Dennis Tuuri

Friday night is the high school graduation service here at the church and that’s a I think we got 11 or so graduates this year. And then Saturday is the missions banquet and there’s a little handout on your chair or on your pews. Looks like an iPod that’s supposed to be in case you’re wondering. It’s an iPod. So missions banquet on Saturday night.

Next Sunday morning I’ll be teaching or talking about my recent trip to Poland during the Sunday school hour. The quarters shift in June. So we’ll take the first Sunday of the next quarter, the adult class to be here in the sanctuary together, as well as some of the teenagers will be with us as well for that first Sunday of the next quarter. Following that, I’ll continue in the sanctuary doing a series on Proverbs 26. But so, missions banquet Saturday night and then Sunday school talk about missions to Poland.

And during my sermon, we will continue kind of what I start today, we’ll be receiving pledge sheets from you that are in the back of your orders of worship today and we want to get those in over the next week or two. So we’ll be talking about that. And then Sunday evening here in Oregon City, there’s an actual day of our version of the global day of prayer. Every year, the churches have a global day of prayer.

This year it was set for Mother’s Day and so the Oregon City churches decided to do it later. And this coming Sunday evening, next Sunday evening will be the global day of prayer and various ones will be meeting. I’ll be at that service as well and it’ll be again a focus on missions. So from the missions banquet to mission Sunday school, mission sermon and then missions tomorrow evening. And this wasn’t really planned this way so much, but the Lord has brought our attention together on missions over the next few days particularly.

So I want to talk today about missions and benevolences. The other thing we’ve got going on is, you know, the alms baskets that are up here, the offerings for those that are put in those this month and next will go to the PRCs, the pregnancy resource centers that are saving babies and saving mothers from, you know, murdering their own babies. So very important work. They’re moving into a bigger facility. They need more money. They need money to do all that. And I want us to be able to contribute in big ways to that work.

So what I’m going to do today is give an overview of the book of Isaiah in one sermon in four verses. And so I’m going to have four verses I’m going to read here in a minute. They’re on your—they’re not printed out, but the references are on your handouts. And I think they can give us a good working overview of Isaiah. And then I’ll show implications or application of the overview of Isaiah for both benevolence and missions.

So please stand for the reading of God’s word. I’m going to read Isaiah 39:8 and 40:1. They’re right next to each other. And then 55:13 and 56:1. They’re also right next to each other. So there’s two sets of verses. We got four verses contiguous to each other but starting new chapters because there’s a big shift in subject.

People talk about first, second, and third Isaiah these days indicating different people wrote these three sections of Isaiah. We believe what the Bible says at Isaiah 1:1 that this is written by Isaiah of all of the book. But the reason they think this is because of the radical change in these sets of verses that we’ll read and it will give us a sense of the flow of the book of Isaiah.

So first Isaiah 39:8. So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good for he said at least there will be peace and truth in my days.”

Isaiah 40:1 “Comfort ye comfort my people says your God.”

And then Isaiah 55:13 “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

And then 56:1, the very next verse says, “Thus says the Lord, keep justice and do righteousness, for my salvation is about to come and my righteousness to be revealed.”

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Father, for the wonderful gift of it to us that we acknowledge that without it we would not have the kind of knowledge that transforms us. We know also that if we attend to this word in our own strength through our own work that again we’ll fall short of the transformation that you desire for us. So help us father be enabled by your Holy Spirit in our midst and in the midst of our very being itself as well as this assembly to be transformed by your mighty and powerful word to be people who give and who don’t take.

In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. Give. We’re givers, not takers. That’s kind of the simple message of what I want to say today. And we’ll use this. Hopefully this doesn’t get complicated. Hopefully we’ll be able to move through this pretty well.

The orders of worship, the front of them, there’s a painting there that’s a depiction of Hezekiah praying in the temple before God. And Peter Leithart and others think that this is actually the very center of the book. And I’m not going to focus on this really, but at the center of the book, it will help us to understand the first verse I read. Hezekiah is praying. Why? Because the Assyrians who had conquered the northern tribes and taken them off into captivity were at the gates of Jerusalem itself. And they were going to destroy Judah and take it off as well.

And so the verse we read the very first sermon text we read was Isaiah assuring Hezekiah that wouldn’t happen in his lifetime. What happened? Why did that change happen? Why are they at the gate and then went away? Because Hezekiah prayed in the temple. So the very center of the book is that when God’s people beseech him, even for things that are very sure to be coming to pass that are difficult, the Lord God hears and answers.

So the corporate prayers of the church in the temple here are very important for what we do. And that’s one message from Isaiah we don’t want to miss. At the center of the book is Hezekiah praying in the temple for deliverance from the Assyrians. And the very next section right after he prays the Babylonians come. He shows them the things of the kingdom. So there’s a transition from the Assyrian Empire to the Babylonian Empire. And that transition in Isaiah’s book hinges on the prayers of Hezekiah. So that’s what was going on there.

Now the other thing I wanted to point out to the kids, I wanted to explain that first picture and then the coloring page today. This is children around the world and they’re putting money or we’re putting someone’s putting money into a piggy bank that represents the world as well. And so this is kind of a representation of children’s actions to fund world missions and to reach other children for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as I said at the back of our orders of worship today, we’ve got pledge sheets. And we want you very seriously to take into account what I’m going to say today from Isaiah. And even young children, you know, little children can pledge to bring offerings that they might have from their allowance or whatever money they might get and give a portion of that to fund global missions and also to help babies.

So that’s kind of where we’re going with this text.

You know basically the Old Testament prophetic books are about three things and Isaiah is sort of about three things a little bit different but the three things the prophets are about is first of all God announces through the prophets that death is coming to Israel. The prophets are not so much a book intended to create moral reform in the nation. I mean, you can get some of that in there, but primarily what the prophets are is an announcement of death to Israel. And then secondly, there are other prophets, later prophets are an announcement of death to Judah. So the northern kingdom is going to die, be taken into captivity. The southern kingdom is going to die, be taken into captivity. And then the third set of books or portions of books is about the third message, which is that Judah be resurrected and brought back into the land after the Babylonian captivity.

So the North is going to take away Israel and they’re dying. Judah’s going to die and get taken away in exile and then God’s going to restore and resurrect Judah through raising up Cyrus to send his people back. Ezra and Nehemiah, all that stuff happens in that restoration. That’s the message. And it’s a message that carries right over into the New Testament because that’s what is going to happen to the true Israel, the true Judah, the Lion of Judah, Jesus.

Jesus, he’s going to die for his people and he’s going to be raised up and effect the new creation. So the prophetic books by way of overview, that’s what they’re about. Yeah, there’s moral reform. There’s lots of details. There’s lots of stuff going on. But by way of overview, those prophetic books are about those movements of history.

So Isaiah, we want to look at it sort of in relationship to that. It’s a prophetic book. And the first section of the book deals with impending death for Judah based upon the invasion of the Assyrians and the death of Israel. And so they’re at the door and by 39 Hezekiah is assured by Isaiah that actually they won’t die that their death is postponed. Not done away with but postponed. And so then the next section we’ll see creates jumps way forward in time. And that’s why these people have thought this must be a different author because we’re talking over a hundred years later.

There’s over a hundred year gap from the end of 39 to the beginning of 40. Over a hundred years between those two verses. And that’s why I thought it’d be good for you to recognize this break, not because we agree with the critics of Isaiah’s authorship, but because they really have noted something very significant, a very significant shift in Isaiah’s book by jumping forward over a hundred years. And we’ll talk about that more in a couple of minutes, but Isaiah wrote the whole thing, of course.

And the subject of Isaiah’s three major sections is the death of Judah. It’s not so much about the death of Israel. Isaiah is a prophet to Judah. So the first 39 chapters is about how Judah will die. It’s a proclamation of the death announcement to Judah. The second section that begins at 40:1 “Comfort my people” talks about the resurrection of Judah. It talks about post-exilic Judah. They’re coming back from the exile. They’re going to be brought back into the land. They’re going to be raised up.

And so the first section of Isaiah deals with the death. The second section deals with the resurrection of Judah. And the third section is interesting because it says do justice. It talks about life in post-exilic Judah.

So they were going to die. They went into captivity. Then they were brought back. And in that in their life back in the promised land, back in Judah where they were brought back and resurrected, the last section of Isaiah tells them, you better live right because heaven and hell await you. You better live right.

So the second section is this great gospel that after the death of Judah there’ll be resurrection pointing to the coming of the greater Judah, after the death of Jesus comes his resurrection that’s gospel. And the third section says that there’s a response to gospel right. We always hear that here from the pulpit frequently. There’s this gospel presentation in the second section of Isaiah and the third section says that based upon that we have to live our lives differently. God transforms us and does things differently. So the last section is about resurrection life. How do you live? What are you supposed to do in response to the gospel?

So those are the three sections of Isaiah. And if you’re using one of the handouts with the fill-in-blanks, I just gave you the answers to the first couple of questions.

All right. So let’s move on then to actually consider first Isaiah chapters 1-39. And as I said, the general theme of this is the coming death of Judah. So I want to talk about it and draw out some specific discussion about this.

But again, just to make sure we understand why I chose these four verses, chapter 39 ends with verse 8. And Isaiah has just assured Hezekiah that the Assyrians won’t take them into captivity, but someone else will. So it’s postponed during the lifetime of Hezekiah, but the death will happen. So chapters 1-39 are still a death announcement.

In verse 39:8, Hezekiah says, “Well, at least I’m going to be okay during my lifetime.” So the implication is there, what we would see very explicitly in the few verses before that, that Isaiah the prophet has told Hezekiah, “Judah will die. It’ll be postponed for a while, but Judah will die.”

Now the northern Israel was taken into captivity. The fall of Samaria in 722. Jerusalem was taken the fall of Jerusalem was 587. So as I said, there’s 140 years between those events, but Judah will die. It’s put off for a while, but Judah will die. So it’s a death announcement. That’s what it primarily is.

Why are they going to die? Well, first of all, because they’re involved in hypocritical worship. Hypocritical worship devoid of helping the fatherless. So I’m going to talk here from the opening chapters of Isaiah, first Isaiah so-called 1-39. And if you turn in your Bible, we’ll kind of go through a little survey of Isaiah. Look at chapter 1 beginning in verse 10. So turn to Isaiah 1:10.

And he actually addresses Jerusalem here as Sodom and Gomorrah. Which is sort of interesting.

Verse 10: “Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom, and give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams.”

So he says, I know you’re going to worship. I know you do those offerings all the time. I know you go to church, but you don’t understand what that church is supposed to do.

He says in verse 12, you think you’re doing good, but you’re trampling my courts is what he describes it at in verse 12. And he says, “Don’t bring any more feudal sacrifices. Your worship is bad. I don’t like just the formal worship that you’re giving me.”

And he goes on and says, “My soul hates verse 14, your new moons and your appointed feasts. I hate what you’re doing.”

So I mean, he is using exceedingly strong language that says that their worship is hypocritical. Why? He says in verse 15, “When you spread out your hands, I’ll hide my eyes from you.”

Now we get to a little bit of a hint as to what’s going on wrong. Verse 16: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away the evil of your doing before my eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do good.”

Okay, so worship is supposed to create a people that do good, and it hadn’t. Worship was empty formalism and hypocritical worship. The spirit was rejected by them and their lives weren’t transformed. They were doing evil and not good. Well, what does it mean to do good? What’s their problem here?

Verse 17: “Seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, and plead for the widow.”

Now this is very, very pointed and very specific that if worship doesn’t produce a people who care about social justice. Now you want to go about doing it the right way, not a statist, not a communistic or socialist way. But if worship doesn’t remind you of the grace that God has shown you and cause you to want to extend grace to the particular peoples that he says you should give it to, those that are oppressed, the fatherless and the widows, your worship is ridiculous. It’s worse than ridiculous. It’s an offense to God. He hates it.

So if our worship doesn’t transform us into these sorts of people, we’re going to suffer the judgment of God as a church or as a nation, whatever it is, that these people suffered because this is what they were doing wrong. This is the opening chapter of why Judah must die. Judah must die because they didn’t help the fatherless and the widows. That’s what it says.

Now you got to do it in the way God says. It’s got to be justice. But that’s what their problem was. Hypocritical worship that didn’t transform their lives to be a giving people, and to give particularly of time and energy and resources to help the defenseless in our societies which in this case is designated as fatherless and the widows.

And then he says right after this, “Come let us reason together.”

So we know this famous verse: “Your sins are scarlet but they can be white as snow.” We know that verse. We use it all the time. That God wants to forgive us of our sins. But do we recognize that the immediate context, the phrase just before this, their sin is failure to help the fatherless and widows? That’s why James says it, you know, “Pure religion,” if you want to really know what worship is, what good religion is, it’s worship that produces people that visit the fatherless and the widows in their distress.

You see, it’s exceedingly important.

Verse 19 says: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.”

If you are a giver to other people, you don’t have to take from them for your resources. God will give to you resources as well. The blessing of the good of the land will come to people who are worshiping God not hypocritically but in a way that transforms their lives.

Verse 23 is this the same chapter? Yes. Verse 23 moves from worship to the city. That’s what happens. You know, the worship on the Lord’s day in the particular way he designs it creates a culture or city. That’s the idea. And now he attacks the city and the princes of the city. And what does he tell them in verse 23?

“Your princes are rebellious companions and thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow come before them.”

Well, our rulers are the same way. They don’t defend the fatherless babies whose mothers want to give them up and fathers have abandoned the mothers and want to give them up for abortion, want to have them killed. Our rulers are the same way. They don’t defend the fatherless.

That’s the kind of culture that hypocritical worship produces.

In verse 24: “Therefore the Lord says, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, I will rid myself of my adversaries and take vengeance on my enemies.”

If we don’t worship in a way that makes us have a desire to help the fatherless and the widows, God says we’re his adversaries and we like Judah will die.

So you know, it’s the death of Judah, the first part of Isaiah, and it’s the death of Judah because they have hypocritical worship that doesn’t reach out to the poor, establish justice, and specifically doesn’t help the fatherless and the widows.

Secondly, there’s a future global mission emphasis in Isaiah. This first section, the end result of this will still be the establishment of God’s purposes. In chapter 2, “The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills. And all nations will come to it.”

We love this verse. It’s that great postmillennial verse. All nations will come to my holy hill. He says, “Behold the mountain of the Lord.” We sing this text, right? And it’s found in Micah. It’s almost exactly identical. So there’s a tremendous emphasis the very opening chapters of Isaiah that the purpose of the church, the purpose of the Jews, the purpose of them being good to the poor and having worship that transforms them to be givers and not takers. The purpose was the conversion of the nations around them. And they’re being judged by God because they didn’t do this. They weren’t drawing the nations to them in worship. They were failing in their global missions emphasis as well.

And C, they’re involved in actual idolatry or some form of idolatry. They have useless idolatry. Chapter 2:7, “Their land is also full of silver and gold. There is no end to their treasures. Their land is also full of horses. There’s no end to the chariots.”

So he says, you got a lot of money. Your problem isn’t economic. You got a lot of good money, silver and gold. You got a lot of wealth, but it doesn’t help you. Their land is also full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.

Wow. See, I built this great fortune. I got this money. And no, it’s not to be used primarily to help other people. It’s primarily used for my own purposes. That was their sin. Their idolatry was seeing their works for their purposes. They were takers and not givers. And that’s practical idolatry.

And then verse 18, a very important verse which I’ll return to at the conclusion of the sermon: “But the idols he shall utterly abolish.”

Now that’s what we need to know. Whatever idol we have in our hearts, and we’ll see by the time of the New Testament, their idolatry was far different than the actual idolatry of carving images, etc. But it was idolatry nonetheless. God will abolish all idols. Give them up now. You can either give them up now and turn away from being a taker, for instance instead of being a giver. You can go away from the idolatry of possessions and the thinking that your work has accomplished everything great in your life. You can either give that up now voluntarily or the Lord God will destroy it. That’s what it is. All idols will be abolished.

So first Isaiah tells us that there were two kinds of people specifically that true worship should motivate us to help. That’s the fatherless and the widows. And if worship doesn’t do that for us, that’s why the fact that it didn’t do that, the people didn’t worship correctly, they were hypocrites. That’s why Judah must die.

So the first section of Isaiah, Judah must die. Why? Because they wouldn’t help the fatherless and the widows. And because they weren’t fulfilling their purpose, God’s purpose of worship is to bring all nations to him. So that’s the second thing he says. You weren’t extending grace to widows and the fatherless and you weren’t bringing all the nations to me. Because of that you didn’t create a culture, a community that demonstrates the triune God and his eternal community of giving and not taking. And because of that the nations didn’t come. So he judges them for their failure in terms of benevolence and in terms of their failure in terms of world missions.

And as I said earlier prayer is at the heart of first Isaiah.

So that’s first Isaiah. Now let’s look at the next section of the book and there’s just this radical head-jerking. You’re going to get whiplash if you understand what’s going on from the last verse in 39 to the first verse in 40.

So he’s just said you’re going to be killed. It won’t happen in your lifetime. But Judah must die for her sins for these sins we’ve articulated. And then the very next verse after that’s you know Isaiah, Hezekiah says well at least it’s not in my lifetime. God says comfort. Yes comfort my people says your God the great aria from Handel’s Messiah speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned.

Now he’s just jumped, you know, I don’t know, maybe a hundred, 130 years, maybe more. I don’t know how many years. That’s how far he’s jumped. By the last section in 39, the death. Judah will die. And now Judah’s not in exile. Well, I mean, Judah will be in captivity, but Judah is described now as being out of captivity. So they were, you know, hundreds of years later they’d be taken into captivity. They’d be there for 40 years.

All that is skipped over and we jump to Judah back in the land. We jump to Judah’s resurrection. So that’s what this second section is. Judah is raised up. There’s forgiveness, compassion, and successful missions work.

So her warfare is ended. Her iniquity is pardoned. And then verse 5, “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, together for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.”

So in the resurrection of Judah, God is affecting his purposes for bringing all nations. So her sins are pardoned and as a result, she’ll live correctly and as she lives correctly, all nations of the world will see it.

So a global mission emphasis one more time in Isaiah.

Isaiah 49:6: “Indeed, he says, ‘It’s too small a thing that you, that is Jesus, should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

So the purpose of the resurrection of Jesus and the purpose of God bringing Judah back into the land was world missions. It’s very much associated with what this second phase of Isaiah is all about. The death of Judah for sins of lack of compassion, sins of not being a witness to the nations idolatry. And then God will raise up us through the salvific work of the Lord Jesus Christ ultimately. And God will be effective then for accomplishing world missions.

And secondly, not just world missions but again this idea of compassion is cited in this section of Isaiah verse 11 of chapter 40: “He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young.”

So he says the nature of the resurrection is that God is a giver and not a taker. And he’s going to have compassion upon his people. He’ll gather us up. We’ll do this next week. I think we’re going to baptize is it Monica, the new Lord’s baby? And we’ll you know, the picture is Jesus the shepherd gathers her up in his arms and is gracious to her. So God’s compassion is at the heart of this resurrection of Judah or ultimately the resurrection of Christ and our resurrection united to Christ. Compassion.

And then in chapter 41, verse 17 very quickly in this section of second Isaiah we read: “The poor and needy seek water but there is none. Their tongue is fall for thirst. I the Lord will heal them, will hear them rather. I the Lord of Israel will not forsake them.”

So God says that in the resurrection of things compassion will extend generally to everyone but then very specifically to the poor and to the needy.

And then the third thing I note here is the removal of idolatry. So idolatry will be put to death by God. And so in Isaiah 41:23, “Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are God’s. Yes, do good or do evil. This is the people talking to their worthless idols. That we may be dismayed and see it together. Indeed, you are nothing, and your work is nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination. I have raised up one from the north. He shall come, and from the rising of the sun he shall call on my name. And he shall come against princes as through mortar as the potters tread clay. Who has declared in the beginning that we may know former things that he may say he is righteous.”

So what he’s saying here is that you worship idols but in the resurrection idolatry will be removed. So we have the same thing that chapter first Isaiah told us in terms of critique now saying that in the resurrection of Judah or ultimately the church in Jesus, God’s purpose is to bring all the nations in.

He’s going to accomplish this through compassionate work and through the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he’ll destroy the idols of his people.

Verse 29: “Indeed they are all worthless. The idols, their works are nothing. Their molded images are wind and confusion.”

So idolatry would be rebuked.

Fourth thing I notice here, D on your outline. This is covenant salvation. Isaiah 42:6, “I the Lord have called you in righteousness will hold your hand. I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people as a light to the Gentiles.”

So what accomplishes world mission the covenant effected through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 7 of Isaiah 42: “To open blind eyes to bring out prisoners from the prison those who sit in darkness from the prison house.”

So again covenant mercies particularly to those like the fatherless and widows who most need it will be accomplished through the covenant work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ. And so Jesus, of course, in the Gospels, his sermon, first sermon that’s recorded for us, they give him the scroll of Isaiah, and he reads from this book of Isaiah that he’s come to accomplish these very things. And he puts it in those words: to give sight to the blind and to heal the lame. So this great jubilee year that was prophesied, this new creation time, Jesus says, “This has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Later in this second section of Isaiah, he talks about their redemption quite a bit, covenant redemption. So in chapter 52 verse 3, he says, “You shall be redeemed without money.”

And so he talks about the coming redemption that the new creation will be based upon, and again, how it will extend peace to all the nations.

Verse 7 of Isaiah 52: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news.”

So as we know these great gospel texts we’re to understand these gospel texts are found in this second Isaiah so-called that describes the new creation the effective compassionate acts of the church and of Christ and the effect of global missions that will be accomplished by that.

Again in verse 9 of 52: “He has redeemed Jerusalem. All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”

God’s purpose is to bring all nations together through the sin-bearing servant.

Verse 13 of 52: “My servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men, so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him.”

So talking about the suffering servant, the basis for this resurrection section, the resurrection for Judah ultimately is seen as a covenant salvation that affects compassion and world missions. And that’s affected by the suffering servant. And so Isaiah 52-53, we have all those famous texts about the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of his people and the resultant redemption. And linked to that, his visage will be marred but he’ll sprinkle many nations. So he’ll be effective in accomplishing world missions.

And then in verse chapter 53:3, “He’s a man of sorrows.”

Verse 4: “He has borne our grief carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken of God and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.”

So chapter 53, of course, the great chapter of the suffering servant, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the basis for resurrection life. And this is what will accomplish the new creation. The ultimate act of giving, Jesus giving his life for us, fatherless, widows, oppressed, whatever you want to call us, that establishes the new creation. And what establishes the new creation is to be carried out in the life of its people. We’re to be people that give and don’t take ultimately.

So “He makes his soul an offering for sin.”

Verse 11: “He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many. He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great. He shall divide the spoil with the strong.”

So in other words, he’s going to be conqueror of the earth. So the suffering servant is also the reigning victorious servant in both chapters 52 and chapter 53.

And then we have this great new creation imagery given to us in chapter 55. His word accomplishes its purpose. And then as I said the last verse of second Isaiah is “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree and it shall be to the Lord for a name, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

What’s he talking about? Well, the thorns are gone away. The garden is back. New creation has been affected.

So you know, first Isaiah ends with a declaration of death to Judah for these various sins. Second Isaiah begins by jumping way over the next 140 years and going right to the resurrection of Judah, that her sins have been fully pardoned. Why? Because of what it will describe, the suffering servant, the Lord Jesus Christ who will be compassionate and who will also as a result bring all nations to him as a result of his work.

And the end of that second Isaiah begins with comfort. The last verse is you know new creation. The wilderness, the thorns are rolled back. The wilderness is rolled back and we’ve got a new creation going on. It’s gospel. It’s gospel based on the suffering servant.

So the first 39 chapters judgment. Second section of Isaiah 40 to 55 gospel, pure gospel new creation the work of Jesus all that stuff. So second Isaiah takes place after many years between Isaiah 39:8 and 40:1. Isaiah ends with a message of judgment. Second Isaiah begins with a message of comfort: “Comfort ye my people.” Judah has been returned from exile. That’s what happened in this verse and this part describes the suffering servant. It ends with a new creation.

So that’s second Isaiah.

And then we come to third Isaiah. What’s the result of what we’re going to get after we get gospel? We’re going to get response to gospel. And third Isaiah has some great, you know, New Testament sort of verses as well about new creation and victory and all that stuff. But really it kind of focuses on the responsibility to respond correctly to the gospel and if they don’t hell is coming.

The last verses in third Isaiah, in other words the whole book of Isaiah, are about hell, which is sort of ironic. But see that’s the kind of message you give when you’re focusing on proper response to what God has done for you the new creation the proper response to the gospel. You got two choices.

I thought about this yesterday. You know we had this beautiful heavenly day. I just loved it. Got up a little late, but after I got up, yard work, mowing the lawn, that kind of stuff. Beaut couldn’t have been more of a perfect day from my perspective. Love those days. Then comes the night and in Canby at least. I think probably many of you. Boy, we heard the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard in Canby, I think.

And we saw some really big lightning right over our heads and tons of rain. So we went from like the perfect heavenly day to, you know, judgment imagery, you know, drowning rain and lightning and thunder and all that stuff. It was so funny because my wife in preparing the Sunday school lesson for the fours and fives, she’s on a verse, a set of verses in the Gospels. But in any event, she where Jesus evaluates people on the basis of whether they showed mercy, whether they gave people a cup of cold water in his name or not.

You know, that’s an interesting thing to think about, right? What if when you go to heaven, you die, Saint Peter, I know there’s not Saint Peter, but for the allusion, the imagery here, Saint Peter says, “Why should I let you in?” “Well, I believe in Jesus.” “Not good enough.” “What do you mean not good enough? I thought it was by faith alone.” “Did you do any works? Did you do any compassionate works?” “Well, no, but I believe the Westminster Confession. I memorized the darn thing. Took me all kinds of time. I know perfect doctrine.” “Well, but the but he says the Gospels told you that what Jesus would say is whether you go to heaven or hell, is directly linked to whether you are compassionate to people that were thirsty.”

Now that’s what the Bible says. That’s the one perspective on what eternal life is all about.

James says faith without works is dead.

So my wife has drawn this Sunday school lesson and she drew a little illustration of the kids, the two paths depending on whether you’re a giver or a taker, really from my words. And one was this bright nice day in heaven and the other was lightning over people falling into the lake of fire. That was so funny because it was just what it kind of happened to me in my day yesterday and it’s exactly how third Isaiah ends. There’s a depiction of heaven. There’s a depiction of hell. And the idea is in response to the gospel, the grace of Jesus Christ, what are you supposed to do?

Well, verse 56:1 is the first verse of third Isaiah.

And what does he say? “Thus says the Lord.”

So he’s just given us the news, new creation. And boom, now we leap over to a new another dimension. The response to this new creation of the last verse of 55 is this.

“Thus says the Lord, keep justice, do righteousness, for my salvation is about to come. My righteousness is to be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this and the son of man who lays hold on it who keeps from defiling the Sabbath. And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

So he says the basis of this response, the life of Judah, the life of the Christian is to be lived out by responding in obedience to this command that’s issued. And the command says to do justice and then it says keep my Sabbaths. Keep your hand from doing any evil. Have worship that changes the way you live. Keep my Sabbaths so you don’t do evil.

And again, this same general terminology that we were given at the beginning of Isaiah comes back.

So you know, he gives us a command at the beginning of third Isaiah. He commands us to respond properly to the gospel by doing justice. And secondly he says part of the other part of the command is to embrace the foreigner.

The next chapter, next few verses in 56 verse 3: “Don’t let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself unto the Lord say the Lord has utterly separated me from his people.”

He says no. He says verse 4: “Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths choose what pleases me hold fast my covenant I will give in my house within my walls a place and a name.”

So Sabbath is related to what we do in the week that pleases God. And this is the summary of what holding fast the covenant of God is. How do you keep covenant? You worship in a non-hypocritical way that transforms your lives into doing things differently that are not evil in the context of your life. And specifically we’re emphasizing today as Isaiah does that means being a giver and not a taker. And it means working for world missions to bring the nations in. And that’s what’s the point is here.

Verse 5: “The sons of the foreigners, join themselves to the Lord to serve him. He’s going to bless them. Those who keep from defiling my Sabbath, they hold fast my covenant. I will make them joyful.”

Verse 7: “Even them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar. For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

The proper response to the gospel of Jesus Christ is to do justice to not do evil and to positively embrace world missions to make the house of God a house of prayer not just for the nation in which you live not for your city only but for all the nations of the world and that prayer would usher into actions in terms of your commitment for world missions.

See benevolence and dominion. How do we keep this Sabbath of God? We’re big on Christian Sabbath, Lord’s day. We know what it’s about. We’re not supposed to buy or sell or work and all that stuff. We’re supposed to go to church. Well, that’s a good start. But look what he says in 58:6.

“Is this not the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out? When you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh.”

Same thing he began the book with. Your worship services are disgusting to me because they don’t make you into a compassionate people that helps the needy around you. And specifically at the beginning of the book, the fatherless and the widows. It’s the same theme.

Now worship, not idolatrous worship, but not hypocritical worship either. Worship that transforms our lives that we’d be people that show compassion to other people in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In verse 8 says: “Then your light shall break forth like the morning.”

We want the light to break forth. We want the nations converted. We want a Christian Oregon City. We want a Christian city. We want a Christian country. And he says the way to accomplish it is not political action, as important as that may be. It’s not doing formalistic worship that’ll somehow magically transform the world, as important as that is to get worship right. It’s not systematic theology, as important as that is. He says, when you do this thing, then your light will break forth. What is this thing? It’s helping people. It’s doing acts of compassion toward the specific kinds of people that God designates in his word.

Then after you’re compassionate people, a giving people, who fill out that pledge card today and say, “I want to help those guys in Russia and Poland coming out of communism. I want to assist those people in India who have nothing. I want to help spread the gospel there and help people. And yeah, I want to come up and write a big fat check to give to the PRC to help the fatherless to help babies.” God says that’s when a culture reflects this community of God by gracious giving and not taking. That’s when your light will break forth. That’s what Lord’s Day worship is supposed to turn you into. Those kinds of people.

Verse 10: “If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in darkness and your darkness shall be as noon day.”

That’s what we want. We know we got lightning in the nation. We want bright, sunny, 75 degree days. God says that’ll happen when you extend compassion to the hungry.

Now you know, there’s a difference between all hungry people and those people that are hungry for other reasons. I don’t give money to people on the freeway entrances because they’re not hungry. And the Bible says if people are hungry, they should work. And he gives them hunger to make them work. So I’m not saying, you know, ill, you know, indiscriminate giving, but I’m saying our heart should want to give to people that really need help. And the fatherless in this land are a particular class that really, really, really need help because they’re being killed.

There aren’t these kind of poor people in our nation by and large anymore. You can’t find people to give bread to anymore because Pharaoh, the state’s doing a pretty good job till God judges it. You should be ready to give it then. But till then, we’re not going to be able to. We’ll we’ll try. We had a food drive the last couple of weeks and we’ll try a little bit, but you’re not going to be able to help much that way.

But these babies that are being killed, they’re a direct application of what Isaiah says your worship should make you into. People that write big checks and put in the benevolence basket to help babies and people that commit to regular giving for world missions.

“The Lord will guide you then continually and satisfy your soul in drought and strengthen your bones. You shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.”

We know what that is. And we’re back to new creation. How do you live out new creation? By doing this kind of compassionate stuff.

“Then those from among you shall build the old waste places. We like it used to be. We want to be back to a Christian nation. Well, this is how you’re going to do it. All this other stuff’s important. Worship, political action, systematic theology, prayer, all that’s important.

But the one thing that Isaiah 58, the text for Sabbath keepers, right? Verses 13 and 14, don’t trample the Sabbath. The one thing it really focuses on that will produce postmillennial victory is compassionate actions toward people that God has said you should be compassionate to.

Then you’ll delight yourself in the Lord.”

Verse 14: “I’ll cause you to ride on the high places of the earth. I’ll feed you at the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”

So the proper response to the gospel is to be the sort of people that God intends us to be imaging the triune nature by giving to people that have need.

So this is what we’re supposed to do and this is what third Isaiah does. And then as I said in the last chapters, chapters 65 and 66, he threatens hell and he promises heaven. And that’s the way it is.

And I won’t go through all those verses, but you might want to look at those today. You know, he says, “This is where that verse is. My servants will eat, but you’ll be hungry. My servants shall drink, you shall be thirsty. My servants shall rejoice, you shall be ashamed.”

Two paths in front of us depending on our response to the gospel, whether we’re going to be obedient and compassionate and seek world missions or not. And if we don’t, we’re going to be hungry, we’re going to be thirsty, we’re going to be destroyed by God. He’ll bring his judgments against us.

So proper response, proper response. And Isaiah 65 and 66 talks about this.

He says: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. The former shall not be remembered anymore.”

So he talks about new creation, but then he also talks about the coming judgment upon other peoples in chapters 66.

So heaven and hell are the closing chapters of third Isaiah because what he’s talking about is the proper response to the gospel of God.

Verse 12 of Isaiah 66 says: “I’ll extend peace like a river.”

So that’s great.

Verse 13: “I’ll comfort you.”

That’s what the good message of the gospel in second Isaiah was. He’s going to comfort us.

But verse 14 says “He’ll show indignation to his enemies.”

And we remember, we don’t have to guess, we remember from the rest of Isaiah who those enemies are. They’re people that don’t extend grace and have no desire to see the Gentile nations brought in.

The last verse: “They shall go forth, look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against me, for their worm does not die, their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

It ends with hell.

It ends with a threat to us that if we don’t respond to the gospel grace of Jesus Christ, that his suffering servant bled and died for this purpose to extend grace and bring in the nations. If we don’t do that, then we’re going to be sent to the place where the worm doesn’t die, eats on us the whole time.

Third Isaiah begins with a command. We should use our money to help missions and we should use our money to help babies.

All right, so let’s talk about implications for missions.

First of all, the mission, the day in the life of the church. So the mission of God is to create a world that will be in relationship with him. In the eternal councils of God the triune God, God has love. You know, God isn’t love as an abstract attribute. God is love as an action. God has eternally loved father, son, and spirit. Love each other, okay? And exhibited gifts toward one another. God’s love is not some static theological virtue. It is an action and a lifestyle. And God intends to create intends and is doing. He’s created a world that will have the same kind of community that he has in heaven in the eternal triunity. He wants humanity to have that same kind of community of giving and experiencing true community together. That’s God’s purpose.

And it’s not his purpose just for a little bitty people that meet in the church someplace. It’s his purpose for the entire world. That’s what he’s bringing to pass. He’s bringing together a world that lives in community the way he lives in community in eternity. And that’s being a, you know, a giver and not a taker.

And so this is what God intends. This is the mission of God. And he sort of set up Israel and now he sets us up as a free sample. You know, you get things in the mail or in your paper on the internet. We’ll give you free samples of something. And boy, you’ll really like this. So we’re supposed to be a tasty free sample to the world of community action. Both loving each other, living in community together, extending grace to the members of our community who are lonely, solitary, isolated, who have difficult financial times, whatever it is, we don’t live like that. That free sample sort of tastes like dog food or something, you know, it’s not so tasty.

God says you’re supposed to be tasty. And this free sample is a reminder to the world that God intends to bring the whole, all the nations into this community and God wants to do it through compassionate acts. To the extent that we respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ in the proper way, then this church will be a model of a redeemed community that will be this tasty sample to others and increase the gospel message bearing of the individuals in this church and others.

Now to accomplish that, we’ve got in terms of world missions, that’s one of the two big emphases. We got pledge forms in the back of your orders of worship today. And on the outline, I’ve got a lot of citations here. You know, you can rob God in tithes by not paying them. If you don’t pay your tithe, if you don’t give 10% of your income to God and to the church primarily to minister for God, to the Levites to support him, you’re robbing God.

And you know what? That’s a really bad idea. You rob God, he’s going to get you. He sees it. He’s going to bring judgment. We may miss it. Elders of the church may miss it. We shouldn’t if we’re diligent, but we may miss it. God won’t miss it. If you’re robbing him through not paying tithes, he’s going to get you.

And Malachi says that you can rob him by not paying offerings.

So offerings are an expected part of what the church does. And I’ve got a long list of statements here from previous sermons you can listen to from 2 Corinthians 8:9. But it’s quite clear from that text of scripture that God expects us to engage in offerings, free will offerings, commit to them ahead of time, be held accountable for them for a period of time, entrust them to financial, good financial stewards, all that stuff. God expects you beyond your tithe if you have surplus and are able.

If God has blessed you with a surplus of goods that you have more than you really need or could use, God expects you to help world missions by the use of your money.

And what we have on the form is a commitment from you to pledge to give x amount of money to the work in Poland, Russia or India. This Saturday you hear about those mission activities and others as well. And it’ll be another point. I you know, of you should try to make it to the missions banquet. We should have so many people wanting tickets to that thing that we got to have another one pretty soon. Okay, that’s what it should be.

You should as the redeemed community of Jesus Christ desire world missions and be interested in what this church is doing in terms of world missions. You all should be there. If you haven’t planned yet or signed up, do it today. And then what you should all do is try. Most of you at least should fill out that pledge sheet and pledge some money to give as offerings to the churches in Poland, Russia or India. It helps us to make plans. It helps them to know that we’re giving X amount of money and it keeps you accountable. It makes a point of decision for you once for the next year that you don’t have to think about it every week. You understand the significance of world missions now. You understand how related it is as a proper response to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so, you know, and I would encourage you to make those pledge sheets out. We’ll talk more about that next week.

Secondly, implication for benevolences.

Well again, you can’t help most poor people now, you can in other parts of the world. And I think I think our church is behind the eight ball on this one. I think we should be involved right now, right now in micro lending programs that are actually reaching the hungry and the people that need help getting businesses started making a living in the third world. We should be doing that. I hope we do that quickly to find specific organizations. I know there are other churches. I know O day is doing stuff. I think I think InTown Presbyterian may be doing stuff with micro lending. I know I just talked to Robert Jones from Evergreen Presbyterian out in Beaverton. They got a micro lending program going on. It’s something the church ought to be doing helping the poor people internationally.

But right here today in this country, in this city, probably in this very neighborhood, there are fatherless children in the womb whose mothers are preparing to abort them or kill them. Now you should write a check, most of you, and put it in that benevolence basket when you come forward today to receive the grace of communion over the next three or four weeks. Put checks in there to fund the work of the PRC.

This is what we saw in Isaiah. This is what the big message is: proper response means showing compassion, helping other people, not working just for yourself, but rather working so that you might have means to give to others. That’s what he tells the thief, right? Stop stealing and work with your hands that you might have to give to those that have need. The implication of that is that’s why you’re supposed to be working to give to others that have need.

Well, you got your own family, sure. Support the church, sure. But a big part of what you’re doing in your labors when you get that check, God is giving you means to share with those who have need. And these fatherless children who are about ready to be murdered have a tremendous, tremendous need.

Now it’s interesting. You know Isaiah, he tells Isaiah, “Well, go to this people, but they won’t hear and talk to them, but they’re not going to listen.” And then Jesus picks that theme up in the Gospels. And then Paul even at the ends of Acts says the same thing. And you wonder, “What is that anyway?”

Well, in Psalm 115, it says that idols have eyes, but they don’t see. And they’ve got ears, but they can’t hear. People that worship idols, it says in Psalm 115, become like them. They can’t comprehend anything. They become like the idols they worship.

So what he was saying was Isaiah to the people of his day that you are just like the idolatrous nations. And the proof of it is you can’t understand what I’m saying. You are deaf.

You can’t. Jesus said the same thing. He was incomprehensible to them. Why? Because they were so involved in idolatry in worshiping wooden things that really couldn’t see or hear.

Now you say, “But wait a minute, Dennis, I don’t remember those shrines being torn down in the New Testament. I don’t remember in Israel when Jesus was around shrines to Asherah or Baal. No, there wasn’t.”

So what is the text telling us by saying they were like these idolatrous ancestors they had that did actually have altars and Asherah and Baal and actual idols they’d bow down to? He’s saying that now your form of idolatry is much more sophisticated, Jesus is telling the Jews, but it’s just as deadly for your ability to understand a darn thing. You’re worshiping yourself. You’re worshiping your own work. You think you’ve done all this stuff. And the proof of it is you’re not compassionate to other people. You don’t even want to help your parents.

He says, “So this is a great warning to us.”

You know, in Matthew, it says that Jesus comes across this demon-possessed guy and he casts him out of him. But then the demon goes out and finds seven other demons worse than him and comes back and moves back in. You know, you can’t just have got to have dues. And the thing was they got rid of the Asheroth, the statues, the wooden things they’d bow down to, which made them stupid. They got rid of those. But worse demons came back. The demon of thinking that somehow my hand has created my ability to have life and can sustain it. That’s what the Jews thought. That’s a worse demon. It makes you even stupider. If they couldn’t understand what Jesus says because they had become takers and not givers, you see, that was their form of idolatry.

That’s the form of our idolatry today. Nobody’s bowing down to statues. The last 2,000 years, we saw in the beginning of Judaism and its rejection of Jesus, we saw the sophisticated idolatry of our time that would make us just as stupid as people that bow down to totem poles. Just as stupid.

And remember what I said earlier. God says that all idols, whether they’re stone idols or whether they’re idols in our hearts, idols in self-confidence, idols in being a taker and not a giver, idols in pride that we accomplish this stuff ourselves. All idols will be destroyed by Jesus Christ.

Now we can either put them away now and decide to loosen up the purse strings and help global missions and help the babies, or we can hang on to everything we’ve got for dear life and only be concerned about ourselves and our family. God says, you know, better to give it up now voluntarily because I’ll just rip it apart for you anyway. You try to build a family without a reliance upon the grace of God and somehow you think multigenerational wealth and all this stuff without having a focus of compassion to people outside of your family, God will destroy you, your children.

It’s happened over and over again in the history of this country. Rich people make a lot of money. They put it in trust for their kids. Doug could probably tell you stories about this, you know, reading his—he has the history of this country for the last 60, 70 years. And people, their kids just blow it. They completely don’t have the value system of the dads. And they just—I’m not talking about Doug’s family. I’m talking about historically.

Doug knows this sort of stuff, but they just blow it. That’s what happens to these foundations. Gary North writes a lot about this. Why? Because God won’t allow idolatry. Praise God. We want him destroying the idols, right? We want him putting to death the idols that spring up in our heart. God says he’ll do just that.

God says, “Be a giver, not a taker.” God says, “My nature is to give for you. And that’s why you’re here because I gave my only begotten son. Now can you have your hearts opened to give to the poor saints in Russia, Poland, India, and then to those babies that are being slaughtered by at the passive resistance of their mothers.”

I think the Lord God wants us to give up idolatry, to engage in greater acts of compassion, and benevolence, and this is the next couple of weeks is the time to do it. And commit to it.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you that you’re putting to death all the idols. We thank you for the death of Judah, the resurrection of Judah, and then the proper response to the gospel to do justice and extend mercy. Thank you, Father, for the simplicity of this book that’s long and somewhat complicated. And yet the basic message rings straight through to us with great relevance for our commitment to foreign missions and our commitment to the PRC and other benevolent actions as well.

Bless us, Lord God, as your people. Help us not to be hypocritical today, to walk away just not caring about what we heard. Help us to be transformed into being people that are givers.

In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.