Words of instruction, encouragement, and disgust

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 12

Isaiah 56:1-12

After the gracious invitation of chapter 55 to come and eat and drink at the Lord’s table, to seek the Lord while He may be found, to receive the free gifts of His forgiveness and salvation, the Lord has some words of instruction in chapter 56 for those who accept the invitation. He also speaks beautiful, tender, encouraging words to the eunuchs and the foreigners, which we’ll discuss in a moment. And, finally, He has some harsh and bitter words of disgust for the useless religious leadership of Israel.

First, the words of instruction: Thus says the LORD: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, For My salvation is about to come, And My righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, And the son of man who lays hold on it;”

You come into God’s kingdom for free. And once you’re in, you still don’t earn your stay there. It’s always a gift. It’s always grace. But there are rules of the house that the house members are expected to keep. Keeping justice. Doing righteousness. Obeying God’s commandments. Those things are expected of the Church of God, whether of the Old Testament or the New Testament. It doesn’t matter. God’s teaching about right and wrong, must be followed. In other words, God’s people are expected to be holy and to grow in holiness throughout this life, and God promises to bless them when they do.

But you’ll notice in the next words that there is a difference between Old Testament obedience and New Testament obedience. Blessed is the man who does this…who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And keeps his hand from doing any evil.” “Who keeps his hand from doing any evil” applies to everyone, all the time. That’s easy. But “who keeps from defiling the Sabbath”? Here it’s helpful to remember that God is speaking most directly to the hearers and readers of Isaiah, who lived some 700 years before Christ was born. That’s 700 years during which the people of Israel were still under the Law of Moses, under the Ten Commandments in their full original force, which included keeping the Sabbath Day holy, not doing any work for those 24 hours, business owners closing up their shops, farmers staying out of their fields, etc. Why does God mention that commandment in particular? Because that was the commandment that required real sacrifice on the part of the Israelites. Not a painful sacrifice—who wouldn’t want to rest, right? But for 24 hours, it required a conscious decision not to do the things you would regularly do during the rest of the week, simply because God told you not to do them. It was a unique sign of devotion to God to keep the Old Testament Sabbath Day, and failing to take the required rest was essentially a rejection of the whole Law, and of the rest God had promised in His heavenly kingdom.

In the New Testament, we aren’t under the strict Sabbath Law anymore, so we don’t defile the commandment by failing to rest on Saturday (or Sunday). But we do defile the commandment when we despise preaching and God’s Word, when we pretend that it no longer matters if we attend church services or not, or if we belong to a church at all. God still instructs the members of His household to hear the preaching of His word and to support the ministry of it. So let God’s words of instruction here guide you in those things, and certainly in keeping your hand from doing any evil.

Next, the Lord speaks some tender words of encouragement that He addresses especially to the “eunuchs” and to the foreigners (non-Israelites by birth): Do not let the son of the foreigner Who has joined himself to the LORD Speak, saying, “The LORD has utterly separated me from His people”; Nor let the eunuch say, “Here I am, a dry tree.” For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, And choose what pleases Me, And hold fast My covenant, Even to them I will give in My house And within My walls a place and a name Better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name That shall not be cut off.

Even in Old Testament times, God opened wide His kingdom to the Gentiles; it was not only open to the physical descendants of Abraham. But the Gentiles couldn’t remain as they were. They had to join themselves fully to the people of Israel and to the covenant God had made with Israel if they were to be counted among the people of God. They had to be circumcised. They had to keep the Sabbaths and observe the rest of the Laws of Moses. They had to lay aside their pagan practices and beliefs, and the culture that was tainted by pagan beliefs. But if they did that, they were given equal status with the children of Abraham.

As for the eunuchs, they were more common at that time among the Gentiles than one can possibly imagine today—men who would allow themselves to be castrated (or were forced to be castrated) in order to be full-time servants to a noblewoman. There were probably a good number of them in Babylon, where the Jews would be held captive. But the Lord reaches out to them, too, and assures them, it doesn’t matter that you can’t have children. If you come into My house, says the Lord, you won’t have to have children to pass your name down. “I’ll give you an everlasting name.” In other words, you will never die. It’s a promise of eternal life!

“Also the sons of the foreigner Who join themselves to the LORD, to serve Him, And to love the name of the LORD, to be His servants— Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And holds fast My covenant— Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices Will be accepted on My altar; For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

This is why Jerusalem was so important! This is why the Jews had to return there after the Babylonian captivity! Because God had made His house, the temple in Jerusalem, to be the one place on earth where anyone could go, even the Gentiles, to find the true God and to find a welcome into His kingdom, if they would join themselves to that people of Israel and become part of the Church of Israel, under the covenant God had made with them. I’m sure you remember that Jesus quoted this verse from Isaiah 56 while He was cleansing that temple in Jerusalem. Because God had wanted all nations, even in Old Testament times, to hear His Word, to find Him, to worship Him, and to receive salvation from Him in Jerusalem.

That happened to some small degree as Gentiles did make their way to the second temple, after Israel’s return from exile in Babylon. But it would happen much more fully after the time of Christ. Because now, in Christ Jesus, the city of Jerusalem is meaningless and temple in Jerusalem is meaningless, because Christ is where God wants to be found. Christ is where God accepts people and welcomes them and gives them eternal life. Where Christ is preached and where Christ is confessed, that is the house of God, that is the holy mountain of Israel, wherever it may be in the world, even here in New Mexico. As Paul once wrote to the Ephesian Christians, Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Finally, God has some words of disgust for the useless religious leaders of Israel: All you beasts of the field, come to devour, All you beasts in the forest. His watchmen are blind, They are all ignorant; They are all dumb dogs, They cannot bark; Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yes, they are greedy dogs Which never have enough. And they are shepherds Who cannot understand; They all look to their own way, Every one for his own gain, From his own territory. “Come,” one says, “I will bring wine, And we will fill ourselves with intoxicating drink; Tomorrow will be as today, And much more abundant.”

God calls on the beasts to come and devour the worthless watchmen, the useless pastors. Isaiah’s description of them is echoed in Jesus’ description of them as hirelings who care nothing for the sheep. They’re lazy. They fail to warn the sheep about the dangers of sin and impenitence and false doctrine. They’re greedy, looking out for themselves, for their own gain, for their own enjoyment. And they’re blind to the judgment that’s coming against them and against all the impenitent, as if Christ weren’t returning for judgment. And God expresses here His disgust with such spiritual leaders, because He wants all nations to come into His house, but, because they refuse to preach the truth from God, they’re keeping many people out.

There were plenty of examples of this in Isaiah’s day, and later in Jeremiah’s day when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. There were plenty of examples during the intertestamental period, and again in Jesus’ day. And the examples are not hard to find in our day, either. So let’s watch out for them and not allow ourselves to be misled by them!

Yes, let’s take to heart all these words of Isaiah, words of instruction, of encouragement, and disgust, that we may remain in God’s house all the days of our lives and inherit the blessings of His people, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.