Isaiah 63:7–66

0:01 Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying, Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do. Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard right down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution I think that there is far too much work done in the world and that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous.

0:44 Everyone knows the story of the traveler in Naples who saw 12 beggars lying in the sun and offered a lira to the laziest of them. Eleven of them jumped up to claim it, so he gave it to the twelfth. This traveler was on the right lines. Now, that's a little passage from Bertrand Russell's 1935 essay in praise of idleness or in praise of laziness. Now, in context, what he's doing there is actually making an argument for socialism.

1:17 But if you ignore that, What if Bertrand Russell was kind of on to something there? What if there really is something to be said in the Christian worldview for living a life of laziness and idleness? Some of you are getting excited, but there's not.

1:50 There's nothing to be said for living a life of laziness and idleness. I don't intend to try to surprise you with that. I bring it up because whether you clothe it in Russell's philosophical garb or whether you just kind of fall into it by accident, every single one of us, you, me, all of us, are prone at various times in our lives to idleness and to laziness. And we all need to be reminded from time to time that idleness for a Christian is simply out of the question. That's what I want to talk with you about today. We're actually finishing up our study of the book of Isaiah, which we've been in for the last 10 or 11 weeks or so.

2:23 And I just, for those of you especially who have been here for most of the 10 or 11 weeks, I just want to pause and just revel with you in the fact that this is just a magnificent book, isn't it? I mean, it is just beautiful. I'm not even talking about the sermons. I'm talking about the book. I don't really care what you've thought about the sermons all that much. You know, good, bad, whatever. The book is magnificent. And we should just stop and revel in that fact and thank the Lord for giving us this wonderful book to study. I mean, you start thinking about what this book does, what we've studied over the last 10 or 11 weeks.

2:56 It's incredible because even though it was written 700 years before Jesus was even born, it paints a picture of Jesus and his work that sounds like it's coming right out of the pages of the New Testament. I mean, there's so many passages in this book that, you know, if you didn't know, you would actually think they're from the New Testament and they would be totally at home in the New Testament. And then think back over the story it tells. I mean, you know, the story of Isaiah, if you were to sort of just boil it down into a summary, is that God's sinful people, I mean, listen to this and think about it in terms of New Testament.

3:33 God's sinful people are going to be saved from their sin by a divine king who suffers and dies in their place and then somehow lives again to take them home finally to the new heavens and new earth to be with him forever. I mean, how much more New Testament do you get than that? And yet this is written 700 years prior to Jesus even being born. It's just, it's just breathtaking. You start to think about it, Christians have even noticed that in some ways the whole book from start to finish works like a kind of episodic biography of Jesus's life. So in the first section of it, what we've called the book of the king, the emphasis is on Jesus' birth, right? Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. In the second portion, the book of the servant, the emphasis is on what? His death on the cross, in the place of his people. And then in this last section, the book of the conqueror that we've been talking about, the emphasis is on his second coming. So you've got birth, and then death and resurrection in the second book, and then the second coming in the third book. It's like a biography of Jesus' life. I mean, friend, if

4:34 nothing else in your life has ever convinced you of the supernatural nature of Old Testament prophecy, this book right here ought to do it. I mean, try to come up with any other book in the history of the world that has been so precise and detailed about a particular set of events 700 years before they even happened. And then not just to predict the events, not just to say hey, this man is going to come and he's going to have royal blood and he's going to die on the cross.

5:04 But to nail the theological significance of those events, it's just breathtaking. Well, today we've come to the last few chapters of the book. We've come to the last chapters of what we've been calling the book of the anointed conqueror, which is that big third section of the book. And one more time, say goodbye to these, but you get them one more time, you've got a handout in your bulletin. Maybe you're tired of these. Next week, we're going to be running off to the very end of the Gospel of John. And I promise you, there will be no handouts because John is not complicated.

5:38 Isaiah, on the other hand, has this intricate, complicated, really beautiful, I think, structure to it. And so, I've been trying to show you that in these various handouts. So, take a look at it. On the left-hand side of it, you've got this sort of arch right here. On the left-hand side, I've given you an outline of the entire Book of the Conqueror. So three big sections to Isaiah, book of the king, book of the servant, book of the conqueror that runs from chapter 56 to 66. You've got an outline of that whole third section, the book of the anointed conqueror. And it works like we talked about last week if you sort of turn the page up like this.

6:11 The book of the conqueror works kind of like a Roman arch. So you have these two side pieces that are sort of coming up, right, like an arch, and each one of them is telling a story. And then in the middle of it, you've got the capstone or the keystone that falls into the middle and makes sense of both of them and holds the whole thing together, right? So like we talked about last week, on this side, sort of sections 1, 2, and 3, the top of it there, you might call that story the problem. God's people, even though they're redeemed, even though the servant has died for them, they're still sinful.

6:43 They're still oppressed. They're still being torn apart by the world around them. And so the question is, how do we get these redeemed people to not be sinful anymore, to not be oppressed anymore? How do we fully and finally save them? That's the problem. On the other side, Numbers 5, 6, and 7 that we're going to look at today, you basically have another story being told of the promise. Like this is where God's people are going to be headed. This is what God says he's going to do with them. And so the question becomes, well, how do you solve the problem and how do you keep the promises? There are two stories, both of which need an answer, right?

7:16 They're incomplete, and then in the middle, number four, boom, the one that keeps the promises and solves the problem all at the same time is the anointed conqueror, Jesus, in his second coming. So that he is the one, when he comes back, who solves the problem of our sin, pulls it right out of us from the roots and prepares us to live in this new heavens and new earth that he's prepared for us. He does all of that, and so he sits there at the keystone. The whole thing depends on it and the work he does both in salvation and judgment.

7:46 Well, today, like you can see from the blue boxes there, we're going to be looking at sections 5 through 7 there. And like always, those sections themselves, even once you kind of dig down into them, have their own magnificent literary structure that once you see it will help you see the point Isaiah is trying to get across. So if you think about it as sort of double-clicking on it, right? This box over here is just that box sort of blown out in more detail. So, you know, there it is. You've got it right there in front of you.

8:17 The two big sections of this are number five. They're a prayer, the song of the remembrancer, this one who holds the Lord's promises before him. And then number six, the Lord's answer and the final reality. If you're looking for number seven, it's sort of tucked into that very last A section right there at the bottom of the page. That's where that one is. So the worldwide call to faith, 66, 18 to 24, that's the same thing as the final reality. So main idea, as we look at this today and as we kind of unfold it, here's the main idea. We Christians are a waiting people, but we are in no way an idle people.

8:56 Because as we wait for Jesus to return, we have work to do. We Christians, let me say it again, we Christians are a waiting people, but we are in no way an idle people because as we wait for Jesus to return we have work to do so here's what I want to do I want to look at these three chapters or these chapters there's not just three of them but these chapters I want to look at them in three points roughly corresponding to those three sections over on the left five six and and seven so that's that's that's how it works and in each one of those points we're going to see one aspect of what God intends for us, his people during this time of waiting, to be doing during the time of waiting. So we're going to see one aspect of what he expects us to be about until Jesus comes back to take us home.

9:45 They're really simple. Here they are. We are to be, you ready? Praying, hoping, and bringing. That's it. We are to be praying, we are to be hoping, and we are to be bringing. And we're going to look at each one of those in terms of those sections, five, six, and seven. So let's jump right into it. Number one, until Jesus returns, we as Christians are to be praying. That's the first thing. And that's the lesson we learned from this section five, the prayer of the remembrancer.

10:15 It's a funny word, remembrancing, the remembrancer. But I think as we go through it and talk about who he is and what his function is, I think you'll see why I use that word. I think he's a fascinating character, actually, this remembrancer. he has a bit of a storyline in this book of the Conqueror. We're going to trace that out in just a minute. But I think he's also kind of mysterious. And what you're going to see as we make our way through and sort of get to know this guy a little bit, figure out who he is, what you're going to see is that he is intensely relevant to you and me as Christians.

10:48 And the reason he's intensely relevant to you and me as Christians is because he is you and me. That's what you're going to see. You're going to see that who the remembrancer is and what the remembrancer does is who you are supposed to be as a Christian and what you are supposed to be doing. It's a picture of you. All right, so he's got a bit of a storyline, like I said, over the last few chapters, though we haven't really talked about him any yet. He's also kind of mysterious. He's a little bit cloudy.

11:19 You never get a real focus of the camera on this remembrancer. It's always very cloudy because the focus is on what he's doing, not so much, you know, what his identity is or what he looks like. I mean, you can look at the first part of our text today, 63, 7, 8, 9, those verses there. And you may look at that and say, you know, I don't really see any character there at all, really. All I see there is just words, right? I mean, 63-7, it's not like there's a verse above that that says something like, and the remembrancer said, or, and there was a guy called, strangely, the remembrancer, and he said, or he, there's nothing like that.

12:02 It just jumps right in with his words. I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord. So if you're looking at that and saying, well, I don't really see a character here. Why are you sort of talking about a character here? First thing I want to say is that your instincts are pretty good. Your instincts are right. There is no character there. It's just words. And yet, as is so often the case in the Bible, we as readers, especially in these prophetic books like Isaiah, we as readers are supposed to see little verbal clues in the text and put those verbal clues together from other places in the book in a way that paints a bigger, more detailed picture.

12:45 and sometimes a more dynamic picture, like it's moving, right? Not just words, but a story that's being told than what you see just on the surface. So look at the very first verse, 63, 7. That's where our passage today starts. He says there, I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. Okay, so who's the I there? The one who's doing this recounting of the steadfast love of the Lord.

13:17 Who is the I? Is it just Isaiah? Maybe it's just the prophet Isaiah who's praying this prayer. It definitely could be. And in fact, that's probably the first thing that ought to and that does come to mind. That's a right impulse to think, oh, okay, this is just Isaiah saying some more Isaiah-like things. But there's a clue in here that's supposed to kind of pull your mind back to another spot a few chapters back. And that clue is the word recount.

13:51 You see it there at the very beginning? It's the word recount. I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord. Now, to you and me, when we hear the word recount, what we hear is just I'm going to tell of it, right? I'm going to tell of the steadfast love of the Lord. I'm going to recount this story. going to retell this narrative of the steadfast love of the lord that's that that's what we think about when we see the word recount in the hebrew though that word is zakar and it means to remember so about you know back in hebrew class when i was having to memorize all this vocabulary that was one of the easier ones because i could just you know tell myself to remember zakar right remember the car like don't forget your car remember zakar and it helped stick it in my head but here this word zakar doesn't just mean to remember something in your own mind or in your own self it's got a particular gloss here which is not just to remember something for yourself but rather to put somebody else in remembrance of something so what he's saying here is that he's

14:55 going to put someone in remembrance of the steadfast love of the Lord. So you see how that's a more active idea than just, I'm going to tell the story. You know, I'm going to recount it. I'm going to recount the steadfast love of the Lord. That's one thing. You could just be doing that to anybody and nobody could particularly be listening and you could have no particular goal in recounting the steadfast love of the Lord. But to zakar somebody with the steadfast love of the Lord means to grab them by the lapels of their shirt or their jacket and say, listen, I am going to put you in remembrance of the steadfast love of the Lord.

15:27 You've got a goal in it. That's what you're doing when you're zakar-ing somebody. Sometimes it's yourself. Sometimes it's somebody else. Here, it's clearly somebody else. He's putting somebody else in remembrance of the steadfast love of the Lord. He's making them remember it. Okay, so who's he doing that to? Who's he putting in remembrance of the steadfast love of the Lord? The people? Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, kind of always because all scripture is written for our benefit. So part of what he's doing here is grabbing us by the lapels and saying, remember the steadfast love of the Lord.

16:00 But you read through and you start to see what's happening. And you realize, oh, the people, we, the readers even, are not the main target of the zakar-ing. The main target of the zakar-ing, now listen, because this is critical and it's kind of surprising. The main target of the zakar-ing that this guy is doing is the Lord himself. He wants to put the Lord in remembrance of the Lord's own steadfast love. You see what's going on there?

16:32 It's an incredible thing. And you can tell that because once he's done this, once he's recounted the Lord's grace to his people, Lord, you have done this, and you have done this, and you have done that. That's what he does from 7 all the way down through 14. He just lays out the Lord's kindnesses to his people. In 15, he turns to the sort of the ask of the prayer, the thing that he wants the Lord to do on the basis of that. He says, look down, O Lord, from heaven and see. And he goes on in the whole rest of the prayer is an ask for the Lord to save the people.

17:03 Okay, so that's the first thing you've got to understand about this. This remembrancer guy, what he's doing in this prayer is putting the Lord himself in remembrance of his own steadfast love. Lord, remember what you've done for your people, and because of that, save us. That's what he does. But there's another piece of it, another piece of this puzzle that helps us to figure out who this guy is and what he's doing and why it's important. And it has to do, again, with that word zakar, put into remembrance. So you remember a second ago I said that there are certain, sometimes in the Bible, little textual clues that you're supposed to see and it's supposed to, like, transport your mind back to another place in the book where you've already seen that word, right?

17:41 That kind of thing happens all over the Bible, and you've got to kind of be aware of it or you'll miss certain pieces of meaning in it. It works. I mean, it's sort of like a literary Harry Potter portkey or whatever. You know, you touch the trophy and you're at Voldemort's lair or whatever. That's what the word zakar is supposed to do here. When your mind runs over it, literarily, you're supposed to touch the word zakar and you go to another place where the same word is used. Well, that place that it's supposed to transport us is at the very end of the third of the four Conqueror songs.

18:15 So last week we looked at all four of the Conqueror songs At the end of the third one, you get the same idea. So turn back one page to chapter 61, verse 10. And we're going to take another little look at the third conqueror song. So you remember from last week, this is the one where the conqueror is dressed up like a bridegroom. And he's coming to take his people, his bride. And he's going to rename her. He's going to say, your name is no longer desolate.

18:46 Your name is married. Your name is fruitful. It's all this change of name, and he embraces her, takes her home. That's his people. That's what the conqueror is doing in this song. So it's beautiful. So look at 61.10. This is the conqueror himself speaking. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He's covered me with the robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its sprouts and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

19:23 Then he starts talking about his bride. For Zion's sake I will not keep silent. For Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your righteousness and all the kings your glory and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. 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 shall be called married for the Lord delights in you and your land shall be married.

19:57 For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. It's a beautiful song about Jesus taking his people to be his own. But the last two verses of it are verses 6 and 7. Look at it. On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen all the day and all the night. They shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.

20:37 Okay, so you see the picture here? You've got this wonderful picture of Jesus, the conqueror, in his second coming, decked out like a bridegroom, coming to save his people, take his people as his bride, wrap them up in himself, and take them home to be with him forever. That's the picture that you've got. But then in 6 and 7, it's as if he says, but that day is not yet. And until that day comes, until I come back to get you, what I'm going to do is take my people and set them on the walls of the city to be watchmen, to watch the horizon, to watch the rising and setting sun to see if this is the day that the bridegroom is coming back. I'm setting you as watchmen. And then he says what the watchmen are supposed to do as they wait on this day is continually put the Lord in remembrance of his own promises. In other words, lay the promises of the Lord out in front of God until the day he keeps him. In fact, he says there in verse 7, give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes

21:39 it a praise in the earth. So the watchmen on the walls are supposed to pray until that last day. They're supposed to lay the Lord's promises before him. And then what's fascinating is that that word zakar there, that's remembrance, right? Put the Lord in zakar. Make him listen. Make him remember. So then, if you turn the page back over to 63, what you get, starting in verse 7 of chapter 63 that we've just been looking at, is the prayer of this remembrancer. This is how he shows the Lord his promises and calls on him to act.

22:15 And here's the kicker. Here's the kicker of the whole thing. That remembrancer, that watchman on the walls that's doing this work of reminding the Lord of his promises, that prayer, it's us. That's you and me. This is where we are. We are to be until the day our king returns, continually setting before the Lord in prayer his own promises. In fact, not letting him rest until he keeps them and comes to bring us safely home. I mean, this is nothing new, right? The New Testament teaches this. It's the same exact lesson that Jesus was teaching with the parable of the persistent widow.

22:50 God wants us, his children, to pester him with our prayers. He wants us to. I mean, some of you have toddlers or you have had toddlers, and, you know, I know that sometimes those little kids can pester you with all of their desires and their questions and their, essentially, prayers to you, right? Daddy-wise, the sky blue-wise, the grass green, daddy, can I have a cookie, daddy this, daddy that, daddy this, daddy that, right? And because you are a fallen and sinful creature, sometimes that annoys you. But sometimes, when you're at your best moments, all of that pestering from that little guy, that little toddler, you love it.

23:26 you eat it up and if that were to ever stop if that little guy were just to decide that you know daddy's not worth talking to and he were to just walk past you and never pester you about anything you'd be heartbroken well friends thank thank god god is not like you and me in our annoyance so you so you take i mean think about that little guy coming and pestering you and all of the different reactions that you have to that and then take all of the bad stuff you know all the bad motives all the bad reactions and just zero them out like like pretend they don't exist and then take all the good reactions the fact that you love that little guy and you want to do good for him and all the rest and multiply it times infinity and all of a sudden you've got God this is how God reacts to his people pestering him in prayer that's why he says so often in his word pester me give me no rest until the day that I keep my promises that's what God wants so let's take a minute and just look at what the remembrancer prays. There's a lot that we can learn from it.

24:26 Take the handout, turn to, you know, the big blue box, and you can see there under number five, right at the top, the big number five, this prayer of the remembrancer has two big parts to it. So first of all, we've already kind of looked at this. In verses 7 to 14, you've got the remembrancer just laying out the Lord's kindness to his people. He's like, Lord, you've been gracious to your people. You've done this for them. You've done this for them. You've done this for them. And that then becomes the foundation for the thing that he wants to ask. And that comes in, starting in 6315, runs all the way down through 64. That second section, the ask, has again what we call one of these chiastic structures. So you see how the A, B, C, D, C, B, A, it looks like half of an X, right?

25:12 Well, the Greek letter chi looks like an X, and so people through the centuries have said that a structure like this, where the A's correspond to each other, then the B's, then the C's, then you've got this center section that stands on its own. They call that a chi-astic structure, or, you know, it's like an x, x-estic structure, you know, if you want to go with the English. But that's the structure that it's got. What's doubly brilliant about this one, though, is that even though the A's correspond, the B's correspond, the C's correspond, and the D in the middle, it also tells a story as you run through it. And so it's kind of doubly brilliant. So, you know, at the beginning, the first A section. You have the remembrance of looking around at the plight of God's people and saying, God, your compassions are restrained. Like, why haven't you saved us like you promised you were going to? Then in section B, he asks this question, like, I know that we're your people, but we don't really look like it. Like, we're sinful. We're messed up. We don't really deserve the name of being your people, but we are. Aren't we? The first C thing is a cry to God. Show your face and the

26:15 nations will tremble and the whole thing centers on this question. If we are so sinful, even as God's people, even as the redeemed, if we are so sinful still, how can we possibly be saved? He even goes on in there to say, we have been in our sins for a very long time and we have been in those sins despite your warnings to us. How can we possibly be saved? Second C section there is interesting. It's the same idea of the showing of the face and the hiding of the face, but this time It's, Lord, you have hidden your face from us, and therefore we tremble.

26:46 If you showed your face to the nations, they would tremble. But you've hidden your face from us, and so now we tremble. And then the second B section there, he sort of finds this boldness again. He says, you know, despite all that, despite the sin, despite, you know, our rebellion against you, despite our failings and all the rest, we are in fact your people, oh God. So you should act. That's what he says in that B. And then the last A returns to this idea of constrained or restrained compassion. But he turns it into a question. It's God, in light of all of this, in light of the fact that we're sinful and yet we're your people, are you going to act on our behalf or not?

27:25 So it just leaves it hanging there and waits for the Lord's answer. So that's how it works. I think there are a few lessons we can learn just by looking at the remembrancer's prayer. just by looking at the way he sort of lays it out and does it. So let me talk to you about a few of those lessons. Here's the first one. First lesson that we can learn from this remembrancer, how he functions, what he's doing, the way he prays, whatever you currently think about the importance of prayer. So some of you, you know, you might not admit it to yourself, but functionally you think very lowly of the importance of prayer.

28:02 I know that there are some in here who are like that, whether for theological reasons or practical reasons or whatever, what you think of prayer and its importance is extremely low. There are others of you I know in here who think of the importance of prayer as enormously high. Well, I'm talking to both of you. Whatever you currently think about the importance of prayer, you are not giving it the level of importance that it deserves. You are not giving it the level of importance that it deserves. So here's what I want you to see from this, from the story of this remembrancer. He's been placed on the walls by the conqueror himself to look at the horizon and remind the Lord of his promises until he acts.

28:37 What I want you to understand from this is that prayer is an eschatological act. In other words, it's a last day's activity. It's part of our duty holding the office that we do of the people of God. And it's indispensable to God's plans and purposes in the world. I mean, think about this guy, this remembrance. He's specifically commissioned by the king, by the servant, by the conqueror to stand on the walls, scan the horizon for the second coming, and remind God to keep those promises.

29:13 That's his duty. It's an eschatological office that he's carrying out as he reminds the Lord of his promises and asks him to act. So do you ever think of prayer in that way? Or is prayer just kind of a small thing to you? Do you ever think of prayer as an eschatological activity that's part of your duty in the office you hold as a child of God? And it's going to be instrumental in the kingdom coming. I mean, think about, if you don't think of prayer that way, the Bible wants you to.

29:46 It very much wants you to. Think about how Jesus taught his people to pray. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Friends, that is an eschatological last day's prayer. When you pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, you're literally praying for the kingdom to come. You're praying for the second coming. You're praying for God's rule to be as absolute here on earth as it is in heaven.

30:18 That's what you're praying. Let me read you just a few verses from Revelation. Listen to this. When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Now, you may remember Revelation we did a year or two ago, something like that. When you come to the seventh seal or trumpet or bowl or whatever, you're at the end of time. So in this sort of round, when the Lamb opens the seventh seal, everything goes silent for half an hour.

30:54 Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of the saints on the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints rose before God from the hand of the angel. and then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

31:28 History has come to an end. Do you see the logic in that? The seventh seal is broken. It's over. The time is up. There's silence in heaven. And the very next thing that happens is that your prayers and my prayers are brought like incense before the Lord and placed on the altar, and the smoke of it goes up into his nostrils, It's almost as if God, without a word, just nods his head at the angel. And history comes to an end. Our prayers are eschatological acts. And they are ultimately what God is going to respond to when he finally one day rises from his throne and says, that's it, that's enough, go get my people.

32:10 Friends, that's what prayer is supposed to be. Prayer is not supposed to be this piddly little thing where we just ask God to give us this or that thing or ask him to make us feel better about that circumstance or end this circumstance or make me happy in this moment. No, prayer ultimately and most importantly is supposed to be pleading with God to remember his promises and bring this world to its appointed end. Friends, pray big, not small. Here's the second thing you learn from this, I think.

32:43 Second thing, just look, if you look at, all you've got to do is look at the handout, right? Look at how the prayer works. It starts, this remembrancer's prayer starts by putting the Lord's own works before him. That's what he does. I mean, you can look down through 63, 7 to 15, and that's what you're going to see. You're going to see him just putting the Lord's works and promises in front of him. Lord, you did this, and you did this, and you did this. It's a common prayer tactic in the Bible. just remind the Lord of what he's done, and then on the basis of that, ask him to act.

33:20 Now, and you and I know, theologically, that God doesn't need reminding of his acts. He knows all of them intimately. It's more us who needs the reminding. But again and again and again, in the Bible, the Lord tends to act when his past works and promises and covenants are laid out before him. I mean, God's people, again and again, they just say, they just say, Lord, here are your promises? Lord, here are your past acts. Lord, here are your covenants. Now, on the basis of all of that, will you please act again? And God says, yes. One of our elders, John Lovett, talks about prayer as making a holy argument before the Lord. I love that phrase because that's exactly what the biblical writers do. They make a holy argument before the Lord, right? Lord, here's your promise, and we know that you're not one who breaks his promise. Lord, here's your covenant. We know you're not one who breaks covenant. Here are your past works and we know that you were the same yesterday, today, and forever. So based on all that, Lord, save us. They do it again and again and again. And that's exactly what's going on here. Lord, you have acted in so many ways to save your people. You've

34:24 shown them grace when they didn't deserve it. You've put yourself in covenant when they didn't deserve it. So don't stop now. That's what the remembrancer says. Friends, you've got to learn to pray like that. You've got to learn to take God's own promises and lay them out before him and hold him to it. Lord, you have said that you don't want your people to live under the mastery of sin. You've said that we are dead to sin and alive to Christ. So Lord, I pray on the basis of those promises that you've made that you would break the mastery of this sin over my life. Give me the power to repent of it and flee from it so that you'll be glorified. Our Lord, you've said in your word that you want your people to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have eternal life. Father, you know my tendency to doubt that, but I pray that you will keep that promise to me, one of your children in Christ, and cause my heart to rejoice in the confidence of your salvation.

35:22 Friends, learn to put the Lord's own works and promises before him. He wants you to do that. Make a holy argument before him. Here's the third thing. Third thing we can learn from the Remembrancer's Prayer. In your prayers, and just life in general really, be humble about who you are. Be humble about who you are. And bold about who God has made you. Be humble about who you are and bold about who God has made you. So that's what the Remembrancer does in his own prayer, really in those two B sections right there.

35:56 So look at the first B section, 63, 17, and 18. He says, I mean, he knows who he is, right? He's honest about who he is. He's honest about who the people of God are. They're like people who have never been ruled by you.

36:27 They're evil. They're sinful. They're rebellious against the Lord. He's honest about that. But then look at that other B section, 64, 8. He comes back around to this idea, and it's very different in 8 and 9. But now, O Lord, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. We are all the work of your hand. Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity forever. Behold, please look, we are all your people. I mean, it's wonderful, isn't it?

36:59 That he can go from the first B section to the second B section. He starts out by saying, we don't look like your people at all. And then the second part is, but we are. Because you've made us that way. We haven't lived up to it. We haven't done what we're supposed to do. And yet we are still your people. So behold, please look, we're all still your people. And there's no changing it now. So, he says, don't be angry with us anymore. Friends, you've got to pray like that. You've got to pray. You've got to be honest about who you are, but bold about who God has made you in Christ.

37:32 Lord, I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm a rebel against you. I know that even now, as a justified sinner, I still sin. But you, oh Lord, have declared me righteous in Christ. You have justified me. You have adopted me and made me one of your children. I'm yours. So behold, Lord, please look, I'm your child. So please don't be angry with me any longer. I mean, that would be just an insanely arrogant thing to walk into the throne room of God and do, wouldn't it?

38:08 Just insanely arrogant. If that's not exactly what God had already invited us to do. Let us come before his throne of grace with confidence, with boldness, precisely because Jesus has invited us to do so. Be honest about who you are and be bold about who God has made you in Christ. So that's the first thing God intends for us to be doing while we wait for Jesus' return. He intends for us to pray, and he intends for us to pray big until that day when God hears the last desperate cry of his saints and rises from his throne and splits the sky to come get us.

38:43 So we're to pray. But also, we are to be hoping. We are to be hoping. So look with me at the very end of the Remembrancer's Prayer. 64, 12. Chapter 64, verse 12. See how it ends there? What we expect it to end with is this kind of thunderous declaration like, yes, now the Lord's compassions are no longer restrained, and he's going to save us because of this holy argument that I've made before him. That's not really what you get, though. In 12, you get, will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord? Will you keep silent and afflict us so terribly?

39:16 And the problem is, at that point, when the prayer ends, we just don't know. We don't know if God is going to restrain himself at these things. We don't know if he's going to keep silent. We don't know if he's going to afflict us so terribly. Those questions just kind of hang out in the silence of centuries, and we just don't know. Then in 65.1, the Lord starts to answer. But again, it's not obvious at first at all how he's going to respond. I mean, if anything, you would describe these first verses of 65 as dark, smoldering.

39:51 I mean, it really doesn't seem good at all. I mean, look at the answer. This is the Lord speaking 65.1. He's answering the remembrance. He says, I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me. I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, here am I, here am I, to a nation that was not called by my name. I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices, a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making all, it's not looking good.

40:23 I mean, you can see the dark, smoldering character of this starting to even ramp up in judgment as he nails his people again. It just keeps going. But look at verse 8. Thus says the Lord after all of this stuff about iniquities and all the rest of the judgment and everything. Thus says the Lord. But as new wine is found in the cluster and they say do not destroy it for there is a blessing in it. So I will do for my servant's sake and not destroy them all.

40:56 I mean finally right in the middle of it you get this like flash of light. It's this flash of hope that all right they're a mess and they deserve to be trampled in the wine press of the wrath of the fury of Almighty God, but he's not going to destroy them all, right? That's what it says. That's what it says there, and it's amazing, and then it just keeps going. Verse 9, I will bring forth offspring from Jacob and from Judah, possessors of my mountains. My chosen will possess it, and my servants shall dwell there. Sharon, and it just goes on and on and on with these blessings that he's going to pour out on his people. You look back at the handout at the sort of bottom part of it, you can see how this section works. It's one of these chiasms again right so it's an x-shaped kind of thing with section e the new heavens and new earth right at the middle but you can see how it works the a sections on either side on the outside of it both of those are a worldwide call to faith it's just the lord saying come one come all come come all you nations come to me and i'll give you salvation that's what happens at the beginning and then in the middle you get this sort of bouncing back and forth this almost braiding together of the fates of the rebellious and the lord's people and it just bounces back and forth

42:01 And you just see the first word of everyone, judgment, promises, judgment, promises, judgment, promises, judgment. You know, that's what it's doing. It's just bouncing back and forth and telling you what's going to happen. The whole thing centers, though, on this E section where God brings his promise to this just tremendous climax when he tells his people, I'm going to make for you. I'm not just going to make you good in this world. I'm going to make for you a brand new heavens and new earth, and you're going to be with me forever. So let's look at that E section. Look at 65, 13.

42:36 Here's how the Lord describes what he's going to do for his people. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry. Behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame. Behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart and shall wail for breaking of spirit. You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse, and the Lord God will put you to death. But his servants he will call by another name, so that he who blesses himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of truth.

43:08 And he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth, because the former troubles are forgotten and are hidden from my eyes. For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and a people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who does not fill out his days.

43:39 For the young man shall die a hundred years old and the one who falls short of a hundred years old shall be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord and their descendants with them. Before they call, I will answer. While they are yet speaking, I will hear.

44:09 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. It's just a breathtaking vision of what God intends to do for his people. And it's a vision that's not going to be rivaled for 800 years until the apostle John writes about the same thing at the end of Revelation. I want you to see a few things here as we go through this. First, look at verses 13 to 16 and the joys of the people of God.

44:43 I mean, as is so often here, it's twisted up, right? It's braided together with the fate of the unbelieving, but you can see it. Just kind of look at the first line of each one of those couplets. My servants shall eat. My servants shall drink. My servants shall rejoice. My servants shall sing for gladness of heart. His servants he will call by another name so that he who blesses himself shall bless by the God. Do you see the point? Friend, if you're a Christian, then God's intention for you one day is to experience all of that.

45:17 Don's prayer this morning was beautiful. No more pain. No more hurt. No more earthquakes. No more sadness. No more scarcity, no more poverty, no more racism, just unending love and grace and joy and rejoicing. And the thing is, it's all going to be because you are embraced fully and completely by God himself. Look at 15, that phrase right at the end of it. His servants he will call by another name. Revelation says the same thing, that every one of the believers in Christ is going to be given a white stone on which is written a name.

45:51 That only he and Jesus know. It's a wonderful image of taking ownership of someone. And throughout the Bible, you see it over and over again. When God takes somebody for his own, he often changes their name. It's just something that he does. Abram has his name changed to Abraham. Jacob has his name changed to Israel. Simon to Peter. And what the Bible is saying is that God is going to give you a new name too. And you will be his. And then look at 16. We'll embrace God too.

46:23 And when you bless by the name of the Lord and you swear by the name of the Lord, that means that you're staking your life on him. That phrase in 16, the God of truth, it's actually, technically it's the God of the amen. You know what an amen is? We talked about it earlier in Isaiah. An amen originally was a peg in a wall that was firm and you could hang on it, put your coat on it, it wouldn't come out of the wall. It was immovable. And so once people got a hold of that idea of immovableness, firmness, solidity, they started applying it in different ways.

46:53 And they began to say, God is the peg on which we hang everything. Right? He's immovable. The same yesterday, today, and forever. Always firm. Always solid. Look down at 17 to 25. So many things to rejoice in here. Verse 17, I'm not going to remember the former things. All of the sins are going to be cast away from us. The former things will never be remembered. Verse 20, death's reign is broken. I mean, the language there is a little funny because Isaiah is like using our experience with death and poetically sort of expanding it to show that death no longer has any reign.

47:31 He's not contradicting what he said earlier that God is gonna swallow up death forever and death will be no more. He's not contradicting that. He's just using our experience to say a couple of things like no longer will death take an infant in infancy. No longer will, you know, men not fill up all of their years and be taken in the prime of their life. And in fact, he says there, if, where is it, 20, the very last line of it. The word sinner there is being used in a very literal way for, you know, the Sunday school thing, falling short. You know, sin technically means to fall short or miss the mark.

48:03 So what that means is the person who misses the mark of 100 years old shall be accursed. So if you fall short of 100 years old, it's saying you'll be considered like you didn't have a long life at all if you fall short of 100. So it's poetic language, but what it's doing is saying that death no longer reigns. It doesn't terrify there like it does here. Verse 24, you've got this intimate relationship with God. He knows people's needs before they even speak. In 25, you've got this return to the innocence of Eden before sin and violence even came into the world.

48:39 I mean, it's a glorious picture, isn't it? Filled out by John's description of it in Revelation. There's one more detail I want you to see here, though, that I think is just wonderful. Look at verse 17. 17. For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. The former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But you, be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. For behold, I'm creating Jerusalem to be a joy and her people to be a gladness. And then 19, I, God says, will rejoice in Jerusalem, and I will be glad in my people.

49:14 Now, why is that noteworthy? Well, because when God did the first creation, right, in Genesis 1, when he looked at that first creation, what was his reaction? That's good. That's very good. What's his reaction when he looks at the new creation? It's rejoicing. It's joy. It's singing. over his people. I mean, it just kind of makes his, yeah, that's very good, pale in comparison to his reaction here when he sees the new creation. I mean, you guys know what that's like. I mean, I do. Every Sunday, if my family talks about my sermon and they go, yeah, it's good, you know.

49:52 You know, okay. It meant it was fine. I didn't say anything heretical, right? You just, you sort of, this is a solid single, buddy, well done. But there are other times when it's a little more effusive, you know, like there's no singing and rejoicing, but there's, you know, wow, that was really good, and I really appreciated that point. Well, you can see the difference here. When God looks at the new creation, he rejoices. Listen, I don't know what kind of muck you're going through right now, but if you're a Christian, you need to know and understand that you have a glorious future ahead of you, one that is so good, in fact, that it causes the creator of the universe to rejoice and sing and be glad in you.

50:34 Look, maybe you're, at this point in your life, maybe you're exactly where the remembrance are left off as prayer. You're looking into heaven and saying, God, will you restrain your compassions any longer? Will you be silent any longer? And if so, if so, you need to hear the Lord's response echoing down through eternity. Remember where you're going. Remember what's in store for you. Remember what's ahead of you. And find joy and hope in that. Here's the third thing. Third big point.

51:05 We are, and it's not big, we are to bring. We are to pray. We are to hope in this new heavens and new earth that's coming and the rejoicing God that's making it. And we are to bring. Well, okay, that's weird. What are we supposed to bring? We're supposed to bring money. We're supposed to bring gifts. What do you, you know, bring a box of chocolates. What are we supposed to bring? Well, look at this last section of the book, 18 to 24. If you're looking at the handout, it's the last A section. And its whole point is, once again, that God's call to repentance is going out to the whole world.

51:38 It's universal. It goes out to everybody, not just Jews, but Jews, Gentiles, everybody. But I'm going to read it, and I want you to pay attention to the details as I read it. Verse 18, very end of the book. God says, You see what's going on there?

52:28 As God makes this appeal to all of the nations of the world, how is he doing it? He gathers the nations to himself. And then in 19, he sends what he calls survivors to all the nations of the world. And in 20, those survivors then bring their new brothers streaming into Jerusalem from all the nations of the world to bow down before the king. So who are those survivors? And who are those new brothers? That's you and that's me. I mean, what an awesome term for Christians, right?

53:00 We are survivors. We survive because Jesus has saved us. They're us. We are the brothers who are brought. We're the survivors who are then sent back out to bring more. So, friends, while we wait, that's our job, to bring people to bow before the king. It's an amazing thing, really, because in the Old Testament, usually people come to the Lord by attraction, right? People of God just sort of, most of the Old Testament, they sit in Jerusalem. People see how great it is, and they come to Jerusalem.

53:32 They come to God. Very different in the New Testament, and Isaiah is here seeing it. He's seeing the Great Commission. He's seeing Christians who have come to the king going out to all the nations of the world to gather in God's elect and bring them to the king. So here's my question to you as a Christian, as a survivor. Who do you need to go get? who do you need to bring? Friends, it's a critical question because all of eternity hangs in the balance of whether or not those people come to the king.

54:07 Whoever you've got in your mind, the weight of eternity hangs in the balance of whether they come to the king. I mean, you've already noticed it in this section already. The salvation of God's people and the destruction of his enemies are tightly woven together. You can see that on the chiasm in the handout, right? Judgment promises, judgment promises. It's all braided together. Theologically, there's nothing surprising about that. And the salvation of God's people always entails the destruction of God's enemies. If the people of God are going to be saved, then the head of the serpent has to be crushed.

54:45 Which is why this book ends like it does on this jarring image of a cemetery outside the New Jerusalem. Look at 24. all of this rejoicing, all of this new heavens and new earth, and yet it ends like this. And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worms shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be in abhorrence to all flesh. Why does this book end like that? Because it's presenting to you an extremely stark choice.

55:22 You can come to the king and be blessed, or you can reject the king and die. You look more closely at that verse, it's not even a normal kind of cemetery. Now, you've probably been in a cemetery, they're still, they're quiet, they're foreboding. You can hear the wind rustling in the grass, not here, not here. This is a place where their worms shall not die and the fire shall not be quenched and and they shall be in abhorrence to all flesh forever.

55:54 This isn't just a cemetery, it's hell. It's what Jesus warned about when he said, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, because it's better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell. And then he quotes this verse, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. Why does Isaiah think it's so important? Why does he think it's so important to remind us of judgment right there in the last sentence of his book? Why does he put our faces in it so starkly, so jarringly?

56:28 Friends, it is because the very first lie of the serpent was to deny that there's going to be a judgment. It's the first thing he did. And from that day until this, he's been all about the hellish business of telling people all over the world, there is no judgment. There is no hell. You shall not surely die. So Isaiah ends his book by saying, oh, yes, there is. And oh, yes, you will, unless you come to the king and put your faith in him and are saved.

57:07 I want to close with what one Christian wrote about this book and especially this verse at the very end. He said this, there is a grandeur about Isaiah that's not found anywhere else, even in the most majestic parts of the rest of Scripture. There is in it a majesty full of glory and full of solemnity, shining alike in the revelation given to Isaiah, and even in the language in which he expressed it. But with the grandeur comes a stern resoluteness, That if the glory does not win us to the life of obedience to God, if visions of the coming king and the sin-bearing servant and the liberating anointed conqueror will not suffice to bring us to God, then maybe, just maybe, the unmistakably horrible rewards of disobedience will drive our wayward hearts to tremble at the word of the Lord.

58:09 My friends, may that be true of us, that even as we walk past, here at the end of Isaiah, as we walk past this vision of this eschatological graveyard, even that warning will cause us to turn our faces to the new Jerusalem, will cause our eyes to behold the king in his beauty, and to see a new heavens and a new earth stretching out forever before us. Let's pray. Our Lord God, we thank you for this magnificent book that you've given us in the prophet Isaiah.

58:42 We thank you for the message that it speaks to us of warning about our own sin against you, of your grace and mercy and salvation through a coming king who would give his life in our place. Lord, we thank you for the wide open invitation that this book gives to us to come to you and buy food without money and drink until our thirst is quenched. Our Lord, you are an inexhaustibly good God. And we pray that as we close this book out today, that you would help us to remember that, not just this afternoon, but until that day when you come back to bring us home.

59:16 We pray all of this in Jesus' name, and always to his honor and glory. Amen.