to bring Israel back to God. Other people have suggested that the Israel refers to a particular individual in Israel’s history, such as Moses, or the prophet Jeremiah, or Cyrus, or Zerubbabel, or even to Isaiah the prophet himself. But by the time of Jesus the Jews had recognised that the Servant of God would be God’s agent who would redeem his chosen people, the person still to come who would be God’s Messiah.

This first song reveals that God’s servant will be anointed and chosen by God. He will be God’s delight. And he will be inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God. As Christians with hindsight we can immediately see how Jesus fulfilled these prophecies perfectly on the occasion when he was baptised in the river Jordan by John the Baptist.
Luke 3:21 When all the people were being baptised, Jesus was baptised too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’
The words from heaven are an echo of Psalm 2:7 “You are my son, this day have I begotten you”. At the same time they are obviously a fulfilment of Isaiah 42:1. ‘Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him. It is clear in so many places that Jesus thought of himself as God’s servant. Mark 9:35 “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And right from Jesus’s baptism it is clear that the principal background for that picture of God’s Messiah is the Servant Songs in Isaiah. Mark 9:35 “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
In Isaiah 42 the mission of God’s servant empowered by the Holy Spirit is to bring justice to the earth.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; 4 he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth. In his teaching the islands will put their hope.’

And this justice is not only for Israel, but for all the nations, for the whole of the earth. This mission of the servant to extend salvation beyond Israel is developed in the second of the servant songs in Isaiah 49
ISAIAH 49:1 Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations:
before I was born the LORD called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.
2 He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.
3 He said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendour.’
4 But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all.
Yet what is due to me is in the LORD’s hand, and my reward is with my God.’
5 And now the LORD says— he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honoured in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength—
6 he says: ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.’

The servant’s first task is to bring the nation of Israel back to God, to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honoured in the eyes of the LORD
But then the servant is also called to bring the Gentiles to God
for I am honoured in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength—
6 he says: ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.’

Remember the Song of Simeon, the prophetic words when Jesus was presented in the Temple as a baby which are so significant that they are often referred to by the name which comes from the first two words in Latin, the “Nunc Demittis.” The Holy Spirit had previously revealed to Simeon that he would live to see the Christ, the Messiah. And when he held the baby Jesus, Simeon prophesied in these words.
Luke 2 29 ‘Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.’

Simeon recognised that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour. Simeon realised that God’s servant would bring salvation to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. And specifically Simeon recognised that Jesus would be the fulfilment of the prophecies in the Servant Song of Isaiah 49. This isn’t really surprising. We know that Jews in the time of Jesus commonly understood the Servant Songs to be prophecies about the Messiah. In fact the second half of Isaiah is jam packed with promises about this wonderful salvation even when the focus is not on the servant himself. Straight after the first servant song we read this.
Isaiah 42:5 This is what God the LORD says— he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:
6 “I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles,
7 to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
Isaiah foretold that God would make his servant a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles. And the salvation he would bring is described in words we will return to another day when we find them again in Isaiah 61,
to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

Similar ideas appear just after the second Servant Song.
Isaiah 49 8 This is what the LORD says:
“In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you;
I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
9 to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’

Freeing the captives and bringing those trapped in darkness into the light. Bringing justice to all the nations? But how will God’s Servant bring this wonderful salvation? Back to the start of the second song.
ISAIAH 49:1 Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations:
before I was born the LORD called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.
2 He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.
3 He said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendour.’

The servant is God’s messenger. God’s faithful servant is chosen and called and empowered first and foremost to be a prophet, with a mouth like a sharpened sword. His words will display God’s splendour and bring the light of God’s salvation. At the same time his words will reveal God’s judgment and bring God’s justice to the world. Throughout the Old Testament the prophets of God were often called God’s servants. And that is the idea which begins the third of the Servant Songs in Isaiah 50
4 The Sovereign LORD has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.
The servant of God will be a great prophet. But how was that fulfilled in Jesus. We naturally focus on Jesus as the Son of God but we tend to forget that the Jews who first heard him would instead have understood Jesus to begin with as a prophet.
Jesus himself said, ‘A prophet is not without honour except in his own country and in his own house’.
The response of the crowds to the healing of the widow’s son at Nain is that ‘a great prophet has arisen among us’.
When he was warned about Herod’s threats, Jesus replies to ‘that fox’ that it is impossible for a prophet to perish away from Jerusalem. Here Jesus accepts not only the role, but also the fate, of the prophet.
The Samaritan woman at the well recognized ‘that Jesus is a prophet’; the rulers mocked at Jesus, saying that ‘no prophet comes from Galilee’; the man healed from blindness says about Jesus, ‘he is a prophet’.
In reply to Jesus’ question, ‘Who do people say that I am?’, the disciples replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others one of the prophets.’ Jesus did not contradict or correct those beliefs. They were just the first level of understanding. He was a prophet.
When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem crowds asked ‘Who is this?’ and the pilgrim crowds arriving with Jesus replied, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.’
In the parable of the wicked tenants in the vineyard, Jesus represents himself as the last in the line of the prophets, and Matthew tells us says that those who wished to arrest Jesus feared the crowds, ‘because they held him to be a prophet’.
Even after the resurrection, when the disciples on the road to Emmaus are asked why they are sad, they begin to speak about Jesus, ‘a prophet mighty in word and deed’.
So of course as Christians we believe and confess that Jesus is indeed the Son of God. But to begin with the disciples and the crowds only recognised Jesus to be a prophet. Specifically, the prophet fulfilling the promises in Isaiah’s Servant Songs.
The third Song goes on like this.
ISAIAH 50 4 The Sovereign LORD has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.
He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.
5 The Sovereign LORD has opened my ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away.
6 I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.
7 Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges against me? Let us face each other! Who is my accuser? Let him confront me!
9 It is the Sovereign LORD who helps me. Who will condemn me?

Here in the third Servant Song we begin to get a glimpse of what being God’s servant will demand. The servant will be obedient, not rebelling or turning away from God’s plan. But that will lead to beatings and needing to turn the other cheek. The servant will face mocking and spitting. There will be accusations and there will be charges. And there will be times when all the servant can do is set his face like flint and put his trust in the God his helper who will not let him be put to shame, relying on God for his vindication. That is what it would cost for the Servant of God to bring Israel back to God and to be the light to the gentiles and to bring God’s salvation to the world. Because then the fourth Song in Isaiah spells out very graphically that the Servant of God will be the Suffering Servant.
ISAIAH 52 3 See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him— his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness
…..
53:1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Isaiah’s Songs point us to the Suffering Servant who would be despised and rejected. The faithful and obedient servant, enduring terrible suffering which is completely undeserved. Yet this servant is at the same time “the arm of the Lord”, God at work in the world. Because that was the only way to bring God’s salvation. Time and again Jesus taught that the Son of Man must suffer many things. The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus is the Servant King, washing the feet of his disciples. Jesus very clearly viewed his ministry, his life and his death, to be a fulfilment of the Servant Songs and especially the Song of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah chapters 52 and 53. As we count down to Easter we will come back to that fourth Song next week. Until then, bow down and worship. For this is your God.

Today is January 6th, the Feast of Epiphany. In the Eastern Orthodox Church today is the day they celebrate Christmas with special meals and exchanging gifts. An Epiphany means a revelation, a moment of insight and realisation. The feast of Epiphany in the church calendar celebrates that moment when the baby Jesus was revealed to all the nations, to Gentiles as well as to Jews, represented by the Wise Men who visited the infant Jesus.

Matthew 2:1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose

It all seems very implausible. Foreigners making long and hazardous journeys to worship the new-born king when even his own people did not recognise him. Guided by a star, or by the stars, to the very house where the baby and his mother were staying. All very unlikely. Until we remember that the birth of Jesus had been foretold centuries before and in so many places. And some of those prophesies indeed looked forward to the events the church celebrates on Epiphany, Three Kings Day.

At the Epiphany FOREIGN NATIONS CAME TO JESUS

Isaiah 2 2 In the last days
the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.
3 Many peoples will come and say,
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’
The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

In the time of Isaiah, the peace of Jerusalem and indeed the future of the nation was at threat. But God still had a purpose for the Mountain of the Lord, Mount Zion and his holy city Jerusalem, the city of peace. One day it would be exalted above all other nations.
God will exalt His Holy city. But more than that. In time to come God’s blessings will not be restricted to the Israelites. People from other nations will also come there to find God for themselves.

Isaiah 56: 3 ¶ Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.”

The promises were there that salvation would come to foreigners as well as to Jews.

Foreign nations travelled to see Jesus. AND

At the Epiphany FOREIGN NATIONS WORSHIPPED JESUS

2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’

9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him.

All this was foretold in the Gospel in the Old Testament, the book of the prophet Isaiah

Isaiah 49:7 …. Kings will see you and rise up, princes will see and bow down, because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

Psalm 86 8 Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord;
no deeds can compare with yours.
9 All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord;
they will bring glory to your name.
10 For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God.

Foreign nations came to worship Jesus. AND

At the Ephipany FOREIGN NATIONS BROUGHT GIFTS TO JESUS

11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Isaiah 60:1 60 ‘Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.
3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

They weren’t kings. They were wise men, magi, astrologers, eastern mystics. They weren’t Jewish – they followed the eastern mystery religions. But that prophecy in Isaiah 60:3 is the main reason why the church has thought of them as Kings.

3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

And that was just one fulfilment of the nations coming to worship and bring their gifts. Isaiah 60 goes on
4 ‘Lift up your eyes and look about you: all assemble and come to you;
your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip.
5 Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy;
the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come.
6 Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah.
And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the LORD.

Gold and incense to celebrate the coming of the King. Isaiah is echoing the psalmist who talked about the nations bringing gifts to God’s anointed King. I talked this morning about Gold as a fitting gift for a king, incense for a priest and myrrh for a Saviour. It actually wasn’t until the second century that the church made those connections between the gifts the Magi brought and the ministry of Jesus as king, priest and Saviour. In truth gold, frankincense and myrrh were just three extremely valuable yet portable commodities, alongside precious jewels of course. The Magi would not have seen any significance in the gifts they brought. Nor did the Magi realise they would be fulfilling prophecies first found in Psalm 72.

Psalm 72 10 May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tribute to him.
May the kings of Sheba and Seba present him with gifts.
11 May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him.
12 For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help.
13 He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death.
14 He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight.
15 Long may he live! May gold from Sheba be given to him.
May people ever pray for him and bless him all day long.

Foreign nations came to Jesus. They worshipped Him and they gave Him gifts. And all this reveals a glorious truth about the good news of Jesus Christ.
God’s Blessings are for Everybody!

The thing about Jesus that really annoyed respectable Jews was that they wanted to keep the blessings of God’s Kingdom for themselves, but Jesus offered those blessings to everybody. Tax collectors, prostitutes, even Gentiles (those who were not Jews at all), received God’s love and forgiveness rather than the religious but self-righteous Pharisees. But Isaiah had clearly foretold that the blessings of God’s Kingdom would come to all peoples. The blessings God promises and the blessings Jesus brings are given to all peoples, not just to the Jews to everyone irrespective of race and culture. The Jews weren’t expecting that. But they should have been if they had read Isaiah properly!

Isaiah 49:6 And now the LORD says … “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
7 This is what the LORD says— the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—
to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers:
‘Kings will see you and stand up, princes will see and bow down,
because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.’

Again, Kings and princes paying respect and even bowing down to the Messiah who will bring salvation to Israel and indeed to the whole world.

Isaiah 49 goes on 8 This is what the LORD says:
‘In the time of my favour I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you;
I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
9 to say to the captives, “Come out,” and to those in darkness, “Be free!”

Isaiah 42 6 “I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
7 to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
Prophecies of the Saviour who would indeed bring sight to the blind and bring release to those trapped in the grasp of the devil and all his demons.

And one more promise which Jesus fulfilled at the end of his life rather than its beginning.

Isaiah 56 4 For this is what the LORD says:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant—
5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.
6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him,
to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

A house of prayer for all the nations. Because God’s blessings are not only for the people of Israel but for foreigners as well. For people from every nation. Even to foreigners who choose what pleases God and hold fast to his covenant.

And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him,
to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him,

God’s salvation is for everybody. And that is foreshadowed by the events of Epiphany – Three Kings Day.

16 So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic.
The IVP Bible Background Commentary on the Old Testament says this about the architectural function of the cornerstone. “Israelite Iron Age designs made increasing use of cut-stone masonry, replacing the rough boulders and rubble construction of earlier periods. A finely shaped block of stone was inserted that became the cornerstone in order to provide stability and to bind two adjoining walls together. It would have been a larger stone than those normally used. Its insertion often required special effort or rituals. Its large, smooth surface was a natural place for inscribing religious slogans, the name of the architect or king responsible and the date of construction. So the cornerstone could also serve as the foundation stone.
Isaiah is prophesying about a stone which would be the very foundation of all that God is going to build. But earlier on Isaiah had foretold another rock.
The cornerstone is also a stumbling block
ISAIAH 8 13 The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread.
14 He will be a holy place; for both Israel and Judah he will be
a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare.
15 Many of them will stumble; they will fall and be broken,
they will be snared and captured.’
This passage in Isaiah is an echo of Psalm 118
22 The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
23 the LORD has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes.
24 The LORD has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad.

So here we have a rock, a cornerstone, a rock which would be a stumbling block even though the builders would reject it. Psalm 118, Isaiah 8 and Isaiah 28 would become very important in the way the Earlly Church understood Jesus.

CHRIST is the cornerstone
Jesus himself applied that Old Testament picture to himself in the parable of the tenants in the vineyard. He himself is the stone that the builders rejected
Luke 20 9 He went on to tell the people this parable: ‘A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. 10 At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. 12 He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out.
13 ‘Then the owner of the vineyard said, “What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.”
14 ‘But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. “This is the heir,” they said. “Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.” 15 So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
‘What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.’
When the people heard this, they said, ‘God forbid!’
17 Jesus looked directly at them and asked, ‘Then what is the meaning of that which is written:
‘ “The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone”?
18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.’

The parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard is an allegory of the ministry of Jesus. The Vineyard is the Old Testament picture of God’s chosen people the nation of Israel from Isaiah 5. The story of how the tenants refuse to pay the rent even when the owner sends his own son is a picture of how the leaders of the Jews rejected God’s Son Jesus, threw him out of the vineyard and even killed him.
And Jesus ends the story with a quotation from Psalm 118 showing how the Old Testament had foretold that rejection. ‘ “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”?

Jesus knew He would not be spared any of the suffering and rejection human beings experience even though He was the Son of God. Jesus went up to Jerusalem in the full knowledge that He would be rejected and killed. But still He went! Jesus was the stone which the builders rejected!
This saying went on to become very important as the Early Church tried to understand the significance of the last week of Jesus’s life.
‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone/’ Some modern versions use the alternative translation. ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone’ It is interesting how the 2011 New International Version generally prefers cornerstone when the 1984 translation had capstone. In ancient architecture the capstone was different in shape from all the other stones in the building. But it was perfectly shaped to fit in place and complete the building. Roman arches were built from two columns of stones and where they meet in the centre a triangular stone sits like a wedge in the middle to balance the two sides of the arch and hold them up. That is the capstone. If you remove the capstone, the whole arch falls apart. So the capstone is the most important stone. It would often carry an inscription with a date or the name of an important person. But it was not just a decorative stone. The capstone really was the essential element in the design which holds the whole structure in place.
‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone’ – the most important stone in the arch. ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’ – the most important stone in the whole building. Either way, the most important stone. And the Early Church saw the capstone or cornerstone as representing Jesus
ACTS 4 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 Jesus is
‘ “the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.”
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.’

Jesus is the cornerstone – the capstone – the foundation stone!
The cornerstone of the church
1 Peter puts the quotations from Psalm 118 and Isaiah 8 and applies them to Jesus.
1 Peter 2 4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
“The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,” (psalm 118)
8 and, “A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” Isaiah 8:14
Jesus is the cornerstone – the foundation of the church.
Ephesians 2 19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
The church is God’s new community and his forever family. When any person is saved they become part of God’s new community, the church. They are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, (2:19)
This is God’s cosmic masterplan – we are all united in Christ.
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. (2:20)
Each of us are the bricks God is using to build a new kind of temple.
In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. (2:21) And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (2:22)
The old Temples were built of stone. The New Temple is made of living stones and God lives in us by the Holy Spirit!
Phillips Brooks wrote, “Slowly, through all the universe the temple of God is being built. And whenever, in any place, a soul by freewilled obedience, catches the fire of God’s likeness, it is set into the growing walls, a living stone.”
The church is God’s new Temple – and Christ is the cornerstone – the foundation stone.
The cornerstone of our faith – a sure foundation
Romans 9 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the “stumbling stone.” 33 As it is written:
“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
Romans 10 The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
So we can build our lives on the rock of Christ, who is the cornerstone of our faith – and when we do we will never ever be put to shame. God will never let us down.
The cornerstone of our lives
1 Corinthians 3 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work.
So we should be aiming to build our lives on Christ the cornerstone, the capstone, the foundation stone. Jesus – the stone who the builders rejected. Nevertheless in God’s cosmic masterplan. The foundation stone of the church. The cornerstone of our faith! The cornerstone of our lives. There is a story from back when the Old Wild West was being settled and pioneers flocked across the country to California and Oregon. On the Eastern slopes of the Rockies there was a large, dirt covered rock sticking up in the middle of the trail. Wagon wheels were broken on it and people tripped over it. Finally somebody dug up the peculiar stone and rolled it off the trail into a nearby stream. The creek was too wide to jump over, so for years people used the stone as a stepping stone to cross the stream. Finally one settler built his cabin near the stream and he moved the odd stone out of the stream and placed it by his cabin as a doorstep.

Years passed, railroads were built and towns sprang up. The old settler’s grandson went East to study geology. One day he visited his grandfather’s cabin and happened to examine the old lump of stone. The grandson realised the rock was unusually heavy and discovered that inside within that lump of dirt and rock was the largest nugget of pure gold ever discovered on the Eastern slope of the Rockies. It had been there for three generations, and people never recognized its value. To some it was a stumbling stone to be removed. To others it was a stepping-stone, and to others it was just a heavy rock. Only the grandson saw it for what it really was–a lump of pure gold.
“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” the precious foundation stone, and the one who relies on it will never be put to shame!

One of my favourite jokes of all time comes Disney’s Musical, “The Lion King.” It stars
Simba the young lion born to be the Lion King and his friends Pumba the Warthog and Timon the Meercat.
One day Simba was unhappy and grouchy and depressed.
“What’s eating him?” Pumba asked.
“Nothing,” Timon replied. “He’s on top of the food chain!”
There is this assumption that people who are “on top” will have a comfortable safe easy life. In reality the opposite is often the case. So many people are struggling to “get on top” and their lives seem more pressured and stressful because of that. All kinds of things can put pressure on people. Job, family, health, grief, anxiety, fear. What very many people, even Christians, are desperately longing for in their lives is peace. Contentment. No worries.
And this is where these marvellous verses from Isaiah 26 are such a comfort and a blessing
NIV 3 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. 4 Trust in the LORD for ever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.
GNB 3 You, Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you. 4 Trust in the LORD for ever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal. (GNB)
Of all the translations I find the old RSV the most inspiring.
You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is fixed on you, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3 (RSV)
We’ve talked about peace recently in our series on Isaiah and in our Remembrance Day service. We have said that in the Bible peace doesn’t just mean the absence of war or conflict. The Hebrew word for peace, shalom is a very positive concept of calm, tranquillity, serenity, harmony, reconciliation, wholeness, completeness, well-being. And our verse shows us how we can experience God’s kind of peace any time, any place, anywhere.
You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is fixed on you, because he trusts in you.
The rest of the passage explains to us what it means to fix our minds on God and trust in him.
Our peace comes FROM God and THROUGH God, and not apart from God
It is an integral part of the salvation God gives to His people
We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts.

Isaiah 12 2 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defence; he has become my salvation.’
3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
So peace comes to us as part of God’s salvation.
Peace comes as we put our trust in God
2 Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith.

3 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.

4 Trust in the LORD for ever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.

It is all about trust. All about exercising faith in God. We only experience God’s peace in the midst of the storms in life when we actively and consciously put our trust in God! Faith is not just a continuous state of believing in God. Faith is a conscious action when we commit our situation to God and trust in his help and protection.
PSALM 46 1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

God our Rock only gives us peace when we consciously go to him as our refuge. He is only our safe hiding place when we seek our protection from him. God doesn’t promise to take all the storms of life away, in the way that Jesus did when he calmed the storm on the sea of Galilee. But God does promise to take the storm away in our hearts, and bring us peace in our hearts, as we put our trust in Him even while the storm is raging.
Peace comes from FIXING our minds on God
You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is fixed on you, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3 (RSV)
3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! (New Living Translation)

Noone should not imagine that God’s peace will fill their hearts if they are going through life ignoring him. His peace comes to those who fix their minds on him. NOT just in the times of trouble, but all through life. God wants to be our constant companion through all the scenes of life, not just our safety net and lifebelt when the going gets tough. His peace is for all whose thoughts are fixed on you. All the time!

Peace comes as we obey God and follow His laws
7 The path of the righteous is level; you, the Upright One, make the way of the righteous smooth.
8 Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you;

Isaiah makes the opposite point more than once. There is no peace for the wicked!

Isaiah 48:22 AND Isaiah 57:21 `There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”

Nobody can expect to be experiencing God’s peace when they are ignoring him or breaking his laws all the time. Peace comes to those who are living in righteousness and justice.
ISAIAH 32 16 Justice will dwell in the desert and righteousness live in the fertile field.
17 The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.
18 My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.

Peace comes to those who seek God’s glory
8b your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.

God blesses us with his peace so that we can glorify him, not just to give us a cushy easy life.

God’s peace comes to those who set their hearts on God
9 My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you.

Again, it is those whose minds are fixed on God, who fix all their thoughts on Him, who receive his peace.

Peace comes from God, not our own efforts
12 LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.

ISAIAH 30 15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.
16 You said, “No, we will flee on horses.” Therefore you will flee!
You said, “We will ride off on swift horses.” Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away,
till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.’

We don’t experience God’s peace by solving our problems in our own strength. God’s peace only comes as we see God at work. As we open our lives to God in repentance and rest, in quietness and strength. Like the Israelites when they came to cross the Red Sea.

EXODUS 14 13 Moses answered the people, ‘Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never vsee again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.’
Not just at the Red Sea. There were many occasions in Joshua’s time as the Israelites took possession of the promised land, when we read that God fought the battles for Israel.

Joshua 10 12 On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel:
“O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”
13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!

Similarly times in David’s lifetime, where we read, “the Lord will fight for you”. We saw David’s Testimony in Psalm 37

PSALM 37 3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Our peace comes as we allow space for God to fight our battles for us, and as we put our trust in him to save us.

We receive God’s peace through prayer
3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! (New Living Translation)

Philippians 4 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Paul is not saying, “Whatever your problems, one quick prayer and everything will be alright.” It is an invitation to continuous prayer, to pray without ceasing! Paul is saying “keep on presenting your requests to God”. And as you keep on bringing your situation to God in prayer, God will keep on meeting your needs and so you will continue to experience that peace which passes all understanding, which only God can give.
We all need to make time and space in our frenetic overcrowded lives to be in God’s presence and receive his peace, to set aside our busyness and noise to meet God in the silence. That is what this week’s chapter in Richard Foster’s book, The Prayer of Rest, is all about.
ISAIAH 55 12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
BUT how can we come to know this peace?
6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts.
We come to know God’s peace through prayer.
Prayer which Saint Francis of Assisi (C. 1181–1226) definitely did write says this.
“O God, Creator of mankind, I do not aspire to comprehend you or your creation, nor to understand pain or suffering. I aspire only to relieve the pain and suffering of others, and I trust in doing so I may understand more clearly your nature, that you are the Father of all mankind, and that the hairs of my head are numbered.”

3 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.
4 Trust in the LORD for ever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.

You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is fixed on you, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3 (RSV)

The informal title I have given to this series of sermons on Isaiah would be The Gospel in the Old Testament. Because the Prophecies of Isaiah are so significant in foretelling the coming of God’s Messiah and the Salvation he will bring. We haven’t begun to touch yet on the Suffering Servant and the passages which foretell the crucifixion. Before Christmas we will be reminded of the prophecies about the incarnation in chapter 7, “the virgin will conceive and bear a son.” And then the wonderful promises in Isaiah 9/
Isaiah 9 6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness from that time on and for ever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

Last week for Remembrance Sunday we drew hope from the wonderful promises of peace in Isaiah 2:4
They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more.

We saw that glorious hope of Peace on Earth in Isaiah 11. The day when
6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. ….
9 They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

And we have seen how that hope of peace rests on the shoulders of the stump of Jesse,
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.

We have seen from Isaiah 2 how the fulfilment of so many of these promises is tied in with the Mountain of the Lord, Mount Zion and God’s Holy City of Jerusalem. And from chapter 5 how the nation of Israel is the God’s Vineyard and we looked at how Jesus is the True Vine and the fulfilment of those prophecies. And all this from just the first dozen chapters of Isaiah. It is truly the Gospel in the Old Testament.
For tonight I want to point us to one more thread of prophecy in Isaiah. You could easily miss it but it is a promise which became very important to the Israelites and lies behind a number of events and parables and promises in the New Testament. And we find it in just six verses of Isaiah 25. The promise of the Messiah’s banquet.
6 On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine— the best of meats and the finest of wines.

Here is a promise of a glorious celebration. Rich foods and aged wines. The very best of everything! Notice that the blessings will come from God’s holy mountain Zion. But it is more than a one-off party

7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; 8he will swallow up death for ever.

The party is a celebration of the fact that God will destroy the last enemy, death. So it will be an ETERNAL celebration. For ever! It will never end!

The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s
disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken.

No more crying – no more pain, no more suffering! We read those promises last week from the Book of Revelation chapter 21. But they were spoken here hundreds of years earlier in the Book of Isaiah in the prophecies concerning The Messiah’s Banquet,
9 In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’

Finally those who put their trust in God will be vindicated. Their enemies will be destroyed forever.
10 The hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain; but Moab will be trampled in their land as straw is trampled down in the manure.
11 They will stretch out their hands in it, as swimmers stretch out their hands to swim.
God will bring down their pride despite the cleverness of their hands.
12 He will bring down your high fortified walls and lay them low;
he will bring them down to the ground, to the very dust.

So here in Isaiah 25 we find the promise of the banquet God will hold to celebrate his victory over all the enemies of Israel and even over the last enemy of all – death itself. And did you notice how inclusive this would be. FIVE times we heard the word ALL.
a feast of rich food for all peoples, …. he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.

These blessings will be for EVERYBODY. Even death will be swallowed up – for everybody! The promise of the Messiah’s Banquet. This became a centre for the hopes of the Israelites in Exile. That one day they would return to the holy mountain and to the city of God Jerusalem to share in this wonderful feast. These hopes were all waiting for the coming of God’s chosen one, the Prince of Peace, the Messiah.
And these promises form the background to a number of statements we read in the New Testament. After Jesus healed the Roman Centurion’s Servant in response to the amazing faith of the Centurion, we read this.

Matthew 8 10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Here we find the promise of the Feast in the Kingdom of Heaven with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the Messiah’s Banquet. But Jesus gives a solemn warning that many of the people who were sure of their place at the table were going to end up sorely disappointed.
And the Messiah’s Banquet is also the background for Jesus’s parable of the Wedding Feast. Luke’s Gospel takes a special interest in the poor and the outcasts and it is significant that in Luke 14 the link between that parable and the Messiah’s Banquet is explicit. Jesus was eating at the house of a prominent Pharisee, teaching people to care for the poor and the lame and the blind, and we read this.
Luke 14 15 When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”
16 Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17 At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

Matthew 22 records the parable like this. 1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
You remember how many of those who had been invited sent feeble excuses and refused to come. So they missed out on the wonderful feast and other people were invited instead.
8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

There’s a ;ovely song which we used to sing from Sounds of Living Waters which draws together these threads. It began O, welcome all ye noble saints of old, and the chorus went
God and man at table are sat down, God and man at table are sat down. That#s tThe feast in the Kingdom of God. The Messiah’s Banquet. God and man at table are set down. And this is also the background to verses we know well in Revelation

Revelation 19 6 Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
“Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
8 Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.”
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)
9 Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

John did not invent the idea of the wedding feast of the Lamb for the book of Revelation. It was there all along. The Messiah’s banquet. What an amazing promise. That believers will get to feast with the Messiah! The church of God the bride will feast with her husband her Saviour. We would have no right to that privilege. But it is God’s gift to us.

Such wonderful promises. And we are all invited.

WE THOUGHT A YEAR AGO ABOUT GOD’S WONDERFUL INVITATION in Isaiah 55. Now we’ve looked at Isaiah 25 you will see that the background to God’s invitation is indeed the Messiah’s banquet.

We all enjoy receiving invitations from our friends. Weddings, trips, special events, birthday parties, dinner parties, any parties really! There are some wonderful invitations in the Bible and Isaiah 55 is one of the best! I say ONE of the best. Here in this one chapter there are at least seven invitations.
A. An Invitation to Drink – v. 1
B. An Invitation to Hear and Listen – v. 2
C. An Invitation to Come To God – v. 3
D. An Invitation to Seek the Lord – v. 6
E. An Invitation to Call Upon Him – v. 6
F. An Invitation to Repent – v. 7
G. An Invitation to Return to the Lord – v. 8
And that’s just in the first eight verses! Perhaps we ought to entitle the chapter, “an offer you can’t refuse!”
GOD’S WONDERFUL INVITATION (vv 1-2)
Isaiah 55:1 ¶ “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy?
Instead of the junk food of entertainment and consumerism, and the New Age in all its many deceptions.
2 Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
GNB – Isa 55:2 Listen to me and do what I say, and you will enjoy the best food of all!
GOD GIVES US THE BEST FOOD OF ALL! Come and be satisfied – satisfaction guaranteed! A wonderful invitation made possible through
GOD’S MERCY AND PARDON (vv 6-7)
6 ¶ Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will
have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
So here is God’s wonderful invitation to enjoy the best food of all, an everlasting covenant, mercy and pardon, God’s unsearchable wisdom, the power of God’s word, joy and peace. This is an invitation to the Messianic Banquet.
Jesus was a guest at many feasts. But he was only host at one. The Last Supper. That was the time when the Messiah spread a feast for his disciples. When Jesus took bread and broke it and took the cup of the New Covenant and said to his disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me.” A feast which we use to look back to the death and resurrection of Jesus, but actually has its roots in the promise of the Messiah’s Banquet. That one day we will share bread and cup in glory.
Isaiah 25 6 On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine— the best of meats and the finest of wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; 8he will swallow up death for ever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s
disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken.
9 In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’

But we don’t need to wait until heaven for these blessings. We have the invitation of Jesus here and now!
Revelation 3: 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

Ten years ago I experienced a revelation. I was watching The Doctor’s Daughter, the 6th episode in the 4th series of Doctor Who with David Tennant playing the Tenth regeneration of the Doctor and Georgia Moffet playing his cloned offspring, Jenny, The Doctor’s Daughter. A brief conversation in the middle of an ongoing war leapt out at me.
The Doctor asked Jenny: “What are you staring at exactly?”
The Doctor’s Daughter replied: “You keep insisting you’re not a soldier but look at you, drawing up strategies like a proper general.”
“No,” said the Doctor, “I’m trying to STOP the fighting.”
To which Jenny said, “Isn’t every soldier?”
I’m trying to stop the fighting. Isn’t every soldier?
That brought home to me an obvious fact which I think I had always known, but never really appreciated. That the purpose of war is to bring peace. That the reason soldiers fight is to end the fighting.
In history, some wars have been fought, wrongly, for economic gain. To gain territory or riches or power. Such wars were unjustifiable. But The Doctor’s Daughter helped me appreciate that there can be circumstances where war is justifiable, and even necessary. Where war is the only way to bring peace. Where the only way to stop the fighting is to fight.
And that is what we remember today on this 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice and the end of the First World War. And at the same time we remember the Second World War. All the people in living memory who died to bring peace to our world and to preserve the freedom we all enjoy today. Of course peace means much more than the end of war of the absence of conflict. Peace is not just something negative, an absence of something. Peace is a very positive concept. Peace is calm, tranquillity, serenity, harmony, reconciliation. In the Bible, the Hebrew word for peace is shalom – and that means wholeness, completeness, soundness, well-being. Peace is a positive experience.
Today we remember and honour all those men and women who made great sacrifices to bring us that peace. Those who gave their lives and others who suffered all kinds of terrible injuries to win the peace. Jesus said in John 15:13, Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
After the Armistice so many people had such high hopes for peace. When people saw the horrors of the First World War they called it “the war to end all wars.” The poet Wilfred Owen wrote of soldiers “who die as cattle.” In fact the phrase “the war that will end war” was coined in 1914 by the author H.G.Wells. Sadly that turned out not to be true. However much devastation and suffering a war may produce, history always repeats itself. People never learn the lessons. Still over the last 100 years nations have tried all kinds of ways to preserve the peace.
There have been political and diplomatic approaches – The League of Nations and then United Nations. Some have tried military approaches – spending more and more on defence to gain more soldiers and better guns and bigger bombs. The ultimate weapon, the atomic bomb brought the cold war – with the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction by nuclear weapons. You won’t attack me because if you do we have the power to ensure that we will all be destroyed. M.A.D indeed. Praise God the world has escaped the horrors of nuclear war.
In the nineteen sixties during the Vietnam war “Peace” became a catchword and a slogan for many people and “pacifism” seemed to claim the idea of peace as its own exclusive possession. But the Peace Camps and the Peace Marches of the Hippy generation did not bring true and lasting peace either. It is not enough to be AGAINST war – we need to be FOR peace. But the slogan “Peace at any price” is misguided. Those who would compromise anything for a quiet life dare not do so. It was Oliver Cromwell who said, “If we would have peace without a worm in it we must lay foundations of justice and righteousness.” Wise pPeacemakers do not look for peace at any price. Sometimes passive resistance to evil will not suffice. In some countries at some times, peace, righteousness and justice demand that we take action against injustice, corruption, immorality and indifference. Love of neighbour calls us to overcome evil with good, by prophetic witness, by social and political action, and as a last resort by physical force. And the world today needs peacemakers as much as ever.
Christians should always be working for peace. In the seventh Beatitude, Jesus teaches us, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the Sons of God.” We will always pray for cease-fires and peace processes. But the tragic truth is that there will always be wars and rumours of wars. The world cannot save itself. Diplomacy and politics won’t stop wars. Military might won’t stop wars. The nuclear deterrent won’t stop wars. We don’t need an end to war. Rather, as Roosevelt said, we need an end to all the beginnings of wars. But as long as human beings are greedy and proud and arrogant there will always be people who will try to oppress and invade others and take what isn’t theirs by force. And then there will need to be people who take up arms to protect the innocent and preserve the peace and maintain justice and defend freedom. Soldiers who have to fight to stop the fighting.
But war won’t stop war. Just since the Second World War there have been wars in Korea and Vietnam and the Falklands and Afghanistan and Kuwait and Bosnia and Iraq and others. And the world today is not much more stable or safe than ever it was. There will never be a war which will end all wars. But there is still hope for peace. Human sin is great, but God’s love is greater. So the Bible gives us wonderful promises of peace.
Micah 4 3 (God) will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more.
4 Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig-tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken.
Here is the inspiring hope that the tools of war will become tools in peacetime. There are other wonderful promises of peace on earth.
Isaiah 11 6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

This is the promise of peace on earth but it will only be fulfilled in heaven, when God’s dwelling place will be among his people and “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
This wonderful hope of peace will come through Jesus, the Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9 5 Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.
There will always be wars. If we pin our hopes on diplomacy or on military might to prevent wars we will always be painfully disappointed. No war will end all wars. The Bible shows us that the gospel of peace which Jesus has brought is the ONLY hope to bring peace to this sin-spoiled world.
On Armistice Day and Remembrance Day we look back at the wars which caused so much hurt and pain and destruction. A friend has described today of all days as, “A day to mark the highest examples of human bravery and sacrifice, and the worst outworkings of human failure and sin.” We think of so many soldiers and we often repeat these words.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.”
So today we remember all those who fought and suffered and gave their lives to stop the fighting. We honour them by making sure we remember the lessons their deaths can teach us about all the human costs and the tragedies of war. Very sadly, no war will end all wars. Our hopes for a peaceful future rest on our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.