Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

Chapter 60. We’ve kind of been touching on Isaiah 60 the last few sermons. Isaiah 60 is cited in the book of Revelation in one of the letters to the churches at which Jesus declares himself to be the root of David, the one who opens and no one shuts. Remember the enemies of the church will be brought to the church. And Isaiah 60 we’ll read that in there. Isaiah 60 talks about the branch of God’s planting. So we talked about Jesus as the root of Jesse.

The branch of God’s planting is found there. And of course, last week we talked a little about Isaiah 60 because it begins and ends with a depiction of light coming to God’s people. And today the discussion of Isaiah 60 will center around Jesus as the king of the Gentiles and the desire thereof, which is the sixth O antiphon. This is the Sunday closest to Epiphany at which we remember the wise men coming, or the magi, to visit Christ as recorded for us in the Gospels.

And it’s a picture of the wealth of the Gentiles being brought to Jesus now that he’s been born and of course the imagery is taken from Isaiah 60 as well with the camels, etc. So Isaiah 60 is one of those central texts to our celebration of Christmas and the coming of Christ and his advent and its implications for the world. So, please stand and we’ll read Isaiah 60. If you have the outline from today, I’ve got it structured on page two in a particular way that we’ll look at in a few minutes.

If not, just listen to Isaiah 60. Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people, but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the nations and the Gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about and see. All they gather themselves together.

They come to thee. Thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Then thou shalt see and flow together, and thine heart shall swell with joy, because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee. The forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah, and all they from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord.

All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee. The rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee. They shall come up with acceptance on thine altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory. Who are those that fly as a cloud and as the doves to their windows? Surely the isles shall wait for me and the ships of Tarshish first to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them unto the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee.

And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee. For in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favor have I had mercy on thee. Therefore thy gates shall be opened continually. They shall not be shut day nor night, that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish.

Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together to beautify the place of my sanctuary. And I will make the place of my feet glorious. The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee, and all they that despise thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet, and they shall call thee the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, joy of many generations. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings. And thou shalt know that I, the Lord, am thy Savior and thy redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. For brass, I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood, brass, and for stones, iron.

I will also make thy officers peace, and thy magistrates righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders, but thou shalt call thy walls salvation and thy gates praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee, but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.

Thy sun shall no more go down, or go down rather, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself. For the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous. They shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. I, the Lord, will hasten it in his time.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the wondrous fulfillment of all of this with the coming of our Savior 2,000 years ago. And we thank you that this forms the pattern for history as well. That you shake the nations that the church may be settled and established. We thank you, Father, that the wealth of all the nations of the world, all men, will flow ultimately into your holy city, into your church, and to glorify a place for you.

We thank you, Lord God, that the earth is yours, the fullness thereof, the silver and gold are yours, And we thank you that history is increasingly the realization of men that these things are true and more than that this is what their hearts desire. We thank you for the coming of Jesus Christ, King of the Gentiles, and the desire thereof. Come to us now through your word. Lord God, help us to understand this text in a way that is more than rationality, that somehow transforms and changes us, that we would be part of that desirable city of God.

In Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated. I’m going to excuse myself for just a minute. So, if you could attend to the outlines that you have, I’ll be back in just a moment.

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Okay, thank you for your indulgence. We have four responsive readings today and a multitude of songs. Why? Because this is our traditional Christmas service. Even though we’re two weeks past when we would have done this normally because of the weather. And so why do we sing all these songs? Well, we like to do it. Well, why do we like to do it? Because it’s right and proper in the scriptures. The advent of the king is one that creates the breaking forth of music and song.

I’ve given you a brief outline, or an outline rather, of Psalm 98. Let’s look at that very briefly. Psalm 98 is, and you’ve heard me say this, those of you who’ve been here very long, a number of times, hopefully you know this by now, the center of the fourth book of the psalter. And at the very center of Psalm 98 is singing and rejoicing. Psalm 98 is preceded by several psalms that talk about the approaching king.

He’s coming. He’s coming quickly. He’s coming. And then in Psalm 98, he arrives. And at the very center of this fourth book of the psalter, at the very center of Psalm 98, which is the center psalm, we have this breaking forth into song on the part of the earth with the arrival of the king. There are three stanzas, I think, in Psalm 98 that I’ve outlined for you on the handout, and it’s pertinent to our discussion today of the sixth O antiphon to point this out.

The first stanza focuses primarily on the coming of Yahweh or Messiah to Israel. And the third stanza focuses primarily, and I’ve given you in bold letters the references there, on what language is being used to describe. And in the third stanza, the coming is primarily to the nations. And so we have this new song being sung. It’s news. It’s good news. It’s gospel first to Israel and secondly to the whole world.

And this is a picture of the coming ultimately of Jesus Christ and bringing these two together. And so the sixth verse of the ancient song of the church that we’ve been meditating on, the O antiphons, describes Jesus as king of the Gentiles and their desired one, the cornerstone that makes both one. And so the union of Gentile and Jew is described in the sixth antiphon in that verse of song. And it’s described in Psalm 98 that when the king comes, he comes both to Israel and to the nations to bring them together finally and make them one.

And that’s what happened 2,000 years ago. So that’s verses 1 and 3. And the middle stanza is all about the proper response to that, and the proper response to that is to break forth in singing, to break forth in musical instruments, to rejoice in song. When David brought the king—in terms of the symbolic presence of the king, the ark of the covenant—into Jerusalem, there’s dancing, there’s songs that are sung, etc. And that’s when music of Yahweh becomes sung and instrumental with his advent into Jerusalem with the bringing in of the ark of the covenant. When Saul is approached by Samuel to be king, when he’s anointed, he also joins with the prophets in singing.

And so singing is what happens with the advent of the king. The advent of the spirit comes with the king, and the spirit causes us to rejoice and sing. So it’s a good thing to have all these songs in our liturgy today. And the responsive readings themselves are also songs. They’re the four great Christmas songs from the Gospel of Luke, which we’ve talked about before.

And so we’re reciting them, but then we’re also singing various songs that rejoice in the truth of them. So Christmas is a time of meditation on the coming of the king. And related to that, it’s a time of singing, making music, etc. And that’s why our liturgy is fuller today of songs, both in the readings and in the singing of songs than it is normally. And this is why you love to sing Christmas songs because it’s a time of the celebration of the advent of the king.

And the spirit of God causes our hearts to delight in singing for with his praises. And this is why this Christmas season I’ve decided to spend these seven sermons meditating on this very ancient church song which was always performed in the context of the immediate, the season of Advent, but in the days immediately preceding the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. And so today we’re considering the sixth verse of that great song.

And that verse is printed at the top of your orders of worship. “O king of the Gentiles, and their desired one. The cornerstone that makes both one. Come deliver man whom you formed out of the dust of the earth.” So, we’re going to talk about king of the Gentiles and kind of focus on the desired one by looking at a text in Haggai and in Isaiah 60 and we’ll touch then on the cornerstone that makes both one.

We’ve already done that a little bit, but that’s the idea—both being the Jew and the Gentile. And we’ll talk about that a little bit at the communion table as well. So before we get to all of that though, let’s move on to Haggai. Let’s, before we go to Isaiah 60, I wanted to talk briefly about Haggai. And this is on your outlines as well. And commentators have noticed that Haggai 2:6-9 really have reference, are saying the same thing that Isaiah 60 is.

And one other text we might want to throw in is Isaiah 2:4. We sing this song, “Behold the mountain of the Lord,” from the book of Isaiah. That’s another text we could look at. But Haggai 2:6-9 is kind of a summary version of Isaiah 60. And it is specifically where this term in the ancient song of the church, “desire of the nations,” comes from. So turn to Haggai chapter 2. And I’m actually going to begin reading at verse 4.

Haggai 2 verse 4. And so, and I want to do that because the context is the encouragement to work. The point of the message of Haggai that we’re going to look at in a minute, that Jesus comes as a desire of the Gentiles, its proper context is given for us in verses 4. And that context is an encouragement to work. You know, it’s they were putting their hand to work to rebuilding. But that’s, you know, when things are small, all the small things happen first before you move on to bigger things.

The work can be discouraging, and so the purpose of the Haggai text is to encourage God’s people to continue to work on what he has called them to do. And so it’s very germane to our day and age. We live in a day when we’re working. We’re a minority, but we’re working to make manifest the kingdom of Christ. And so Haggai is an encouragement to them to work. And hopefully it’s an encouragement to us as well knowing what the end result of all this is.

So Haggai 2:4 says, “Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel,” says the Lord. “And be strong, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and be strong all you people of the land.” So three-fold repetition—strong, strong, strong. And then to what end, says the Lord, “and work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts.” So we’re to be encouraged to keep up our work and our efforts for him. Verse 5, “According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remains among you.

Do not fear.” So I wanted to point out there, and we’ll look at this when we get to Isaiah 60, but Isaiah 60 is bracketed by references to the spirit of God. And the particular text in 6-9, the statement of the Lord found therein is introduced by saying that the spirit of God is in the midst of them. They’re not supposed to fear. God is with them. My spirit remains among you. Do not fear. And then the actual statement of the Lord, verse 6: “For thus says the Lord of hosts, once more it is a little while, I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land, and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the desire of all nations.

And I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of Hosts. The silver is mine, the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of hosts.”

So, here’s where this ancient song, this description of Jesus as not just the king of the Gentiles, but the desire thereof is found. That Jesus is the desire of Gentiles, of the nations, is found in Haggai 2:6. And basically this is a summation of what we just read in Isaiah 60. Be encouraged. The nations will come in and they’ll come in for the specific purpose of giving glory to my house, my dwelling place. And so, this is what they’re told.

Couple of things here. This text is picked up, of course, in the gospel accounts of the coming of Christ. “Once more, I’ll shake not just earth, but heaven also.” Hebrews, when Jesus is crucified, there’s a great earthquake. Earthquakes happen in the scriptures several places to designate that the great shaking has come. Now all nations will be shaken so that the church will be settled. And not just so the church will be settled by the removal of opposition—that’s not really the primary thrust. The church will be settled because the nations will be shaken and brought into the context of the church.

So the text is postmillennial from beginning to end, as is Isaiah 2, and as is Isaiah 60. And notice that with the stress upon saying that Jesus is the desire of the nations, that the way the Gentiles are brought in involves shaking. It involves judgment. But more than that, it involves them being drawn to the beauty of the Savior, to be drawn to him. In other words, they don’t come by way of compulsion. Ultimately, they are judged. They’re shaken. What seems like light to them but isn’t light is removed from them. Right?

We talked about the approach of deep darkness last week. We’ll talk about it here a little bit again. What is the purpose of that? So that we can replace our artificial lights with the true light of God. Who follows the darkness into our lives as light and him is no darkness at all. So the nations are shaken. There is an aspect of judgment in your life and in my life. You know, God wants us not to hold on to things, you know, that aren’t really life, that aren’t really to be desired in and of themselves, but rather to be desired because they reflect the beauty of God.

But we then come willingly as a result of being shaken away from the things that are worthless to us. We then come willingly. This is what the Gentiles will do. God says the Gentiles will come willingly. The approach of the magi that we celebrate on Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, they don’t come by way of compunction. They come drawn, right? They come drawn by the desire of all nations. Jesus Christ who has come, the light draws them to the one who is the desire of all nations.

One exegetical comment here: modern day scholars actually think that this title for Jesus isn’t really a title for Jesus. What does it mean? Well, another way to translate verse six is “they shall come and they’ll bring their desirable things.” So in coming, they’re bringing the desire of the nations. They’re bringing what’s desirable to them to Jesus and to build the house of Yahweh. So it’s a different way of looking at the phrase. Now, the end result is the same whether it’s a direct title of Jesus, a messianic title, but he’s the desire of the Gentiles, or whether they’re bringing their desirable things to the one who is most desired.

Either way, it’s telling us the same thing. But I do think it’s important to point out here that maybe in a translation that you have, it doesn’t say the desire of the nations. And that’s why even Calvin was unconvinced that it was a messianic title. He thought probably it was more talking about whatever the nations desire, they’re going to bring that and subjugate that desire to their desire to serve Yahweh, to serve Jesus Christ.

So in terms of the magi, you know, they brought these gifts. They desire the gifts, but these gifts are brought to the service of the one who is more desirable, of more value, the Lord Jesus Christ. So that’s kind of the emphasis of Haggai, and it gives us a little, as I said, kind of overview of how then to begin to look at Isaiah 60. So now we look at Isaiah 60. And I’ve got these references for you. I got the text laid out in a particular structure on the second page.

And I’m going to read the verses before and after Isaiah 60. In other words, 59:21 and 61:2. You don’t have to turn there. But listen, so this is the bracketing for this unit. The question is, are all these one unit or not? And I think they are because of the bracketing. And I bring it up not just because of the bracketing, but because this is the work of the spirit. So listen, Isaiah 59:21.

“As for me, says the Lord, this is my covenant with them. My spirit which is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants,” says the Lord, “from this time and forevermore.” So the establishment of the covenant, the conclusion of the covenant—that is the covenant renewed through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the indwelling spirit—is what produces the effect that will follow this in chapter 60.

And then following chapter 60 in verse one, we read, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to those who are blind.” You all are familiar with that text probably. That’s the text our Savior used at the only recorded synagogue talk that is recorded of him in the gospels.

And so Jesus comes to proclaim this acceptable day of the Lord, and the spirit of God is upon him. Now if we put Isaiah 60 in its historical context in the first instance, what it’s talking about is the return from the Babylonian captivity. Okay, they’re going to come back from Babylon. And if we wanted to take the time, which we don’t want to take the time today, but if we wanted to take the time, we could see verses in Ezra and Nehemiah that connect up with verses from Isaiah 60 because what happens is Artaxerxes or Cyrus, the Babylonian empire emperor or the Persian emperor rather, commands the kings of his empire to give wealth to Ezra and Nehemiah for the rebuilding of the temple.

So the idea is the restoration from captivity is accompanied by a shepherd king Cyrus who is the servant of God and who commands both in his empire or in his direct people to give money to help this work and also he gives commands to other kings to give, for instance, lumber, the wonderful wood from Lebanon to the those that are returning from captivity. And they’re to build Jerusalem, its walls, and primarily its temple.

So Isaiah 60 is ultimately, first rather, about Cyrus giving command that the rebuilding of the temple would occur. It’s about the restoration from the captivity of those who had returned to Jerusalem. It’s about Ezra and Nehemiah being enriched by the Gentiles. So the wealth of the Gentiles is flowing with God’s people back to Jerusalem to establish the worship of the church there. Now, that’s the first application of both Haggai and Isaiah 60.

That’s what it’s talking about. But if we look at these bookends which we just did, first of all, it gives us the context. It’s spirit and spirit. So, this is a section bounded by the spirit. But secondly, it reminds us that ultimately all this is going to happen through the coming of the one who can then preach the spirit of the Lord is upon me. God has anointed me to declare liberty to the captives.

So ultimately Isaiah 60 is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ and in the coming of the new covenant that’s talked about at the end of 59. So the spirit is within us and his word is in our context as well. So you know it’s we can look at Isaiah 60 and see its reference back to the return or the restoration from that captivity. But to leave it there would be to do a disservice to the text because the text tells us explicitly, not just by way of you know, we could figure it out ourselves, but explicitly with the citation of what the words of our Savior will be itself.

The text tells us this is ultimately about the coming of Jesus Christ. It’s about the birth of Jesus. And so it’s a text that is a Christmas text really first and foremost.

All right. So let’s now look specifically at Isaiah 60. So, if you have your handout, and I hope you do, ‘cuz otherwise what I’m going to say is probably not going to make a whole lot of sense to you, there is a structure to Isaiah 60. It begins and ends with sections about light.

Okay? So, and we talked about verses 1 through 3 last week. Each of these sections we could break out and do more with the structure of them. I don’t do that because I wanted to make this very simple for today’s presentation. But the movement is from light in the first section to then references to nursing in section two and its corresponding section at the end. And then the word joy is found at two places in the text which are bracketing the central part of the text.

And the central part of the text then is this discussion of the Gentiles bringing their wealth to build the worship center of Yahweh. And at the very center of that seems to be a reference to the destruction of any that don’t participate in that process. Okay, so look at section one. “Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people.” Note of explanation here. Couple people asked me last week after the sermon, “Well, it says that God is light and him is no darkness at all.

And yet, you seem to be saying that God is darkness.” Well, I didn’t say that God is darkness. What I’m saying is that when God approaches man frequently in the scriptures, he comes like on Sinai there’s clouds and lightning and there’s deep darkness. So this particular word here for deep darkness—the Hebrew term—is used in reference to the approach of God, and it isn’t in judgment necessarily. Right? I mean on Sinai it’s not judgment that’s being portrayed by that. Something else is going on. The God isn’t lightning exactly, but he’s referred to as lightning. And God isn’t darkness. But as he approaches man, there is a manifestation of darkness in preparation for the coming of light.

“The entrance of thy word brings light.” Well, God’s word—the entrance of God’s word on Sinai begins with darkness, deep darkness as the phrase is going here. And so it’s important to associate times of difficulty in our lives and deep darkness for the Christian—deep darkness is a measure of hope to us. The darkest hour is always just before the dawn. So that’s what I was trying to stress last week.

It’s not that God is darkness, but darkness is the way God works in reference to us. And I don’t know why exactly. Maybe it’s because, as I said earlier, he wants us to not attend to the false, the glimmering, the glamour of the world that gives false lights that seem to focus our attention so much without reference to Yahweh. So maybe the idea is to turn down all the artificial lights so that we can in peace and in quiet and in difficulty wait for the approach of Yahweh who is all light to us.

Maybe that’s it. I don’t know what it is. But what I do know is that when God draws close, as in this text here, to man, it is not unusual for that drawing close to begin with deep darkness. And that deep darkness is, if we’ve trained ourselves to think in terms of biblical imagery, when we go into deep darkness—whether it’s financial, mental, whatever the difficulties are, loss of a loved one, whatever the darkness that comes to us—we should think of it as this is, you know, the dark night of the soul is not just God leaving.

And in fact, it’s more God coming. It’s not the withdrawal of God’s presence. It’s the preparation for increased presence from God. It’s a picture of him coming close, not of him going away. Okay? So that’s that’s I wanted to mention that because there’s some questions got after the sermon last week. And if you have more questions, we can talk about it after today’s service. But in any event, the point is here is that the phrase begins with rise and ends with rising section.

And light is the significant. That’s why I’ve got it bolded and highlighted and italicized—is it matches up with the section at the end. So the beginning and end of this is light. The second section is this nursing idea. “Lift up your eyes. See.” And at the end of the passage, then “thou about sea and flow together.” So sea are the markers in that second section. “They gather themselves together. They come to thee.

Thy sons shall come from afar. Thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.” And I’m not sure, but I think this already could be a reference to the Gentiles. The Gentiles are going to come to the light. And it could be that the Gentiles are described here as sons and daughters being nursed at Israel’s side. Israel is a mother. Now in its corresponding section, Israel will nurse at kings’ breasts. So strange image, but the point is the wealth of the nations and the wealth of the kings will be given to them.

So there’s this connection up with the world nursing from the church, the mother, so to speak. And yet the world, the church benefiting being nursed as it were by all the people of the world. And so there’s a connection that way with nursing in section two and its corresponding section at the end. And then the third section is “thy heart shall swell with joy.” And I don’t know if there should be a separate section or not, but it’s interesting because the way the text lays itself out on either side of the Gentiles coming and building the worship center of Zion, on either side of that, our response to that is to be joy.

So if there’s application in the text, you know, if we want to go to Haggai, it’s an encouragement to be steadfast in our work. But if we just want to take the specific text of Isaiah 60, it seems like the application is to rejoice, which is a good application for Christmas season, Christmas Sunday, if that’s what we’re going to call it today. The end result of all of this wonderful news that’s pictured for us here is supposed to be joy.

And that’s enough. It’s enough to have joy knowing what actually happened 2,000 years ago in the process that God is continually in. You know, the shaking of the nations happened definitively 2,000 years ago, but it continues to happen, right? As the nations aren’t obedient to Jesus, he shakes them to the end that they would settle the church and actually assist the church. And you know, we’re in the process of a worldwide perspective of things now.

And the unity that has come about through bringing Jews and Gentiles together is a picture of the unity of the church across the world. And we’ve never really had that in the last 2,000 years, but now we are. The Western church won’t be fully complete until the African church, the Asian church, the Eastern church—until they’re all brought together. This unity is what Jesus Christ has come to accomplish through the Gentiles building the Zion of God.

And the end result of that is great joy. So the third section is joy. And then in the fourth section, I want to make a couple of comments here. “Because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee.” So again, it’s not by way of compulsion. There is shaking, but Jesus is—he’s the king of the Gentiles. We talk about that a lot. But him being the desire thereof, we don’t talk about that as much. And yet the Haggai text explicitly talks about that.

And the Isaiah text refers to it by way of these sort of comments. The sea is a picture of the Gentiles. The wealth of the sea will be converted to you, the church, but it’s not going to be done by compulsion. It’s going to be converted. Okay? They’re going to be drawn to the light. They’re going to be converted. You’re not going to go beat them up and steal their stuff and plunder them. You’re actually going to—you’re desirable.

And as they bring their desirable things to the more desirable thing, the presence of Christ and his church, then this is done by way of him being the desire of the nations. So the seas, the wealth of the seas, the abundant seas will be converted unto you. “The forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.” And at the end of this text, this section, it’s got the forces as well. And that’s why I make this a specific section.

But in this, in this fourth section, then it’s about the conversion of the Gentiles. But there’s a there’s an interesting thing that goes on in the next few verses. “Multitudes of camels shall cover the dromedaries and then they’ll bring gold and incense.” Well, you know, we think of the magi, but look at the imagery that’s going on. There’s animal imagery—camels, dromedaries bringing gold and silver. And then we go back to animal imagery.

“The flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee. The rams of Nabaioth shall minister unto you. They shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory.” So you got camels bringing gold and silver. And then you got flocks, and they’re building, they’re glorifying the altar and they actually are acceptable on that altar that has been made. And then third, “There’s these doves flying.

Who are these that fly as a cloud and as the doves to their windows? Surely the isles shall wait for me and the ships of Tarshish first to bring my sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them under the name of the Lord thy God and to the Holy One of Israel because he hath glorified thee.” So we’ve got camels, gold and silver or gold and incense rather. Then we have the flocks ascending upon the altar and then we have doves, gold and silver.

So the gold and silver, golden incense, the center of that is the altar. So this animal imagery which represents the nations in the Old Testament—these animals are then brought bringing all their wealth to what purpose? To build worship centers for Yahweh, to build the worship center to ascend upon the altar. So world history is about us going out and working, doing all kinds of great things, but ultimately it’s to the end that we might bring it to God in worship and glorify his place of worship.

The centrality of the worshipping institution of the church in Isaiah 60 is rather obvious, right? And this is seen as the culmination of history. This is the purpose of the coming of Christ. This is the purpose of the Gentiles being converted—is to build the worship center which is the church. So you have this three-fold imagery of animals bringing various stuff and comprising the altar and then, as I said, it ends with building up the walls and gates of the place of God.

Then down in verse 13, “the glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee.” Now, this is another explicit reference. Cyrus commanded the kings of the area of Lebanon to bring wood for the building of the temple and the walls. So, we can look at it that way. Lebanon, you know, is it Jewish or is it Gentile? Well, it’s kind of hard to figure out. Lebanon was given as the northernmost border of the promised land in Abraham and in Joshua, but Lebanon is also pictured as part of the area that was never conquered.

So, it’s interesting because Galilee is we usually think of as the northernmost part of Israel and just north of Galilee is Lebanon. And Galilee is referred to in the Bible as Galilee of the nations. So, it’s kind of like the entry way to the Gentiles, Galilee, where Jesus ministered. And just north of that is Lebanon. So what’s going on in this section again is that Gentiles will come through the Savior who does his ministry in Galilee into Jerusalem to enrich its place.

So this matches up with the previous section with the glory of the Gentiles being brought into the worship center of Jesus. Now the interesting thing about that is, and I didn’t—you know, I just think this is there and you can’t ignore it. That makes the very center of the text a promise of judgment upon enemies. “For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish. Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.”

So, you know, we don’t want to lose the focus that the center taken as a whole is that the coming of Christ means the union of the world together in his worship, it means the conversion of all the nations of the earth, and it means that wealth is produced primarily first and foremost for the purpose of glorifying the worship center of God. So all of that’s true. Jesus is the desire of the Gentiles.

That’s the big focus of the center of Isaiah 60. They come willingly to bring their stuff to Christ. But we also don’t want to lose the middle part which says that some won’t, a few won’t. And the few that won’t will be destroyed. So there’s justice to those who are in opposition to Jesus and the church. There’s a promise that the enemies of the church will be destroyed at the very center of Isaiah 60.

So it kind of helps us to see that center as we look at this structure. And then as we continue down through the coming of the Gentiles, the wood, the prophets of Lebanon to the holy place, and then again there’s a joy of many generations. So our joy will exceed into multiple generations. Now there’s movement from the joy previous to the extended description of the Gentiles coming in. And now the joy is extended onto multiple generations.

And again we have the nursing reference. “They shall suck the milk of the Gentiles. Shalt suck the breast of kings. And thou shalt know that I, the Lord, am thy Savior and thy redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. For brass I will bring gold. And for iron I will bring silver and for wood, brass, and for stones, iron.” So there’s an increasing valuation of the temple that connects up with the increasing valuation of the world.

You know, if you look at the construction of the tabernacle and then the construction of the temple, things that were brass or wood become silver in the temple. Things that were silver in the tabernacle become gold in the temple. Things that were gold in the tabernacle become fine gold, refined gold in the temple. And here he’s saying that process of maturation and increase of value in the sanctuary of Yahweh in the earthly representation of his throne room will increase.

So you know instead of this stuff, instead of you know brass, it’s going to become gold. And so there’s this increase of valuation. Now remember that the sanctuary of Yahweh stands for the whole world, right? It’s a representation of the world. And I think that what this means is that as the world becomes more and more submissive to Yahweh, it becomes more and more productive. The world is transformed.

The whole world, not just the worship center, is transformed and goes from glory to glory. So history is about making neater, better stuff out of the world, improving the world. Taking the garden image and going into the howling desert and wilderness and transforming it. This increase of value is part of the wonderful promises of Isaiah 60 fulfilled so wonderfully in the coming of the magi and in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then this next section beginning—yeah, so the next section after the sucking thing again is going back to light. The concluding section. “I’ll make your officers peace, your righteous magistrates righteous. Violence shall no more be heard in the land, wasting or destruction within the borders, but thou shalt call thy walls salvation, thy gates praise. The sun shall no more be thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee, but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light.”

So again, the reference here to Yahweh being the everlasting light. Now in this section, it’s interesting that the whole point of this, at the end in verse 21, is “thy people also shall be all righteous. They shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.” The end result of all this, what’s our purpose? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That’s what’s going on in Isaiah 60.

Notice as well that the section, this last section begins with a reference to officers and magistrates and then concludes with a reference to a little one and small ones. So like from the highest down to the smallest, they’re all affected by this transformation of the world and the world coming to the desire of the nations. So all people are affected by this in the context of who we are and as well recognize that as that section begins with a reference to officers and magistrates.

Officers and magistrates are a secondary aspect of the renewal of the center of this text which is a renewal of the worship center of Yahweh. Okay. So the purpose of the coming of Christ is to build worship that all of us might do our work to bring our wealth into the context of the worship center of the church that it might be established. And the end result of that kind of primacy of the church means that the magistrates and officers will become better and better as well.

The maturing value of the worship center is reflected in the maturing value of people. The little ones become you know big groups, and your magistrates and your officers are peaceful as well and they’re good and they’re righteous. And so that’s a result of the Gentiles being wooed to the desire of the Gentiles, the desire of the nations, the Lord Jesus Christ. So it’s a wonderful text. It has this wonderful center of great promise that all the nations will come in once Jesus comes.

That’s fulfilled by way of typology, and what we celebrate on Epiphany Sunday, which this I guess technically is being the closest to Epiphany, by way of the Magi bringing their presence. It’s a reminder to us of the increasing valuation of the world. It, as we, as we place the primacy upon the worship of the church, that worship results in the whole world becoming better and better. We have nothing to bring if we aren’t productive in the context of the world.

And the end result of that is a building up of the small ones into family groups. And it’s also the extension into the civil arena through officers and magistrates. So what’s the point? Well, first of all, if we remember this in summary form in Haggai, this is an encouragement to work. We are those Gentiles that have been brought to the light. We’ve come to the desire of the nations. And we should have a desire to work first and foremost to bring honor and tribute to Yahweh by way of the tithe and our offerings and build up the worship center of the church.

And so it’s an encouragement to do our work so that we might continue to have value to bring to God and to glorify the central place of his dwelling, and as a result of that the whole world is beautified. Secondly, the Gentiles come willingly. And you know this is this is what sort of captured my imagination as I thought about this text for the last few weeks. The Gentiles come willingly. Jesus is described as the desire of the nations.

Now this is interesting to me. Desire itself is an interesting fact. God creates the trees, for instance, in the garden. And he says that they’re beautiful, that they’re to be desired. Okay? He says that he—I mean he prohibits us from desiring inordinately with the tenth commandment. Don’t covet. Don’t have inordinate desires for things that are not yours. But on the other hand, he says that all kinds of things are supposed to be desirable to us.

Even sin, you know, was violating what was true and good. That the trees themselves were desirable things. He placed them there to be desirable—for wisdom and the healing of the nations in Revelation. That’s the trees. Therefore, ultimately a representation of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Genesis 2:9 it says that “out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.”

Pleasant is desirable to the sight. So things are supposed to be desirable to us. That’s not wrong. As we look around us, there are things that are desirable to us. God’s made them that way and he makes them that way. Now he tells us not to, you know, inordinately crave after them. Desire can become inappropriate, but desire itself is not inappropriate. And in fact, this antiphon reminds us that it’s the desire that Jesus Christ represents to the nations that draws them.

You know, this is kind of interesting. I think it’s a it helps us to focus on our mission: loving the triune God, transforming the fallen world. Well, how do we transform the fallen world? How do we bring the Gentiles, the nations around us—we’re Gentiles, but by way of analogy, it means all the nations. How do we bring people into the worship of Yahweh? We do it in a way that I think emulates the desirability of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There’s something about Jesus that’s desirable. The there’s something about this story of the magi coming that is a beautiful imagery of truth that is desirable to man. There’s something about the Christmas story of Jesus being born in a stable, the world being turned inside out as some writers have talked about. There’s a beauty to that, an ineffable beauty to the Christmas story that I think is part of the desirability of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Men are made in the image of God. They want certain things. They desire things. They desire justice. Why did Barack Obama get elected? Because he played to the desire of people for justice. They want to see, you know, things worked out. They want to see the world put to rights again, as N.T. Wright says. They want that. And they recognize an aching need that it isn’t really that way right now, that people still are oppressed or oppressive, that, you know, uh how do we take care of people?

We want everybody to be well-fed. We want—right. We do. They’re slothful. We don’t want them well-fed. But that’s to the end that they might become well-fed, that they might be encouraged to work and become well-fed. And we want to see justice. We want to see people that are in radical opposition to Christ dealt with, right? We want to see radical Islam dealt with. And part of us, even as you know, warring pagan nations, the Jews and the Palestinians have at it, part of us want to see some justice done to people that throw rockets every day.

the year trying to kill innocent civilians who are non-combatants. Now, I know there’s reasons for it, but we kind of want justice. So, the desirability of the church is in part fulfilled as we declare justice that God has come to effect justice. At the heart of the Isaiah 60 text, in spite of all the wonderful things that are said about drawing the Gentiles, at the heart of it is a statement of justice. The nations that will not come, that will not serve the church, that will not serve Jesus Christ who is the head of the church, those nations will be judged.

It fits our need for justice. The church, if we want to be nicer than Jesus, we lose part of the desirability of who we are to the world, and that is justice. People want to see justice. People want community. They want it more than ever. They have it less than ever. They’re alone together. There’s a book, I think, by that title, “Alone Together.” All kinds of Facebook communities and worldwide communities.

It’s lots of fun. It really is. And yet most people today feel more isolated than ever in spite of all the and sometimes as a result of the technological changes to their lives. People desire community and to the to the end that the church represents a desirable community to people, that’s a good thing. Now I think this is something that this is one reason why some people have come to RCC. It’s a desirable community.

Now you know, there are things to be worked out and sometimes it doesn’t seem that desirable and sometimes we miss the mark in terms of being a desirable community. But I think that’s why people, some people are here. It’s a desirable place. They can have friends. They can have relationships that are supportive of raising kids in a godly way and of transforming the world according to God’s law and standard with justice, community.

There should be a desirability to who we are. And this desirability of community meets a need of people out there that don’t understand even that they have a felt need for community, but it’s there. And as you present people with community it encourages them. Another reason why Barack Obama was elected was because of the idea of community. He worked people together so they had a joint cause and mission. It should be a lesson to us. May the church of Jesus Christ call for justice. May the church of Jesus Christ have beautiful communities that are enticing to people instead of pushing people away.

You know, people want these things. They’re desired by people because they’re made in the image of God. People want beauty. Now, you know, no matter how much men have sought false beauty and done beauty in wrong ways, they resonate with beauty. Beauty is a lots of different things. It’s complexity and simplicity. Beauty is the Christmas passage, the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. The scriptures are written in a beautiful way where they’re portraying complex, deep, profound truths through language that’s written in a beautiful way.

There’s a beauty to it. And as the church of Jesus Christ focuses on itself being a beautiful community, then it’s going to be desirable to the world round about us. Now, I know you know this could be in the wrong way and say, “Well, Pastor Tuuri is wanting us to be a secret sensitive church now.” No, I’m not saying that. But I am saying that the way God works is he shakes people, but then he brings them to the desire of the nations.

And we don’t want to create a desirability to people based on what they want that doesn’t reflect what the scriptures say they need. But what I’m saying here is God’s word says that justice is important. That’s was at the heart of our text today. God’s word says community is important. That was at the heart of our text today too. It’s the bridging of the two into one. Right? It’s the creation of an effectual peace between Jew and Gentile.

And this is the focus of a lot of the epistles—was trying to produce a peaceable communion, community with unity together. We come to the table. It’s because God tells us that at the height of desires, desirability of Jesus, one of the factors is community. It’s what people want. It’s what we should offer them. We should be a church that promotes justice. We should be a church that promotes godly community.

And we should be a church that focuses upon beauty, something other than pragmatics, right? We have the most beautiful book in human existence, divinely written. And I know that some of you tire of the structures. That’s okay. It’s okay. It really is okay with me. Okay. But one of the reasons I do it is because it reflects the beauty of the God who has given us this word written in this particular way. It is a multifaceted diamond, this word.

It’s not some straight linear read. It’s not just history. It is history. But it’s history that’s written in a way to create in us a resonance with eternal truths that somehow are much deeper and more profound than what we think of as reality—history, just the facts, please. No. God is not about just the facts, man. Uh-uh. The facts are presented by God in a beautiful way. And we being made in the image of God desire that kind of beauty.

It’s what we desire. Everybody wants beauty. Everybody wants justice. Everybody wants community. And if people have become so jaded as to not be drawn to the desirability of Jesus Christ, who is the very picture—he is the keystone and unity. He is the king and justice, right? He’s community. He’s justice. And he does this in a beautiful way. Remember the very first O antiphon: Jesus in a mighty yet sweet way orders the universe and keeps it rolling.

That’s who he is. The church has told us. And the church is echoing the scriptures. And the church is echoing the scriptures when it tells us that Jesus is king of the Gentiles, mighty king, but he’s also the desire of the nations. He does these things in a sweet, most winsome way and in a beautiful way. And we as his church, we get the privilege of being light-bearers. We get the privilege of being in union with this one.

He is our light now. And our little ones become a tribe. And our rulers become righteousness and peace. And we’re built up. Well, we have an obligation because of that union and communion we have with Christ to also try to produce desirability in how we work and how we are as a people. We should desire to be more beautiful in how we treat people as a community. We should have a desire for justice and a proclamation of the need of justice.

And we should have a desire for community in a way in a way that brings desire, that fulfills, rather the desire of those who are drawn to Christ. And if people are so jaded as to not want those things, then Jesus says, “Those nations shall perish. They shall be wiped out.” The great shaking has begun. It shakes us as well because all too often our desires are not for the things of Christ. We want things for our own purpose.

What’s your desire? Do you see the desirability of Jesus and of using everything that you have for the services of his kingdom? If you don’t, then you have to worry. God has said that we are characterized as those people who bring willingly without coercion blessings to Yahweh that his place might be glorified in the context of the earth. The text is an encouragement to work, but it’s an encouragement to work in a way that is beautiful and desirable to others as well.

May the Lord God grant this church in the year of 2009 that these deep, profound truths of community—this desirable community, desirable justice, desirable beauty—might be ours in a way that’s evident to the people that come here, to the people that we meet. May each of our homes be dwelling places of beauty, community, and justice as well. And as we do that, then we shine forth with the light of Jesus Christ.

We take Epiphany, his manifestation to the Gentiles as the desire of the nations into our neighborhoods as well. Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the wonderful, beautiful story of the coming of Jesus Christ. We thank you for Isaiah 60 and the beautiful repeated message over and over again that you are in the process of bringing the wealth of the nations to your feet. Thank you, Father, for bringing us—thank you for bringing us both in what we have in our money and in our things, but also in our very personages—to the service of Jesus Christ.

Make us a desirable church this year. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.