Last week we heard that God is Holy, Holy, Holy. He is jealous for his own holiness and will not share his holiness with another. The earth will be filled with his glory. That include us here today. Our God will not rest till sin is no more. Till evil is eradicated. Till his triumph is complete! This is what the promise of Baptism is all about. This is about what following Jesus means for Anneke and the rest of us.
He is not a halfway God. His judgement is real. And Isaiah is commissioned today to bring this message to the people.
The message of a Holy God for his rebellious people
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The messenger
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The Message
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Who will be the messenger of the covenant? Who is going to go? That is the question? Who is brave enough courageous enough to speak about God, to share the gospel, even when it means persecution? Who is willing to stand here, and say – this is my God – and I will give all for HIM! No matter if the world is against me – God is enough.
Who is willing to risk all? No one. No one unless he is assured that he has been given all. We can’t do anything, unless something is first done to us! At least we won’t do anything out of love and passion for God! You may do it out of guilt or duty – but not love. You can’t share what you don’t have. So, do you have God? Do you have Jesus? That is what Anneke is saying today! God has changed me! And I desire to life for Him. That is what the elders and deacons want for you.
You see unless we are accepted and forgiven by grace alone, we can go. Grace sets you free to serve. Only grace.
Isaiah has seen God! What could he be afraid of now! He had been accepted by him! What could he fear. “Here I am! Send me!.
It reminds me of another throne room scene in revelation where the question is asked, “who can open the scrolls of history” and no one is there, until the lion of Judah, the Lamb of that was slain comes in! He was able to open them, because in obedience to his Father he had said, “Here I am, send me!” when he was sent to the cross – to carry the ultimate judgement for rebellion.
“GO!” says God! But not “Go and make disciples,” but rather “Go and make the people even more rebellious than they ever were – till the judgment is complete.”
Go and say, “Keep on hearing, but do not understand, keep on seeing, but do not perceive. In other words, if you want to follow your dumb idols, that can’t perceive even though they have eyes, that can’t listen even though they have ears – then you will become like them! This is God telling them – fine if you want to go that way – I will let you go that way. Your will be done.
O we know this feeling when we pursue our idols – we pursue wealth or money and at the end of your life you are as empty inside, without love, relationship, meaning or hope as the paper that you pursued. If you pursue pleasure, you never get enough, and slowly but surely it sucks the life, the relationships, the time, and money from you, and you are left as a shell. If you pursue your moral goodness so that you think God owes you, at some point either you will be so prideful and judgmental of others you will break those around you and you will be left all alone, or you will be crushed because of the tension between who you know yourself to be and who you really are.
And Isaiah is called to go to these kinds of people and tell them God is going to judge this generation. He will give them over. It reminds me of Romans 1 where it says, The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” Here we have people who suppressed the truth! So just as Romans 1 says three times God gives them over, so here God hardens the hearts, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed.
How is that for a minister calling. I am thankful that this is not the elders and deacons calling for this term. But one thing that we can learn is that Isaiahs calling is not dependent on a big church, or lots of converts, there is no outward fruit of his ministry. In fact, the opposite. Ministry was based on faithfulness on preaching the word of God, and it is not like the word would not do anything! It would! It would harden the people in the path they have chosen to Go!
Now many of you are asking, “Why?” I know I did when writing this sermon!
This does not seem fair! And Isaiah is wondering too! He asks the question how long? And the answer is not exactly more encouraging than the message that he was send on, “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes the people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.” And then as if that was not enough, what is left will be burned again, “And though a tenth remand in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains when it is felled.”
Basically till my judgement is complete he says!
Let me try to explain: Often people will say, “I can’t believe in your judgment God!” Really? Your God is not going to do anything with all the evil in the world? Your God is going to let the greed, and abuse, and misues of creation just go on and love everyone the same? That does seem like a God anyone want.
But we have a God of perfect justice. And in order to love and embrace us he must judge our sin. And for those in Christ. A God that does not judge is not a more loving God, but a less loving one! Who is not willing to go to the ultimate length to safe you, who does not care about evil!
If you don’t believe in true justices, you wont don’t see the depth of God’s love in Christ on the cross. You remove Gods judgment, and at the end of the day you have a less loving God. A god that doesn’t need to suffer for you, to die for you. You just have a God that doesn’t care what you do. But that is not who the Holy one of Israel is!
Think about it. Will this holy God be satisfied until all sin is eradicated? Gone. Gods’ judgment is the response of a good and loving God to sin. The sins of the people that lead to removal from the land. Whether it was Adam in the Garden, or Israel in exile. And again and again, we read that this is where sin ends. Death. Exile.
Whether it is sin among the people or sin in the heart – it needs to be dealt with at its root! There can be nothing left. As we read, “Even though a tenth remains in it, it will be burned again.”
The question then becomes a real one. Is there any hope! Will God keep his promises despite the people failures. You get a taste of Isaiah's desperation a the end of his ministry when he says in Isaiah in 64:10, “O that you would rend the heavens and come down!....Your holy cities have become a wilderness; Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Will you restrain yourself at these things O LORD? Will you keep silent forever?”
Is there Hope? No – unless God Acts. Unless God saves! God must strip his people bare so that their only hope is found in him.
We must be emptied of all sin and self-justification if we are ever to be filled with the gospel. That is why Anneke that she believes “al is jy in sonde ontvang en gebore en nog steeds tot alle boosheid geneig.” And until we come to the point of other hopelessness of saving ourselves do, we hear the full weight of Isaiah cry and the full glory of the gospel. Words are not enough. All his preaching is enough to condemn but not to save. We need more – we need Not a mind change, but a heart change. We need God to rip open the seemingly impenetrable wall separating our sin with his holy heavens! We need him to rip open the heavens.
And that is what happened when he sends his only Son – the faithful and true Israelite, who came to do what unfaithful Israel could not do and bear the judgement that unfaithful Israel deserved! What happened in Isaiahs’s rejection and seemingly fruitless ministry, was fulfilled in Jesus reject and seemingly fruitless ministry. Jesus says “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling! 3Look, your house is left to you desolate.
Jesus would be the one who would ultimately fulfill Isaiah’s ministry. Who was left that would listen to him at the end of his ministry? No one. Not one. His closest disciples did not understand. He was rejected, despised. His word hardened the people’s heart until they finally turned on him and killed him.
Yes Jesus quotes these words in Matthew 13:14 and Paul quotes these words acts 28:26!
This was the plan of God. The rejection of his message, and his crucifixion means salvation! The judgement of God is redemptive! The last line says, “The holy Seed is its stump” and we read in Isaiah 11:1, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse.” There is hope, like a boat floating on the flood waters. Like a cross in the midst of darkness, there comes the shoot from a cut down tree.
The cutting needed to happen so that the true shoot could grow. It was the rejection of Jesus that led to salvation for all people, and the rejection of the Jews that forced Paul to preach to the gentiles! We have the gospel today because of the fulfillment of Isaiah 6! It is with words from Isaiah 6 that Luke ends the book of acts, and then he says in Lule 28:28, “Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!”
The question is do you have ears to hear? And hearts to perceive? Only if God grants it. You see unless God comes to us, we have as much hope as Israel. But he has come! The heavens have been opened; The Spirit has been poured out! As john writes to the seven churches, “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches”
As Ezekiel puts it, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances. This is what the Lord GOD says: On the day I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be resettled and the ruins to be rebuilt. The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through. Then they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden.” Yes may the water of his word cause us to become like the garden of Eden.
You see, don’t you? God is not going to add to human effort. He dismantles it – so that all might be from him and to him.
If I am told over and over to repent, to change, to orient my life to God, nothing will happen. I will cling to my designer clothing, my education, my career, my family, time, my whatever. I need power from outside to make me different, to break me, to dramatically change me. I need to see Jesus. He gave up all things, and was left empty – desolate, alone and in exile to pursue me who was in exile. To seek me and find me. He is coming for you. Do you see him, the one who was cut down for you – so that your cutting might not be unto death but unto life!
Life and light have come! It is because of the utter destruction that that shoot carries such hope! He is able to bring life from death. Turning stone to flesh. It is not our power, deeds, inner strength, spiritual discipline, faith, or even our repentance. It is Gods power that gives good deeds, and inner strength, and spiritual discipline and faith and repentance. And we see that power of that grace on display today as a young daughter, stands in the grace she has received, and says that through the grace of God it is her “voorneme om deur die genade van God in hierdie leer tot die einde van haar lewe standvastig te volhard, die verbondsgemeenskap met God te onderhou, hom van harte lief te hê en in gehoorsaamheid aan sy word te dien.
Only when that old tree is cut down, and the true shoot begins to grow, can everything be turned around. And instead of hardening we see grace, instead of destruction we see growth, instead of cursing we see blessing. It’s all for Christ’s sake!
Amen