1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation
of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our
Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this 14th
Sunday after Pentecost is taken from Isaiah 66:18-23. Here in this last chapter of Isaiah we notice
that, “God has always planned to save us”
from our sins, from death, and the power of the devil. We see that He’s planned to save us from
certain destruction through His miraculous love, and for thankful service to
Him and His Kingdom. Dear brothers and
sisters in Christ.
2. Ever since
man’s fall into sin in Genesis chapter 3 God has been at work in His gracious
plan of salvation. In the Bible we can
trace the course of the gospel message in our Lord Jesus, the promised seed of
Abraham, as it made its way from God’s Old Testament people to the members of
his New Testament church. We watch God’s mission plan unfold as the Gospel
message was passed from Jews to Gentiles and back to Jews again. Here in Isaiah 66 we see a warning that God
won’t tolerate the abuse of His saving Word. Those who don’t regard that Word
as their most prized possession will lose it. But as the psalmist says, “[God] does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities” (Ps 103:10). Instead of showing
forth His glory by completely destroying us God brings to light the glory of His
love for us in Christ Jesus. According to this grace, He not only saves us, but
He makes us thankful priests in His service and heirs of His eternal kingdom.
3. God has
always planned to save us from certain destruction! Isaiah 66:18 & 21
says, “For I know their works and their
thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they
shall come and shall see my glory…21And some of them also I will take for
priests and for Levites, says the LORD.”
If we
were to flip on our TVs right now, we would see the most sophisticated
communications technology in the history of man declaring the glory of diet
plans and new improved bathroom cleansers and low-rate credit cards. These are
the trivializing works and thoughts of man, our stupid self-salvations. Thank
God, the time is coming when all nations and tongues will see God’s glory! And
right now God is sending missionaries, pastors, and laypeople to the ends of
the earth to spread the good news about true and worthwhile salvation in
Christ.
4.
Though God has reason to judge the wicked of every nation, his judgment
begins with the chosen of Israel who rejected his grace. Those of Israel who
thought themselves “the church” for no other reason than they were Abraham’s
physical descendants would find themselves cast out of the true Israel of God
forever. This prophecy of judgment in
Isaiah 66 causes all of us to tremble in fear of God’s anger. How often we’ve
tried God’s patience, chasing after the many gods worshiped by our unbelieving
world. Time and again we have abused God’s grace and ignored his precious truth.
We’ve grown careless in our worship, fooling ourselves into thinking that our
church membership, and nothing more, will be the “magic key” that unlocks the
doors of heaven. We’re all guilty of the very sins that brought God’s wrath
down upon the hypocrites in Israel.
5. Isaiah 66:24 says, 24“And
they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled
against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and
they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
This is a
chilling way for a great book to conclude. Isaiah’s vision closes with the
final destiny of all who rebel against God’s purpose of grace. Their destiny is
Hell. And what is Hell? It’s hearing
the voice of Jesus say, “Depart from me,
you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew
25:41). Hell was not prepared for you but for the devil. Heaven was prepared
for you. Jesus says in John 14:2, 3, “2In my Father’s house are many
rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place
for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again
and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
7. All
you have to do to go to Hell forever is stay on your present course of
self-salvation. The outcome of your rejection of God will be God’s eternal
rejection of you, because rejecting his free salvation is the sin of all sins.
It’s rejecting Heaven. And how can people who reject Heaven end up there? God
knows when he’s not welcome, and he knows what to do about it. “Hell says not merely a temporary no but an
eternal no to sin.… Hell is especially for those who think they are too good to
be helped by God.… Hell receives those who imagine themselves good; Jesus
receives those who know themselves sinners.”
Those who continue to stay away from the lifesaving message of God’s
Word, from Christian worship, and the Sacraments of the Lord’s Supper and the
Word of Absolution given by the pastor in worship are putting themselves in
danger of the fires of hell.
8.
Does Isaiah’s final warning about Hell embarrass you? It didn’t
embarrass Jesus. In Mark 9:48 he quotes Isaiah 66:24 to describe Hell. Not only
is he straightforward about human suffering in this world, he’s honest about
human suffering in the next world. There are only two final destinies for each
one of us eternal life or eternal death.
That’s why God has planned to save us from hell through His Son Jesus
Christ so that we may enter through the narrow door that leads to eternal life
through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead for us.
9.
Throughout his book, the prophet Isaiah presents us with alternatives: Trust
the Lord and live, or rebel against the Lord and die. He explains the grace and
mercy of God and offered His forgiveness. He’s also explained the holiness and
wrath of God and warned of His judgment. He’s promised glory for those who will
believe in Jesus as their Savior and judgment for those who scoff. He explains
the foolishness of trusting man’s wisdom and the world’s resources.
10.
Isaiah calls us back to spiritual reality. He warns against hypocrisy
and empty worship. He pleads for faith, obedience, a heart that delights in
God, and a life that glorifies God. “ ‘There is no peace,’ saith the Lord,
‘unto the wicked’ ” (Isa. 48:22; 57:21); for in order to have peace,
you must have righteousness (32:17). The only way to have righteousness is
through faith in Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:19–31).
And where does this saving faith come from? Romans 10:17 says, “17So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word
of Christ.” Isaiah’s message has
been, “Be comforted by the Lord!” (Isaiah
12:1; 40:1–2; 49:13; 51:3, 19; 52:9; 54:11; 57:18; 61:2; 66:13). But God can’t comfort rebels! If you are
sinning against God and are comfortable about it, something is terribly wrong.
That false comfort will lead to false confidence, and that will lead to the
chastening hand of God. Isaiah 55:6 says,
“Seek ye the Lord while He may be found.” Isaiah 1:18 says, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” And Isaiah 12:1 says, “O Lord, I will praise You; though You were angry with me, Your anger is
turned away, and You comfort me.”
11. God himself came down into this world and
suffered Hell out of love for us, to save us from our folly. It’s time for us
to humble ourselves. It’s time to change the subject in our minds from blaming
God for ruining the world to owning our real moral guilt before him, so that we
can receive his saving love in Christ. It was on a Friday morning when they took me
from the cell and I saw they had a
carpenter to crucify as well. You can
blame it on Pilate, you can blame it on the Jews, you can blame it on the devil. It is God that I accuse. It’s God they ought to crucify instead of
you and me, I said to the carpenter
hanging on the tree. Now Barabbas was
a killer, and they let Barabbas go. But
you are being crucified for nothing here below, and God is up in heaven and he doesn’t do a thing with a million angels watching and they
never move a wing. It’s God they
ought to crucify instead of you and me, I
said to the carpenter hanging on the tree.
12. Don’t you see by now? Christ crucified saves
sinners. Don’t you see in Jesus’ sufferings the measure of how much he loves
sinners like us? That He was willing to
die for you. Don’t you see that it’s time to stop raging at him and to start
worshiping him? It’s time. And for every one of us, time is rapidly coming to
an end. Thanks be to God then that He
planned to save us through His Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment