Emmanuel Lutheran Church

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 2

Isaiah 49:1-13

Isaiah 49 begins the middle unit, the second unit of 9 chapters in this last part of Isaiah’s book. And what a beginning it is! This middle unit focuses more on the Messiah than the other two units do, with the famous chapter 53 right in the middle of it all. But this first chapter of Unit 2 begins with an undeniable prophecy about the coming Christ and His work, where He is named Israel, who will be sent to save Israel, and the Gentiles, too.

Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar.

The coming Christ speaks to the coastlands, that is, to the nations in the farthest reaches of the world. This message is to be heard by everyone!

The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away.

Now, the Person of the Son of God was with the Father from the beginning. That’s why He’s able to speak right now through the prophet Isaiah, because He already existed. But what He’s prophesying here is what would happen 700 years in the future, at the time of the virgin Mary. When the Lord sent the angel Gabriel to tell Mary that she would conceive and bear a Son, He literally “named the name” of the child who was to be born: Jesus. He speaks of Himself here as an arrow, hidden away in the Father’s quiver, ready to be shot at the devil, and at all the enemies of God.

Then He says something we really have to take note of: And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” God the Father speaks to the Christ as His servant. That’s nothing new in Isaiah’s prophecy; we’ve seen Israel referred to a few times already as the Servant of the Lord. In the other instances, it could refer to the nation of Israel itself. But not here, as we’ll see in just a moment. Here it refers exclusively to the coming Christ, in whom God the Father would be glorified. As Jesus spoke of His impending crucifixion and death, He said, Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. God the Father was glorified in Jesus, because Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world, together with His resurrection from the dead, showed the grace and goodness of God, His power over sin, death, and the devil, and has caused generations of believers to glorify the name of God for the mercy He has shown us through His Son, our Savior.

But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God.”

Here’s a prophecy about how Christ would not be accepted by most in Israel. Yes, for a time, He had multitudes of people following Him. But as you heard in the First Lesson this evening, Jesus spoke the harsh reality to those multitudes: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And many of them began to turn away, so that, by the time Holy Week was over, there were only about 120 believers left in the whole land of Israel. It seemed as if the Messiah had labored in vain.

But He knew it hadn’t been, that it wouldn’t be. He could see past Holy Week, down through the ages as thousands, millions of people would be drawn by the Holy Spirit to believe the word of the Gospel. That future success is what’s depicted in the following verses.

And now the LORD says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD, and my God has become my strength—

Now we see it clearly. The nation of Israel is not the true Servant of the Lord. The nation of Israel isn’t the Christ, as modern Jews will sometimes claim. No, we see it clearly stated that Israel, the Servant of the Lord, was being sent to Israel to “bring Jacob,” to “bring Israel back to Him, that Israel might be gathered to Him.” The Christ is the ideal Representative of Israel, who was honored in the eyes of the LORD. As Jesus said, It is My Father who honors Me. He was the Israel who came to save Israel.

But not only Israel! He says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

We often cite this verse from Isaiah, because it so clearly prophesies the expansion of the Church of God to include the Gentiles, to include you and me. It’s this verse that Simeon was alluding to when he sang about Jesus as “a Light for enlightening the Gentiles, and for bringing glory to Your people Israel.”

Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers:

There’s another reference to the Christ’s rejection by the nation of Israel, that He would be despised and abhorred by them, and that He would be made a “servant of rulers,” as He was subjected to injustice at the hand of Pontius Pilate and of King Herod.

But He wouldn’t remain their servant! “Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.” After Christ’s victory over the cross, many kings and earthly rulers would eventually bow down at His name. That’s rarely the case anymore in our world, where most rulers despise Jesus again. And even those who claim to be Christian represent, for the most part, a false Christianity and a fake version of Christ. No matter. In the end, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.

Thus says the LORD: “In a time of favor I have answered you; in a day of salvation I have helped you;

This is still the Lord speaking to the Christ, promising to raise Him from the dead and to exalt Him over all His enemies. But St. Paul quotes this verse in 2 Cor. 6 and makes an application of it to believers: We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Back to God’s words to the Christ: I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages, saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’ Christ is the New Covenant God made with the people of Israel. But the covenant wasn’t to let the Jews hold onto the land of Israel forever. It was to apportion them, and the Gentiles, a place in God’s kingdom. It was to rescue all men from the devil’s prison and from the dungeons of hell, and to give us an eternal home with Him after this earthly life is done, all through the coming Christ.

They shall feed along the ways; on all bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.

We’ll close this evening with this beautiful prophecy of God’s Servant Israel, the Christ, as a Shepherd who leads His flock, made up of both Jews and Gentiles who believe in Him. Israel will be sent to save Israel, and the Gentiles, too, through faith in Him. The peace, safety, and abundance of His pasture are pictured here, but the book of Revelation cites this verse and reminds us that, while the Church of Christ experiences peace, safety, and abundance in spiritual things now, the perfect peace, safety and abundance promised in the book of Isaiah are reserved for us in heaven, where He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Amen.

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 1

Isaiah 48:12-22

Chapter 48 of Isaiah is the 9^th and final chapter in this first set of 9 chapters in Isaiah 40-66. Remember there are three units of 9 chapters each in these 27 chapters. Last week, in the first half of Isaiah 48, we contemplated the Lord’s harsh rebuke of impenitent, idolatrous Israel, of those who were Israelites in name only, and we took a warning from it for ourselves. But the second half of the chapter has a much different tone, with pure comfort for the penitent and a reference to the coming Christ, a fitting way to end this 9-chapter unit.

 “Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together. God speaks to those whom He has called. He called the people of Israel through their forefather Israel. In a similar way, He has called Christians through the Christ. And He reminds us all who He is: the First and the Last, who was there before mankind ever came to be and who will still be standing when all those who scoff at Him return to dust. He is the only true God, the Creator of all things, who speaks to the stars in the vastness of space, and they do His bidding. This is the God who speaks to you in the Scriptures, who issues commands, who makes promises, who calls you to repent, to believe, and to obey.

Assemble, all of you, and listen! Who among them has declared these things? The LORD loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans. Once more, the Lord calls on Israel to listen carefully to what He has been prophesying over and over in these chapters: that He would send a hero, a savior named Cyrus to rescue them from their future captivity in Babylon, and that Cyrus would be successful against the Chaldeans, another name for the Babylonians.

I, even I, have spoken and called him; I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way. Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there. And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit. The pronouns are a little challenging in this section, but if you work through it, it makes sense. I, that is, the Lord, have spoken and called him, that is, Cyrus. But then the Lord says, “From the beginning I have not spoken in secret.” Those are the very words Jesus quoted when He was speaking to the Sanhedrin on Maundy Thursday. “From the time it came to be I have been there.” That sounds much like what the apostle John writes about Jesus, “In the beginning was the Word.” And finally, the clearly Trinitarian words, “And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.” Clearly this is the Person of the Son of God speaking, not just a savior, like Cyrus, but THE Savior promised to fallen mankind. And since the Spirit, together with the Father, has sent the Son of God, the Spirit is rightly called “God,” together with the Father and the Son, because only God can send God into the world.

So, tucked into this closing chapter of the first unit of Isaiah’s prophecy, there is a reference to the greater salvation that God will accomplish for Israel and for all men, the sending of His Son into the world to be the true Hero, the true Savior.

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.” Most translations treat these verses as (what we call in grammar) a contrary to fact conditional, “If only you had listened, then you would have prospered. But you didn’t, so you didn’t.” But the context suggests a better translation. “If only you will listen, then you will benefit! Then your peace will be like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Then your offspring will be like the sand. Then your descendants will never be cut off or destroyed from before Me.” Because God did prosper the people of Israel who listened to His words through the prophet Isaiah. He did bring them back to their homeland, and increase their numbers, and preserved them for another 500 years, until the Christ came. Now, at that point, following their rejection of Christ, at that point the words of Isaiah do become a contrary to fact conditional. If only you had paid attention, Isarel—if only you had believed in Christ Jesus—then you would have prospered. But you didn’t, so you didn’t.

But now Isaiah is speaking to the captives in Babylon: Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!” They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out. He talks about their redemption from Babylon like their redemption from Egypt a thousand years earlier, because, in both cases, they had to cross a desert to get to the Promised Land. But in both cases, the Lord rescued them from their captivity and provided for them along the way.

As He promises in the New Testament, as He pictures for us in the book of Revelation, the Lord will do the same thing for His Holy Christian Church that languishes now in captivity to the figurative Babylon, to the world powers and to the antichristian forces within the false Church, that oppress the true Church in so many ways. It’s almost as if we’re living in a desert now, not just the deserts of New Mexico, but in a Christian Church that has largely been deserted, abandoned, with scarce resources and very little influence in the world. But soon the Lord will come and rescue His people and cause us to prosper in the heavenly Promised Land, if only we’ll keep listening to His Word and believing His promises!

Isaiah concludes these 9 chapters with the same sentence with which he concludes the next set of 9 chapters: “There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.” We need to remember that. Our world needs to hear that. The God of heaven denounces as wicked many of the things that this world celebrates, including the celebration of perversion going on right now in what they call “pride month.” There is no peace for the wicked, only God’s wrath and anger and eternal punishment. As long as a person remains in wickedness, that is, as long as a person refuses to repent of his wickedness, and turn away from it, he will never have peace with God. So God’s message to the wicked is not, “Peace! Do whatever seems right to you!” No, it’s, “Repent while there’s still time! And know the peace of Christ Jesus, who suffered at the hands of the wicked, so that the wicked might turn in humility and faith to the One who has made atonement for their sins.” Because, while there is no peace the wicked who remain in their wickedness, there is perfect, eternal peace for all the wicked who repent and believe in Jesus, which, in the sight of God, brings them out of the ranks of the wicked and into the ranks of the righteous. Amen.

Sermon for Midweek of Holy Trinity

Isaiah 48:1-11

We continue this evening with our walk through the last 27 chapters of the book of Isaiah. Surely you’ve noticed by now that, at times, the Lord speaks very tenderly to the believing remnant of Israel in these chapters, and, at other times, in scathing rebuke toward the unbelieving majority. We can’t just listen to the pleasant words; we must also listen to the harsh. And the first half of chapter 48 is one of those harsh, scathing rebukes of Israel. Oh, the Lord God would still rescue them from their captivity in Babylon. But He wants them to understand that He’s doing it for His own name’s sake, in faithfulness to His own promises and for the sake of His own plans and designs for the good of those who will believe, not for the sake of those who stubbornly remain in impenitence and unbelief. Because the people of Israel, as a whole, even back then, were Israelites in name only.

“Hear this, O house of Jacob, Who are called by the name of Israel, And have come forth from the wellsprings of Judah; Who swear by the name of the LORD, And make mention of the God of Israel, But not in truth or in righteousness; For they call themselves after the holy city, And lean on the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is His name:

As we said on Sunday morning, it’s not enough to believe in “a” god. In order to escape death and spend eternity in the presence of the true God, you have to know and believe in the true God,  in the one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In these verses before us, we see that saving faith in the true God involves calling on His name “in truth” and “in righteousness,” lest you be an Israelite—or a Christian!—in name only. In other words, you can’t just be a member of a church, or go to church, or call yourself a Christian. You have to have a penitent and believing heart that actually turns away from sin in disgust, and that relies on the true God and seeks mercy and forgiveness from Him, for the sake of Christ. That’s what it means to be a Christian “in truth and in righteousness,” as Isaiah puts it here.

But that wasn’t the case with most in Israel, especially before they went into captivity in Babylon. They still practiced circumcision and went through with most of the temple rites and rituals that God had commanded. Like the Jews in Jesus’ day (and in ours!), they made much of being Abraham’s descendants and of being the people of God’s covenant, and of Jerusalem being the chosen city. But, as Isaiah had said earlier in his book and as Jesus once said of the Jews in His day, “These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.” At that time the Visible, outward Church of Israel was mostly made up of hypocrites, of non-believers in the true God and in the promised Christ. It was because of them that all Israel had to go into captivity in the first place. Take the warning that God gives you here and watch out of this kind of hypocrisy. Because it’s all too easy to be a Christian in name only, too.

“I have declared the former things from the beginning; They went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it…Before it came to pass I proclaimed it to you, Lest you should say, ‘My idol has done them, And my carved image and my molded image Have commanded them.’

God reminds the people of Israel that He had foretold many parts of their history, including their rebellion and the coming exile. He told Abraham ahead of time about their four hundred years in slavery in Egypt, and about His promise to rescue them from it. He told the Israelites at Moses’ time about how things would go for them in the conquest of Canaan. He told them ahead of time what it would be like when kings would finally rule over them. He told them about the coming of the Assyrians to wipe out the northern kingdom. And He told them long ago, through Moses, and again through Solomon, and now very specifically through Isaiah, about the eventual exile of Jerusalem and Judea.

And why did He tell them, knowing that most wouldn’t heed the warning? For the sake of those who would! And also, as God says here through Isaiah, so that they could never come back and say, “It was my idol who has done all these things.” Because He knew how twisted they were—just as twisted as the people today who look at the universe and say, “God didn’t do this. Chance did it! Evolution did it! Some other god did it! My science will tell me who did it!” Even though God told us long ago in the Holy Scriptures the things that He has done, the things that He would do, and the things that He will do. He even told the world ahead of time many of the details surrounding the first coming of Christ. And now He has told us that Christ is coming again soon for judgment. Who will take it to heart?

“You have heard; See all this. And will you not declare it? I have made you hear new things from this time, Even hidden things…And before this day you have not heard them, Lest you should say, ‘Of course I knew them.’ …For I knew that you would deal very treacherously, And were called a transgressor from the womb.

Now, through Isaiah, God is offering new information. Not just a coming destruction of Jerusalem, but the identity of the destroyers, namely, the Babylonians. And He’s also giving them new information, not just the fact of a coming exile, but the length of it—70 years, as Jeremiah would specify—and also who would bring an end to that exile, namely, Cyrus, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and her temple. He’s also about to give them specific information about the coming Christ—about His suffering, death, and resurrection. Again, God will not allow His glory to go to an idol, nor will He leave any room for the Jews to take the glory to themselves for all this. No, God alone deserved the glory.

“For My name’s sake I will defer My anger, And for My praise I will restrain it from you, So that I do not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it; For how should My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another.

“For My name’s sake,” God says, I will defer My anger. Israel deserved to be completely wiped out for all their rebellions against God. But He had made some promises to them, promises that had to be kept, a plan that had to be carried out. He still had to bring His Son into the world, through Israel, through David’s descendants. Jerusalem still had to exist. And, at about the same time Isaiah wrote his prophecy, the prophet Micah was announcing the birthplace of the Christ in Bethlehem. So, no, God couldn’t wipe out Israel yet. For His own name’s sake, He would preserve them long enough for the Christ to come, so that He could be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.

God says here that He will not give His glory to another. He won’t share it with idols. He won’t share it with Israel. But He will share it with Jesus! Jesus said, the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. And He once prayed, And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. Those words of Jesus, combined with God’s words here in Isaiah 48, are some of the strongest testimonies in the whole Bible that Jesus is Jehovah God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

So even in this harsh rebuke of the unfaithful in Israel, we see God’s grace revealed to the faithful remnant, and we also see God’s own determination to bring His Son into the world, even through these rogues in Israel who bore the name of Israel, but bore it in name only.

Today, the nation of Israel doesn’t even call itself by God’s name anymore. Because, since the coming of Christ, the name of God necessarily includes the blessed Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—a name which the nation of Israel utterly rejects. Today, it’s the Christian Church that bears the name of Christ, and those who call themselves Christians are, outwardly, the people of God. So I call upon all of you Christians, who have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Make sure that you bear the name of the triune God in truth and in righteousness, in daily contrition and repentance, with genuine faith in the Lord Jesus, and with righteous lives that truly reflect the righteousness that is yours by faith. The Lord rebukes those who are Israelites—or Christians—in name only. May you not be found among them, but among those who bear God’s name in truth and in righteousness. Amen.