Deliverance from every evil is coming!

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 9

Isaiah 51:1-11

Isaiah’s prophecy in the first 11 verses of chapter 51 is a broad, all-encompassing promise of deliverance and righteousness and justice. It applies to all three future events that Isaiah has been prophesying since the beginning of his book: the deliverance of Israel from Babylon, the deliverance of all believers from sin through the Messiah at His first coming, and the deliverance of all believers from every evil of this world  through the Messiah at His second coming.

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD:

The Lord Yahweh calls out! But He doesn’t call out to everyone in the world. He calls out to those who pursue righteousness, who seek the LORD. If you want to go on living in sin, if you want to seek some other god, these comforting words aren’t for you. But if what you want is to pursue what is right, to be counted righteous by God and to live righteously before your God, if you are among those who repent of their sins and are determined to have the Lord as your God, then listen! He has great comfort for you.

Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him.

These words apply equally to physical Israel and to spiritual Israel. Abraham and Sarah were the physical parents of all the Old Testament people of Israel. And they are the spiritual parents of all believers in Christ Jesus. You remember Abrahan’s condition when the Lord called him out of the land of Babylon (that is, Ur of Chaldeans). He and Sarah were childless. They remained childless for another 25 years after God called him. But it was on purpose that God called Abraham when he was childless and let him remain childless for so long, so that it might be unmistakably clear that it was God who would bless him and multiply his descendants, both physical and spiritual, so that, the earth—so that heaven itself! — might be filled with children of Abraham by the Lord’s own working.

For the LORD comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.

Zion, the Old Testament people of Israel had been reduced to almost nothing during their captivity. But the Lord would restore them and make them prosper again and rejoice again after their time of punishment was complete. Spiritually, Israel also appeared to be practically dead. But then the Lord would send the Messiah, and His Holy Spirit, to breathe new life into them, and into all who would believe. The same goes for the New Testament Christian Church. The Church looks like a wasteland in these latter days, like a wilderness that used to be inhabited but that is now almost barren. The Lord also promises to deliver His Church and to restore joy and gladness, thanksgiving and the voice of song when Christ comes again to deliver us.

“Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples. My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait.

Again, God speaks to His people. He wants our attention. He promises that “a law will go out” from Him, and that He will “set His justice for a light to the peoples.” This is the same language that’s used later on in reference to the day of Pentecost, when the “law,” that is, the teaching of the Gospel started to go out from Jerusalem to all nations. God literally brought His righteousness near in the person of Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, and He brings His righteousness near every time sinners are brought to faith in Christ and covered in His righteousness as with a garment. His salvation goes out every time the Gospel is preached. His arm, His saving arm, judges the peoples, judges between righteous and wicked, believer and unbeliever, and the coastlands, the most distant reaches of the earth, hope for Christ and for His salvation.

That’s all the more true as we witness our world going down the toilet. So many lies, so much mockery of God, so much depravity and wickedness fills the world. The world that, to a large degree, welcomed the preaching of the Gospel when it first went out, is now rejecting it more loudly, more angrily than ever before. But Isaiah’s prophecy includes the final judgment and the final salvation that God will bring to His Church. And the Lord wants us to take comfort in it.

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.

Look all around you! Everything you see, in this room, out the window, across the valley, and into the heavens—all of it will come to an end. Nothing you own will last. Your body won’t last. None of your enemies and those who oppose God will last, either. But here God promises His people an eternal salvation that will last after this world wears out, an everlasting home and a place at His own table.

“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool, but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations.”

Again, the Lord calls out to believers, who have the law of God written in our hearts, who truly believe the Gospel and seek to live according to God’s commandments. He says, fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. Now that is some important advice which we do well to pay attention to. So often Christians fail to do the right thing or to say the right thing, not because we don’t know what the right thing is, but because we’re afraid of how people are going to react. We’re afraid they’re going to make fun of us or get angry with us. We allow ourselves to be crushed by the thought of people’s disapproval or disagreement. But, when it comes to right vs. wrong, true vs. false, we have the Lord God on our side, who holds our future in His hands. We have no reason in the universe to fear the scorn of men.

Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Here Isaiah joyfully calls on the Lord to carry out this promised deliverance. He speaks directly to “the arm of the LORD” and says, “Awake! Awake!” Then he recalls that other monumental deliverance that the LORD had carried out in the past when He delivered the captive people of Israel from bondage in Egypt, when He cut “Rahab” in pieces (earlier in his book Isaiah had identified Egypt with this name “Rahab) and caused the Red Sea to dry up so that His people could pass over to safety. The deliverance that the Lord will carry out in the future is even greater than that deliverance once. The ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah pictures it all: The arm of the Lord sweeping away the Babylonians and gently shepherding His people back toward Jerusalem. The arm of the Lord smashing Satan and all his demons and shepherding His people safely into the kingdom of His Church. The arm of the Lord defending His people from every earthly enemy and from all the wickedness here, and shepherding us safely into His heavenly kingdom. And so we pray with Isaiah, “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD!” Or to put it another way, “Come, Lord Jesus!” Amen.