Isaiah 56–63

0:00 So, any of y'all ever heard of an oxymoron? Oxymoron. It's a funny word. I see a lot of you punching the person beside you and going, you're an oxymoron. That's not what it is, though. It's not an insult. It sounds like an insult, but it's not. It's a figure of speech, an oxymoron, in which you take two concepts or words and stick them together, and when they come together, they interact with one another in such a way that it doesn't really make sense to our brains because they're sort of opposite concepts.

0:33 So, you know, if I told you that, for example, I, you know, went to Neverland or whatever and I met a tiny giant, that doesn't make sense to you. What is a tiny giant? Well, that doesn't make, it just doesn't work. It's oxymoronic, right? And it makes me kind of sound like a moron for saying it. A tiny giant, it just doesn't work. You know, you can think of them pretty easily. You could talk about a short eternity. I mean, what would that mean? What does a short eternity mean? Or you could talk about, for example, blackish white. If you wanted to talk about colors, you could talk about, if you want to talk about taste, a sweet sourness.

1:09 And what would that mean? It just doesn't make sense, right? Those are oxymorons. Well, what about this one? Let me throw one at you and see how it strikes your mind. What about this one? Is this an oxymoron? A righteous sinner? oh interesting huh righteous sinner i mean at first glance it doesn't make sense because a sinner by definition is somebody who is not righteous and a righteous person is somebody who isn't a sinner so what does it mean to talk about a righteous sinner well many of you will know exactly where i'm going with that but if you're kind of scratching your head and wondering why bring this up. What I want to try to convince you of today is that even though it sounds like one of these oxymoronic phrases in our heads, the phrase righteous sinner is actually the glory of the good news that we as Christians believe in Jesus Christ. You and I, if we are in Christ, if our trust and

2:11 our faith is in him, we are a glorious oxymoron, every single one of us. We are righteous sinners. That's what I want to try to unfold to you today as we look at another section of the book of Isaiah. Take a Bible, if you have one, turn over to the book of Isaiah. It's sort of a little bit past the middle of your Bible probably. If you're using one of these red pew Bibles in front of you, you can find it on page 616. We're going to be looking at chapters 56 through a little bit into 63 is where we're going today.

2:47 There are only two sermons left in this series. We've been banging away at Isaiah for about the last 10 weeks or so, and we're down to the last two. So if you're new to Third Avenue, if you haven't been with us through this series, you need to know that you're dropping into really the very end of a long series that's been going on throughout the summer in which we've been looking at this 2,700-year-old book of Isaiah. Now, if that's you and you're new, please stick around. You may feel a little bit lost, but I don't want you to feel totally lost as we look at the book of Isaiah.

3:19 So let me get you up to speed and not leave you out completely in the cold. This book of Isaiah, 66 chapters long, was written about 700 years before the birth of Jesus. So we're looking at something like 2,700 years ago, 2,700 and 24 years ago, something like that, that this book was written. And it was written by a prophet named Isaiah. Now, Isaiah prophesied mostly to the southern kingdom of Judah. If you remember the history of Israel, it had been one united kingdom. under David and Solomon. When Solomon died, the kingdom split in half. They had a civil war with one another. One part of the kingdom was taken off into Assyria, never heard from again. The second part of it down in the south lasted a little bit longer. And that's the part that Isaiah is prophesying into. His message through this book, I hope you've kind of picked this up as we've studied through 55 chapters of it so far. His message was essentially that even though the people of Israel, the southern kingdom of Judah, was being pressed on every side by empires that

4:21 were bigger and way more powerful than them, his message was take heart and hold on because God has purposes for you that he is absolutely going to carry out and accomplish. There's no doubt about it. There's no reason to think that it's not going to happen. God has purposes and they're going to be worked out. He said, too, that the way God was going to do that is by a coming king who would ultimately give his life in the place of his people. Now, in terms of the structure of Isaiah, the book is divided up into three major sections. Hopefully, if you've been here through these 10 or so sermons so far, you've got these things drilled down into your mind and down into your heart. Chapters 1 through 37, we've called the book of the coming king. Chapters 38 to 55, which we just finished up looking at last time, is the book of the suffering servant.

5:12 And then what we're about to dive into today for two sermons over the next two weeks, 56 to 66, we call the book of the anointed conqueror. Now what's fascinating about those three books, the book of the king, the book of the servant, the book of the conqueror, is that each one of them is kind of headlined by this one central saving figure that does the work of saving the people, right? So you can, I mean, just by the titles, you can guess who they are. the king, and then the servant, and then the conqueror, and what ends up being amazing about it, it's sort of the twist at the end of the movie, right, is that as you come toward the end of Isaiah, you start to realize that, oh my goodness, the king, and the servant, and the conqueror are all the same person, and when you come to like Isaiah 53, for instance, which we looked at last time, you realize, oh wow, I mean, there is just absolutely no doubt that this person who is king and servant and conqueror is Jesus Christ who was born 700 years after the book was written. And it's just mind-blowing. In fact, I think Isaiah paints such a vivid portrait of Jesus

6:16 and the work that Jesus did to save his people that there are times like, especially in, say, Isaiah 53, when you really could forget that you're reading the Old Testament and think that you're reading a passage that was written after it all happened. But no, no, no, you're reading literally words that were written seven centuries before any of it happened. It's astonishing. Well, in the last few weeks, we've been looking at that center section, the Book of the Servant, so 38 to 55. Today and next week, we're going to cover the last one, the Book of the Anointed Conqueror.

6:47 We're going to be looking at chapters 56 through 66. Now, again, if you've been with us through this series, it's been a little unusual in that, one of my goals over the course of it has been to show you the just exquisite architectural structure of Isaiah. I think I've said it a few times through the series. When you walk into the book of Isaiah, you really are walking into a literary cathedral. It's made up of various sections. You can think of them as rooms in the cathedral, and each one of those rooms has a certain structure to it, literarily speaking, right? And then the rooms themselves are connected to one another in this beautiful overarching structure, and it's just breathtaking when you see it, because you walk into it like a cathedral, and you look up into the nave and into the ceiling, and it just takes your breath away, just like, oh, this is so beautiful, and then you walk into this room, and this one is beautiful, and that one's beautiful, and look how they complement one another and fit together. That's how Isaiah is structured, and it's beautiful when you see it, and the thing that's amazing about it even more is that once you see that cathedral-like structure of the book,

7:54 It helps you to understand its meaning. I mean, you know, there's an easy way to talk about that. You may have read the book of Isaiah before in a kind of Bible reading plan or whatever. And as you're reading it, if you don't kind of know what's going on, it really can just feel like a bowl of mashed potatoes, right? It's just one thing after another, and you're not quite sure where you are. But then when I tell you over the last 10 weeks, it's got three parts. There's the king and the servant and the conqueror, and all three of those are the same thing. It kind of clicks, doesn't it? You're like, oh, okay, I can kind of see that now.

8:24 I can see how chapter 9 and then chapter 53 and then chapter 61, I can see how they're working together. Because it's all kind of coming together into a whole. Well, this last big section of the book is no different. Just like the rest of Isaiah, it's got a structure to it that ultimately helps you understand its meaning. It helps you understand what Isaiah is trying to get across to us as readers. So like we've done over and over in the series, pull out this handout. It's in pink today. You can find that in your bulletin or maybe you picked one up in the entryway.

8:58 This is going to be pretty critical for you to kind of keep up with what we're doing today. Because I'm going to be basically making my way in the sermon through this handout. And it will help you understand where we are in Isaiah and what Isaiah is saying to us. So look first at this part right here that's got the darker red, you know, curve on it, the arch, right? So the left-hand side of the handout. What I've given you there is an outline of the entire Book of the Anointed Conqueror. So this is everything, chapters 56 through 66.

9:33 Now, as we've studied Isaiah, we've seen a lot of different rooms of the cathedral. And we've seen a lot of different literary structures that Isaiah uses to put the whole thing together, right? So you remember some of them? There's, for example, the chiasm. Do you remember that one? That's like that sort of X-shaped structure, A, B, C, D, C, B, A, right? And the themes kind of match each other until you get to the middle of the X. And X marks the spot, right? We call it a chiasm because chi in Greek looks like an X. That's how you draw it right there. It's like our X. And so we call it a chiasm.

10:04 That's one kind of structure that Isaiah uses. Another one was parallelism, right? So Isaiah will, over the course of several chapters, he'll tell a story, right, in concepts and themes and all the rest. He'll tell this story about the people of God and their relationship with God. And then in the next few chapters, he'll tell exactly the same story in exactly the same order, right? So there's two different perspectives on it. So, you know, tell the story, tell it again. That's parallelism. Some of the rooms in Isaiah are structured like that. You remember how the book of the servant was structured, right?

10:35 These five kind of coin-like sections, right? You know, where you've got one side of the coin and then the other side of the coin. So good Hezekiah, bad Hezekiah. You remember that whole thing, right? Five different coins. That's another structure that Isaiah uses to put his book together. Well, in 56 to 66, we've got one here that we haven't really seen yet. And it looks like nothing more than it looks like a Roman arch. You see that? Now, I've got it on its side. But if you turn it like that, see, it's an arch. It's like a Roman arch.

11:06 You've probably seen these things before. You take stones, right? If you're going to build a Roman arch, some of you may have them in your homes. You put stones on the bottom, right? And you have these rising stones that go up. And what happens is that as you put more stones on this thing, they eventually get top heavy and they collapse in on one another, right? That's what happens to a Roman arch until you put at the very top of it what is called the capstone, right? So you build this thing up, right? You end up with a structure that looks kind of like that. And then you drop a capstone into it, and the pressure from the capstone pushes all those other stones right down into the ground, and it solidifies that structure.

11:45 It makes sense of the whole thing. I mean, you go to Rome, other places in Europe, and you'll find Roman arches that have lasted for 2,000 years because the structure is so solid when you put that capstone in. Well, that's what Isaiah does here, only not with bricks but with words. He kind of builds a Roman arch. so look at it with me you've got on one side of that arch you got the two things coming up right so one two and three on one side seven six five on the other side right they're both coming up and then the capstone right in the middle of it is that number four the anointed conqueror who is savior and judge so two different two different themes one two three five six seven right and the number four in the in the middle of the arch holding it all together see that okay well let's talk about it a little more then. What are the two themes on the side that the capstone is holding together? Well, if you look at those sections that are marked one, two, and three there, so the happy ideal, the sad reality, the accusation, one, two, and three right there, you might say

12:51 that the theme of those three sections, that one side of the arch, is just the ongoing problem. So if you even wanted to write on your handout there, the problem, that's the theme of that section. We're going to talk about that for the whole rest of the sermon. That's what we're doing today. But that whole section, one, two, and three, is basically saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. There is an ongoing problem here. There is something wrong. And what's wrong is that we know, because we've already done Isaiah 53, right, we know that God's people have been redeemed from sin already. That's happened in the story. Like, you know, the Savior, the suffering servant has died he's been buried he's been resurrected and he's even given out a grand invitation to the whole world to come to him for salvation all his work is done and the people are redeemed in 53 and yet there's a problem because those people are still sinful why haven't they been fully saved that's the question that's the problem that's raised in

13:59 those sections one, two, and three. On the other side of it, if you look at sections five through seven there, so on the handout it would be prayer, then the Lord's answer to that prayer, and then the final reality of the new heavens and new earth. If you look at that five to seven, you might say that the theme is not the problem anymore, but the promise. It's the promise. It's this amazing vision of the people of God living in complete and total safety and joy in the new heavens and new earth, and all their enemies are defeated, and all of their enemies are destroyed, and sin has been pulled out of them, and the whole thing has kind of come to its fruition. So you've got the problem on one side, the promise on the other, and then the capstone number four, the anointed conqueror. So the question then is, okay, you've got this problem, right? The people of God who are redeemed are still sinful, right? They're still beleaguered in this world, and yet the end is supposed to be this new heavens and new earth where they're living in total safety and total joy.

14:54 so how do you get from the problem to the promise how do you how do you get there how do you get this sinful beleaguered nation of people into the promise of the new heavens and new earth and the answer of course comes in that capstone the one who does it the one who solves the problem and keeps the promises is the anointed conqueror strides into history we're going to see this today strides into history saves his people and judges their enemies and ushers them into the new kingdom You see that? You see how it works? He's the answer to both sides of it, because he's the solution to the problem, but he's also the keeper of the promises. He makes the whole arch hold together. Well, today what we're going to be doing is looking at the first side of that arch and the capstone, so it's that pink box, all right? I've got that highlighted for you. So we're going to be looking at sections one, two, three, and four, or, you know, if you'd rather talk about it like this, chapters 56 all the way up through 63.6. So there's nothing too difficult about the story

15:54 that those four sections tell, right? If you just look at that pink box that looks kind of connected to the arch there, I mean, you can see what Isaiah does with it. First of all, in section one, he holds out the happy ideal. This is what the redeemed people of God are supposed to look like, right? And there's this joyful section of, you know, just celebration and ticker tape parade. It's just, It's excellent, right? We'll look at that. But in section two, he turns then to say, but that's not the reality. The happy ideal is not what the people of God are doing and enjoying now. The sad reality is that God's even redeemed people are still sinful and oppressed even to the point of death.

16:30 So happy reality or happy ideal, sad reality. And then section three, you get this long section of the people of God being accused of sin. that God just unloads on them and accuses them of sin. And at the end of that, they end up confessing it and saying, look, we know that we're sinful. And then in section four there, you get the first glimpse of the anointed conqueror, and that runs from 15 on, you see the 15b there? That b just means the second part of verse 15.

17:00 We'll look at that later, but when you see that in sort of biblical stuff, the b just means there was an a, that's the first half, And the B is the second half. So you've got to jump into the middle of the verse. And that runs through 63.6. All right. Main idea of this section, the happy ideal, the sad reality, the accusation, the anointed conqueror, that whole story. The main idea of it is even as Christians, you and I are great sinners. But praise God, we have an even greater Savior.

17:33 As Christians, you and I are great sinners. But praise God, we have an even greater Savior. We're going to unfold this text in two points, really just breaking down that main idea. Our great sinfulness, so that's going to correspond on your handout to sections one, two, and three. And then our greater Savior will be that number four there. Let me tell you what I'm hoping from this sermon. I hope you'll learn something, right? That's part of what we do here. I want you to understand the book of Isaiah better when you walk out of here. I want you to be able to say, oh my goodness, I've read that a hundred times.

18:04 but I see what Isaiah's doing there. I got the story. I want that to happen. But even more than I want that to happen, more than I want you to learn something, I want you to come away with a deeper sense of your own sinfulness and on the heels of that, a deeper understanding of the greatness of your Savior Jesus. I want you to walk away in awe that Jesus would save a sinner like you. And I want you to praise and worship him because of it. I mean friends there's really nothing more important in the Christian life and there really is no greater or better mark of Christian maturity than to say that it involves thinking less of ourselves and more of Jesus all at the same time and friends I hope that's exactly what happens in your heart this morning for some of you maybe it'll be the first time you know like like maybe you've never really thought about Jesus at all. Well, I want to raise your thoughts about Jesus

19:06 and lower your thoughts about yourself. And what I hope will fill that gap is an understanding that Jesus saves sinners just like you. And I hope you'll come to him in faith and repentance as we see what he's done for us. So let's dive into it. So point number one, our great sinfulness. Looking at sections one, two, and three there on your handout. So last week we finished up the book of the servant, that whole thing, you might even say the whole book of Isaiah, climaxes at chapter 53 with the substitutionary sacrificial work of the suffering servant. He suffers, he dies, he's buried, he's resurrected, he ascends into heaven. All of that happens in Isaiah 53, and he does all of that for the sake of and in the place of his sinful people. He saves them, us that is, from our sins. After 53, once the story of the servant is sort of finished and told and he's ascended into heaven sitting at the throne of God, then you've got chapters 54, 55, which are invitations to the whole world. 54 mostly to Israel, 55 mostly to the rest of the nations of the world. But basically

20:09 over and over again, if you remember, it's the Lord saying, come, come, come, come to me and I'll save you. It's a wide open invitation in those chapters. So by the time we get to the opening, of the book of the Conqueror. So chapter 56 is where that begins, 56.1. By the time we get to the book of the Conqueror, what you've got to understand, it's critical for understanding what this passage is doing. You've got to understand that starting in 56.1, we are firmly in the age of redemption.

20:42 In other words, we're firmly in the age that you and I are living in right now. There's one commentator that I read who said that we actually stand poised at the top of 56.1. That's where we are. Right now, right here, we are in 56.1. And really, this whole section. Why? Well, because think about the story of Isaiah. Think about where we are in it, right? We've seen the work of the suffering servant. That's already been done. But we are not yet in the new heavens and new earth.

21:13 So we're right in between the two, right? Right in between the coming of the suffering servant and his death in our place and the coming of the conqueror to usher in the new age. That's where we sit. So maybe more than any other section of Isaiah, this section right here that we're about to unfold over the next two weeks is directly relevant to us. You know, there's a lot of places in the Old Testament that you can't just, you know, apply one-to-one to your own life, right? You just can't do it. It doesn't work. It's an unfolding story.

21:43 But this section of Isaiah, you really can. You can really take what it says and apply it one-to-one to your own heart because we sit right here where it is. And in the first eight verses of chapter 56, things look great. So look with me at 56.1. So on the heels of the suffering servants, work. Thus says the Lord, keep justice and do righteousness, For soon my salvation will come and my righteousness will be revealed.

22:19 Blessed is the man who does this and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, The Lord will surely separate me from his people. Let not the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord, To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and doesn't profane it and holds fast my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.

23:02 Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel declares, I will gather yet others to him besides those already. It's just like a parade, right, at the end of a war. I don't know if you've ever seen the pictures of, you know, the ticker tape parades in cities around the United States and Europe at the end of World War II, but they were massive affairs, and you know, there's fireworks going off, and confetti falling down, and people kissing and hugging, and just a huge celebration. That's the image you're supposed to get here.

23:34 It's a huge celebration of what the servant has accomplished through his life and death and resurrection, and the main focus of it, of course, is that those who are the most far off, the biggest outcasts, the worst of those who are rejected, are the ones who are brought in, right? Because if you're a foreigner in the Old Testament, you can't come into the temple of God, much less into the presence of God and the Holy of Holies. No, you can't come in. Eunuchs are the same way. You can't come in as a blemished person into the presence of God, but here the doors are just flung wide open, and the eunuchs are brought in and the rejected are brought in and the foreigners are brought in and they're welcomed with a ticker tape parade into the presence of God for some of you just right there that's great news right because you think of yourself maybe you even know yourself to be one who is rejected one who is an outcast one who's on the periphery of everything you do and you come into a place like this I don't know how you came here maybe you walked in from the street maybe

24:35 somebody brought you and you look around and you see all these people and you think this is never going to work for me because I'm never going to be in the center of this. I'm never going to be welcomed in to this. Friend, listen to these verses. God welcomes you. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what you've done. It doesn't matter how rejected and outcast you think you are. God welcomes you. His arm is not too short to save. I don't care how far off you are. His arm is longer than you are far away.

25:10 Take hope. Well, so far so good, right? The servant's done his work and now we're celebrating it. Ticker tape parade. But then, of course, in verse 9, things begin to go dark. 56.9, all you beasts of the field come to devour. All you beasts in the forest. His watchmen are blind. They are all without knowledge. They're silent dogs. They cannot bark. And it goes on and on and on. And what you get through chapter 57, like all the way down through chapter 57, is this long series of poems in which that grand ticker tape parade image changes.

25:50 And what Isaiah paints all the way down through 57 is not this rosy scene with the united people of God worshiping him, but rather you get a picture of God's redeemed people being divided and sinful. and oppressed and even killed and it's fascinating if you if you read you can kind of pick it up in the English but when you look at the the underlying language the Hebrew that Isaiah actually wrote it in it's fascinating because the picture that he's painting is one of brokenness and shatteredness and the language itself that he writes the poem in it sort of has the same character to it it's broken and shattered Hebrew the rhymes don't quite work they're just a little bit off and sentences are left hanging, and cadences that you're expecting in the poetry get broken and messed up, and so as you're reading it, you know, it's just kind of like this bumpy road that you're on, because the form of the poem is matching its message.

26:46 This is one of shattering, this is one of unhappiness, this is one of unsettledness. It's all contributing to the sense that something is badly wrong. Let's look at the message of it. So if you look at the last few verses of 56, I read a couple of them. Basically, you've got there in 9 through 12, 56 verses 9 through 12, you have this poem about the leaders of the nations. And basically, the message of it is while the leaders of the nations are selfishly calling for a feast in which to sate their own appetites with food and drink, God, on the other hand, is calling the beasts of the field to a feast of his own.

27:26 Presumably, you've got to think by the end of it, to feast on the leaders themselves. They're about to be judged. So that's the first thing that happens. The leaders of the nation get charged with sin. And 57, chapter 57, breaks down into two major parts. And it shows this divided, beleaguered situation of those who call themselves the people of God. So in, let's just say 3 through 13, if you're looking at your handout there, this side of it, you can see in 57, 3 through 13, you've got a picture of what Isaiah calls the prostitute and her children.

27:59 These are people who are unfaithful to God. Then in 14 through 19 there on your handout, you get a different picture, sort of the other side of it, of the Lord and his children. So that's what's going on there. And look at verses 1 and 2 that start chapter 57. In this struggle between these two divided groups, the children of the prostitute and the children of the Lord, if you look in verses 1 and 2, apparently some of the righteous ones, some of the ones who are God's people, some of the ones who are going to be with him for eternity, apparently some of the righteous ones are actually being killed for remaining faithful to God.

28:36 But there's a fascinating thing here. Look at verse 1 of chapter 57. He says, The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart. Devout men are taken away, and no one understands. Okay, so you see the thing he's setting up there? he's saying righteous people perish, and the devout ones are being killed. The word devout is actually kind of backwards. It actually means the ones who are deeply loved. It doesn't mean the ones who deeply love, as if we deeply love God. It's in the passive. It's the ones who are deeply loved by God. So the righteous are perishing, and the ones who are deeply loved are taken away in death and nobody understands why.

29:26 Why are they being taken away? Why are the righteous perishing? Why are the deeply loved ones of God dying? Then look what he says. The righteous man, he's explaining why. The righteous man is taken away from calamity. He enters into peace. They rest in their beds. who walk in their uprightness. Do you see what he's saying there? It's a fascinating thought, I think. What Isaiah is saying is that when God allows his people to die, even under oppression from the wickedness, it's not a tragedy.

30:07 He's saving them from the calamities of this world. He's taking them out of this age, and it struggles in bringing them home to himself. That's just a beautiful thought, isn't it? Maybe that's why Ezekiel in another place says precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints because he's rescuing them from calamity so that they can rest. He's saving them from the evils of this world and its sinfulness. Friends, my guess is that for some of you that thought right there will give deep comfort to you because you have had people taken away from you whom you love.

30:46 Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it a good thing just to be able to think the reason, the reason God took my mom, my dad, my friend, my child was to spare them the calamities of this world. And for some of you, maybe it's a particular comfort to you because maybe you've suffered a miscarriage. Do you ever think that when God took your baby, the purpose of doing that was not to take that baby from you to cause you pain.

31:23 It was to spare that baby the hurts of this world. People often ask the question, well, why does God leave us here, right? Why does God leave us to walk through this world, to suffer its pains, to suffer its evils? Why, when you become a Christian, does God not just, you know, snap his fingers and bam, take you to heaven? Well, what if he does that sometimes? What if with your little one, that's exactly what he did?

31:58 You look at chapter 58 now. Same kind of thing continues. 57 is all about charging the people of God with sinfulness. through 58, you get a whole other indictment of the sin of God's people. This time it's, if you read 58, we're not going to do it, but it's focused on their empty religion. So they fast, they keep the Sabbath, but it doesn't make any difference in their actual lives. And that's what God says to them. What he demands of them is not just to rest on their rituals, not just to go through the religious stuff, but to live their lives in a way that honors them, right? It's a very common theme in the Bible when you're talking to Christians, when the Bible is talking to Christians. It's live a life that is worthy of the calling you have received in Jesus Christ. Live like who you are.

32:42 If you're a justified sinner, if you're a righteous one before God, if you've been made holy before him, live like it. Don't just go through the motions. That's what the whole of chapter 58 is saying to these redeemed people of God. Stop living like worldlings and just going through the religious motions. Do the things that are going to honor God. So you can see it in, for example verse 6 of chapter 58 where God says to him is this is this not the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness undo the straps of the yoke let the oppressed go free to break every yoke is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. You can see what he's saying there. Just live like who you are. Be in your life who you are already in heaven. That's what he's

33:43 saying. And then in the first few verses, you get through chapter 58, first few verses of 59, he just drives the sword home. 59.1. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, or his ear dull that it cannot hear. It's not God that's the problem here, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. And your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity.

34:14 Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue mutters wickedness. No one enters suit justly. No one goes to law honestly. They rely on empty pleas. They speak lies. They conceive mischief, give birth to iniquity. They hatch adders, eggs. They weave the spider's web. He who eats their eggs dies, and from one that is crushed, a viper is hatched. Their webs won't serve as clothing. Men will not cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of iniquity. Deeds of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil. They are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Desolation and destruction are in their highways.

34:46 The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths. They have made their roads crooked. No one who treads on them knows peace. Stop there and think for just a minute. Let me ask you a question. Christian. This is a question for you who are Christians. Those words in Isaiah 59 verses 1 to 8, do these words describe you right now? I mean, you've trusted in Christ, right?

35:20 You're a Christian. He's forgiven you of your sins. So do these words describe you? Probably some of these words sound really familiar to you because they're exactly the phrases that Paul grabs and uses in Romans chapter 3 to indict the whole world of sin. If you start comparing Romans 3 in this section right here, you'll see a lot of parallels. But here's the kicker. Isaiah here uses these words in 59 to describe the people of God. And that's where we are in the story, right?

35:54 The servant's done his work. The people of God have been invited in. They're in, and yet he says they are all these things. In fact, if you keep reading, starting in verse 9 there, the people of God, the redeemed ones, agree with the indictment and confess their sins. You heard what I said right there, right? The redeemed confess that this is true of them. So I wonder if that surprises you. So let me ask you again. These words in 59, 1 through 8, Do they, Christian, describe you?

36:33 Well, here's the answer. Yes, they do. Yes, they do describe you. Listen to me. You and I, as Christians, stand forgiven by Christ and justified solely through his death and resurrection in our place. that's all true and yet we are not yet free of sin it's still in us it still motivates us it still affects us it still wars against us we are saved we are redeemed we are adopted we have all the blessings of eternity spread out before us and yet we are still sinners but brothers and sisters that is exactly the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we can be at the same time righteous before Christ and yet sinners, that we who are a sinful people are still the people of God, that God has justified us, the ungodly. You see that?

37:35 Righteous sinners, that's what we are. It's ironically kind of comforting, isn't it? It really is. It's ironically kind of comforting because it's easy to think that once you become a Christian, sin ought to just quit. Sin ought to just lay down its weapons and go, okay, I guess you win. You know, I guess Jesus wins. I'm done messing with you. That's what we think. But it's not the case at all. I mean, yes, once you become a Christian, you've got the Holy Spirit. So there's new power to fight it. The Holy Spirit is at work in you, sanctifying you, making you more like Jesus the whole time. But friend, sin is gonna persist until you stand before Jesus and he pulls it out of you. But until then, that sin that continues to work in you, that human nature, that sinful nature, that fleshly nature, when you see that thing working in you, it ought to drive you to cling more tightly to Christ. I mean, in the same way, though, this is also a truth, the fact that we're going to carry on, we're going to persist in sin until the day we stand before Jesus. It's

38:37 also a truth that will guard, once you get it into your heart, it will guard your heart from a damning self-righteousness. It really will. It'll guard your heart from self-righteousness. Now you read chapter 59, verses 1 through 8, and you need to understand that Jesus does not save you. Jesus did not save you because you are not those things. He saves you. He saved you in spite of the fact that you are all of those things. And that's the glory of the gospel. And I know, I mean, a lot of you are sitting here going, oh yeah, this is all basic Christianity.

39:12 Well, of course it's basically basic Christianity, but honestly, what's wrong with that? Every Christian needs to hear the basics of the gospel again and again and again because we tend to forget it. And why do we tend to forget it? Because there's a deep, deep-seated need in our own selves to rely on ourselves. We don't like to be dependent. We don't like to admit that everything we are and everything we're going to be is because of somebody else. One way or another, we want to slip it in there that, yeah, yeah, yeah, Jesus did 99.9% of it, but at least I took the step of faith.

39:49 Our friend, the Bible says that even your faith is a gift from God. Even your repentance is a gift from God. You looking at Jesus and being able to see his beauty enough to put faith in him is because God made your eyes to see his beauty. You get zero credit for your presence in heaven, and Jesus gets all of it. And yet there's this danger. Like even if we understand that right down to our very core, there's this danger that over time as we grow in faith and as we grow in maturity, as fruit starts to pop out on the various branches of our lives, there's this tendency that we all have to look at that fruit and go, dang, that's good.

40:28 That's really good. That's really good. Like I'm going to fit in heaven now. And what happens is that your faith subtly starts, I mean you don't even see it sometimes, But your faith starts to shift from 100% in Jesus to just 50% in Jesus and then 25% in Jesus. And then before you know it, you're looking at all your fruit and going, I'm good to go. Your faith shifts from Jesus to self. But Christian, that's deadly. It's deadly because self-righteousness is damning.

41:06 Friend, you are not saved because you are in any way righteous. You are not going to be welcomed into heaven carrying your basket of fruit. You're going to be welcomed into heaven because Jesus says, I died for that one. Let him in. Look, also, if you're not a Christian, you need to understand that this is what we Christians go on and on and on about when we talk about grace. The fact is a person does not come to the point ever.

41:38 You never come to the point where you deserve salvation. You are always given salvation. That's why the Bible calls it a gift. I mean, look, when you come to church and you hear sermons like this, there's a tendency that you can take, you know, whatever the preacher says, whatever I'm saying, run it through your filter of what you think religion is like. And no matter what I say that goes into this year, What sticks in your brain is something like clean yourself up and get right with God. I want you to hear me say loud and clear this morning.

42:12 I want to interrupt whatever filter it is that changes every sermon you hear into be righteous. I want to mess that up and tell you loud and clear that you will never be deserving of salvation. You just won't. You'll never get there. I know there may be somebody in here that's going, but you don't understand. You don't understand. Even if I hear you clearly on that, you don't know what I've done. You don't know how deep in this thing I am. And you're right, I don't.

42:45 I don't know that. But, friend, if you're in that state of mind, if you're looking at your sin and saying, but you don't understand. You don't understand what a sinner I am. You don't understand how deep this is. If you look at your sin and it hurts you like that and you see the depth of it like that, then friend, you are exactly the kind of person that Jesus came to save. Jesus said, I didn't come to call the righteous to repentance. In other words, if you think you're righteous, I'm not for you. But I came to call sinners to repentance.

43:19 If you think you're righteous, if you think you're worthy of grace, you're not. But if you're looking at your sin and it breaks your heart, you are in exactly the right frame of mind to come to him. And when you do, when you do, you'll be just like the rest of us, a grand, glorious, happy oxymoron. A sinner who has been declared righteous. You know what Martin Luther called that, right? In Latin, he said, simul, simultaneous, right?

43:51 Simul, simul, simultaneous. Eustus, just, simultaneously, Eustus, just, et, and, Eustus, et, peccator, like peccadillos, right? Sins. He said, we are simultaneously just or righteous and sinners. It's a glorious way to describe what the Christian life is. We march through this life with all of its muck. We march through this life with all of its sin and all the battle. And we drop to our knees and we fall in the dirt and we get back up and we march on toward heaven.

44:24 knowing that even in the midst of the muck the father has declared because of jesus that we are righteous until the day when he makes it absolutely and totally true on every level that last day is coming but friends that day isn't this day as far as we know today we live in this already not yet time where we've been yet justified from sin but we're not yet freed from it So what's going to bridge that gap?

44:55 What's going to get us out of that? Well, the answer comes in the next section, and it's our even greater Savior. It's point number two, our greater Savior. If you look down at chapter 59, verse 15, you can see there that there's a big break. It's kind of unusual break right there in the middle of verse 15. You see that truth is lacking? He who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then you've got a little white space, and then the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

45:28 So you've got this big, thunderous verdict handed down, even against the people of God in 14 and the first part of 15. Justice is turned back. Righteousness stands far away. Truth has stumbled in the public squares. Uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. And in this pause, this silence, and in the second part of 15, the Lord saw it.

46:01 And it displeased him that there was no justice. You remember that story in Exodus, right? When the people of God are in slavery to Egypt and they cry out to the Lord about their oppression and about their pain. And the Lord looks down and the Bible says that the Lord saw. And the Lord knew. This is the same kind of energy here, right? The Lord sees the predicament of his people who have been declared righteous, and yet they're oppressed, they're divided, they're pushed down by their own sinful nature.

46:33 They're sunk in the mock of sin. And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice, that this is not right. This situation is not correct. And so he acts. Look at 16. He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no one to intercede. In other words, there's nobody to help. God's people are beleaguered. They're crushed down in the muck.

47:04 They're being broken up by sin. They're even being killed by the unrighteousness. And there's nobody to help them. There's no man that's there. There's nobody to intercede. There's nobody to stand in the gap. In verse 16, there's just kind of throwing up its hands and saying, there's not even anybody there to help. There's nobody to save him. There's nobody to intercede. There's nobody to stop all this madness. But then look what happens next. Second part of 16. Then his own arm brought him salvation and his righteousness upheld him.

47:35 He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, so will he repay. Wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies. To the coastlands he will render repayment. So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun in the east. For he will come like a rushing stream which the wind of the Lord drives. And a redeemer will come to Zion. To those in Jacob who turn from transgression, declares the Lord.

48:07 And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My spirit that is upon you and my words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth or out of the mouth of your offspring or out of the mouth of your children's offspring, says the Lord, from this time forth and forevermore. Do you see the point of this? God sees in 16 that there's nobody to help his people. There's nobody to save his people. And so in the second part of 16, he decides to act himself. And then for the first time, you get this glimpse of the main character of this whole section.

48:37 This is the first time you get a glimpse of the anointed conqueror. Now, you probably noticed in these that there's a huge focus here on his clothing, right? Well, that turns out to be a theme through all of the different times when the conqueror shows up. There's this big focus on his clothing. So if the suffering servant was marred and despised and broken and rejected, if that was all true of him, the conqueror is very different. And you can tell it just from right here, and you'll see it unfold later too. But he is resplendent. And he's dressed here in battle armor.

49:09 He shows up another time dressed in resplendent wedding clothes. And the last time he shows up, he shows up in blood-splattered royal robes. He's amazing, and he strides into history to save his people. Look here what he does, too. And what we just read, those verses, 16 to 21, look what he does. He does two things, and those two things are going to define his work throughout this whole section. What are those two things? He comes to save, and he comes to judge.

49:41 Both of those things in equal measure. He comes to save and he comes to judge. So, for example, look at 17. He wears the helmet of salvation, yes, but he also wears garments of vengeance. Or compare 18 to 20. In 18, you get wrath to his enemies. In 20, you get redemption and salvation for those who repent of sin. 21 there at the end, 59, 21, is fascinating. I want to look at it for just a second. First of all, look at the first part of it. As for me, this is my covenant with them.

50:13 That's plural, right? This is my covenant with them. That's the people of God. The covenant that I make with the people of God is this is it, he says. But then look what immediately the Lord points to. As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. What is the covenant? Well, it is that my spirit that is upon you, that's not plural anymore. That's singular. My covenant with them is that my spirit, which is upon you, will not depart ever.

50:45 From this time forth and forevermore. My words, which are in your singular mouth, will not depart from this time forth and forevermore. And therefore they won't depart from your people's mouth either. Do you see what's going on there? It's like an announcement. This is my covenant with them. It's you, the conqueror. My covenant is you. You remember other times where this kind of thing is said? Where God says to the servant, I will make you, for instance, to be a covenant. Why is that so important? Like, why is it so important that like half a dozen times, Isaiah says here, my covenant with my people is him.

51:24 Why is that? And why is it important for us as Christians to understand that? Well, let me just explain a covenant for a second. It's not a super unusual word, but a covenant is a set of things that two parties are going to do for one another. Right? So we have a church covenant. Every chance I get, I talk about this set of mutual promises that we make to one another. I'm going to do this, and you're going to do this, right? That's how a covenant works. And your relationship with God is in the form always. God's relationship with people is always in the form of a covenant. God says, I'm going to do this, and you are going to do this.

51:57 That's how it works. It's a covenant. It's kind of like a marriage, right? When two people stand and form a marriage covenant with one another, the whole form of it is, do you? I do. Do you? I do. Okay, you're married, right? That's how it works. Your relationship with God is like that too. I will do this and you will do this. These things will be done by God and these things will be done for God, right? That's just how the whole thing works. But here's the key to the whole thing. The part of that covenant that makes up the things done for God is not done by you at all it's done by jesus so friends the covenant that you the relationship the covenant that you enjoy with god as a christian is secured and fortified and locked in by jesus not by you that's why god says this is my covenant

52:57 with them. Him. You know, I think, I genuinely think that so much of the doubt and insecurity that can plague us, sometimes as Christians, comes because we think that the for God part of the covenant has to be done by us. We get into a mind frame that says, God will do these things for me, and now these things have to be done for God, and that's my responsibility right there. And it causes all kinds of doubt and insecurity because we have this idea that it's just, it's me and God, right? God's doing stuff for me. I'm doing stuff for God. And the problem, though, is that we stumble and we fall, and all of a sudden, the whole covenant between me and God starts to look wobbly because I'm a sinner. It's like God is looking at me down from heaven and going, oh, I don't know about that. Like, I'll keep up my part of the bargain, but you are really messing this covenant thing up. You're making the whole thing go wobbly. But if I'm thinking like that, If I'm just thinking me and God, he's got his responsibilities and I've got mine, what am I doing there?

54:00 Totally and completely forgetting about Jesus. I'm totally forgetting about Jesus. I'm forgetting that my covenant with God, my relationship with God doesn't depend on me. It depends on him and he's not going anywhere. So long as he is there at the throne of God, as that song says, no tongue can bid me thence depart. I am there in God's presence because Jesus is. That's why God says there, this is my covenant with them, you, my son.

54:32 And that's not changing from this time forth and forevermore. It's beautiful, isn't it? Well, over the next chapters, you get three more times when this saving, judging conqueror shows up. Four of them in all. So if you remember, that should ring a bell a little bit. Because in the middle section, we had four servant songs. Well, here we have four conqueror songs, which is flagging you again to the fact that the conqueror is the servant. So just in verse 21, God says that his spirit is on the conqueror. Same with king and servant, too.

55:03 You've seen that three different times. My spirit is on the king. My spirit is on the servant, the suffering servant. And now my spirit is on the conqueror. They're all the same person. Anyway, you can look at the handout and see how it works. There at the very bottom section on the right-hand side. The anointed conqueror, savior, and judge, right? So you've got first conqueror song, he's presented as a savior. Second one, he's presented as a savior and a judge. Third one, he's presented as a savior again. And finally, he's presented as a judge. And in between each one of them, you get this vision of the future glory of God's people after this conqueror does his work.

55:38 I want to look at him briefly. So turn to chapter 61. I'll show you the second song. Chapter 61, verse 1. This is actually the conqueror speaking himself. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God. And it goes on and on and on.

56:09 Does that sound familiar to you? And it should because that's how Jesus launches his ministry. He goes into the synagogue and he opens up the scroll of Isaiah and he goes to this passage right here and he starts to read it. He says, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he stops. He didn't say that next line. Why didn't he say the next line?

56:44 Because he's saying that he has come to usher in the year of the Lord's favor, but it is not yet the day of vengeance. That's why he stops. Friends, that's where you and I live. We live in the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance is coming. We live in the day and in the year when the Lord's hand is wide open, when mercy is offered to every single person who will come and take it from it. But that year won't last forever. The day of vengeance is coming And when the Lord pulls his hand back and closes it up, that's the end.

57:21 Friend, don't let that happen. Don't let that happen to you. Stretch out your hand and take his and find mercy. Third song starts in 61.10, runs all the way down through 62.7. It's just a wonderful picture of what God has done for us. Look at 62.4. He's talking to his people here. It's really a wedding celebration is what it is. He's taking his people as the bride.

57:51 So look at 62.4. He says to them, You shall no more be termed forsaken. Your land shall no more be termed desolate. But you shall be called, my delight is in her, and your land married. For the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. It's beautiful, isn't it? I mean, to think about the fact that that's what the Lord Jesus has done for us. He has taken us with our name desolate and changed our name to my delight is in her. What a glorious picture of the gospel.

58:25 But then look at the fourth and last one. Turn the page over to 63. 63-1. This is the last time he shows up. Who is this who comes from Edom in crimsoned garments from Bozerah? He who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength. It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save. Why is your apparel red and your garments like his who treads in the winepress?

58:59 I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me. I trod them in my anger. And trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood spattered on my garments and stained all my apparel. For the day of vengeance was in my heart and my year of redemption had come. I looked, but there was no one to help. I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold. So my own arm brought me salvation. And my wrath upheld me. I trampled down the peoples in my anger. I made them drunk in my wrath. And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.

59:34 But that is not like the others, is it? There's no wedding feast here. There's no celebration here. And it's really not the note that we probably would have expected things to end on. Like the last picture you get of this great anointed conqueror. It's of him trampling on the nations. But there it is. And it's not a total surprise. I mean, you remember back in the very first Conqueror song, the conqueror puts on his helmet of salvation. Yes, but also he puts on the garments of vengeance. Look, our culture doesn't like to think about this, and frankly, we Christians don't really like to think about it either.

1:00:09 But there is, the Bible says, coming a day when Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, will return from heaven. And that day will be a day both of salvation and of judgment. Whether you're a Christian or not today, you need to be aware of that, and you need to hear Isaiah warning you of that day. And for that matter, you need to hear the whole Bible warning you of that day. Look, one of the clearest things the Bible teaches is that some people on the last day will in fact be enemies of God.

1:00:43 And the salvation of God's people always entails the destruction of God's enemies. So what makes a difference? What makes a difference on the last day, whether you're one of the people of God or one of God's enemies? What puts you on one side of that line or the other? friends it's how you respond now to the king it's how you respond now to the suffering servant who gave his life for sinners just like you it's how you respond now to the coming anointed conqueror who's going to save and judge friends this this right here this is the year of the lord's favor this is the day of salvation It is not yet the day of vengeance.

1:01:34 So come to Jesus now. And don't let it catch you like a thief in the night. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, it's a sobering thing to see you here in the book of Isaiah. Splendent in royal robes, coming to save your people, striding on to the stage of history. To bring your people home and to judge your enemies.

1:02:06 Our Lord Jesus, we thank you for the salvation that you've wrought. And we pray, oh God, that for everybody in this room, every single person who's hearing this sermon, hearing my voice. We pray that on the last day, we will see you coming. Not as a threat, not as wrathful, not as death. but that we will see you as the Lord of life, the Redeemer and the Savior, who gave yourself for us and has returned to bring us home. We pray all of that in the name of Jesus, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the suffering servant and the anointed conqueror.

1:02:44 Amen.