The Exile: ‘Light at the end of the tunnel’

 

The Bible would be a very depressing book if it ended with 1 and 2 Kings.  In Kings we saw the kingdom divided.  Two hundred years later the ten tribes of the northern kingdom are conquered by the Assyrians[2].  Then at the end of 2 Kings we have what is known as the exile—Judah, the southern kingdom was conquered by the Babylonian empire, Jerusalem is destroyed, the temple is levelled, and thousands of prisoners were taken back to Babylon as exiles.  How did these exiles feel about this?  You can read Lamentations and see!  Psalm 137 capturers their feelings, ‘By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion[3]—as Boney M[4] reminds us!  

It is like the Fall has happened all over again—God’s special people have rebelled against God’s rule and been thrown out of their special place—in this case the Promised Land. 

So what now?  Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?  Has God given up on his people?  And what about those promises to Abraham?  We find the answers to these questions in the message of the prophets.  This morning we shall look at the message of three of them.

 

Isaiah[5]—preparation:

Let’s step back in time—to the southern kingdom, at least a hundred years before the exile.  A prophet named Isaiah is given a vision concerning Judah and its capital Jerusalem (Is. 1:1).

The message of Isaiah could be called ‘a tale of two cities’—faithless Jerusalem (i.e. the sinful city of Jerusalem, the people of Judah) (1:21) and faithful Jerusalem (1:26).  The question that runs all the way through the book is ‘how is the faithless city to become the faithful city?’[6]  The answer is through exile, through restoration beyond exile, and with (to quote a favourite phrase of Isaiah) ‘a new thing’ that God will do.

This new thing that God is going to do is that he is going to extend his salvation to the ends of the earth—remember that he had promised Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through his seed (Gen. 12:3), and God will bring about a new community—a new Israel, a new people of God.  God will do this new thing through the ministry of ‘my servant’.  Those passages that speak of this servant point ahead to Jesus,[7] reminding us that all of God’s promises come to fruition and fulfilment in his Son (2 Cor. 1:20).

Isaiah not only prophesied that the exile would happen, but that Cyrus would be the Persian leader who would bring God’s people back to their land (Is. 44:28-45:13).  So when the people are taken into exile, and they are told that the gods of Babylon had won the day and that the LORD is dead, those who had listened to God’s Word would know that that’s not true.  They knew that this was going to happen and that God would bring them through.  Isaiah’s is a ministry of preparation.

They were only a tiny remnant who believed that Word, but there was always a faithful remnant even in Babylon.

 

Jeremiah—expectation:

Jeremiah also prophesied before the exile—his ministry brings us right up to the fall of Jerusalem.  In Jeremiah 7, we have what is called the ‘temple sermon’—here Jeremiah is standing at the gate of the temple preaching to those who are going in and out. Read: 7:3-11.

The people had reasoned that because God had promised David that his dynasty would never end (2 Sam. 7) Jerusalem, David’s capital, could never be conquered.  They believed that because the temple was in Jerusalem the city would never be destroyed.  They thought that they were safe to do as they pleased.  However, Jeremiah warns them that there is a consequence to their actions.  As we remembered last week, in Deuteronomy (see Duet. 28:15-68) God had warned his people that if they deserted him he would drive them out of the Promised Land.

Jeremiah’s message is also a message of hope.  He points them beyond the exile, and encourages them to see the God is going to do something new: Read 31:31-33.

 

Ezekiel—restoration:

One of the confusing things about the fall of the southern kingdom, Judah is that it happens in two stages.  Firstly, in 597 BC when the Babylonians defeat Judah and take some of its inhabitants into exile, then in 586 BC, when the Babylonians destroy Jerusalem and the temple and take thousands of more away.

Ezekiel was among the first group to be taken to Babylon.  From 593 BC, when he is thirty, he begins prophesying to the exiled community—telling them of the events in Jerusalem and preparing to minister to the bigger number of exiles that will come to Babylon when Jerusalem falls. 

Ezekiel contains a tremendous message of encouragement about what lies beyond the exile.[8] 

God will give his people a new heart:  Read Ezekiel 36:24-26.

This will produce a new unity.  Ezekiel 37:17, “Join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand.” There is going to be a new Israel that is united in a way that the old Israel wasn’t.[9]  Verse 24, “My servant David—this isn’t King David, he’s been dead a long time by this stage, this is the promised king in the line of David, will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd.”

Then in chapters 40-48 there is talk of a new city and a new temple.  In chapter 47 we read of a river—it’s the river of life, flowing out from this new temple—from the place where God’s presence is manifested, it flows out into the entire city.  The river rises becoming deep enough to swim in.   ‘It is picture, a visionary picture, of the overwhelming blessing of God flowing out from his presence—so deep, so rich, so full that you do can’s do anything but swim in it.  And that is Ezekiel’s vision for the future of God’s city and God’s temple.’[10]

 

Conclusion: We began our sermon wondering if there was any light at the end of the tunnel.  Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel say there is!  The promises of God to Abraham and David are now focused on the post-exile community.  We are going to sum-up by seeing how they point to a new exodus, a new covenant, and a new nation.

 

1. A New Exodus:  In Exodus we saw the captives set free.  They are liberated from Egypt and become a unified distinct nation—the people of God.[11]  Similarly a great theme in Isaiah is that the captives are going to be set free—a new Exodus!

Read Isaiah 40:3.  A highway is being constructed!  The valleys are filled in, the mountains are knocked out of the way, so that there can be a straight road on level ground.  For the LORD is coming back from Babylon with his people, bringing them home to Jerusalem.

When did this happen?  Well in 538 BC Cyrus said ‘you can go back to Jerusalem’.  But these words go beyond that, in John’s Gospel they are used of the ministry of John the Baptist (John 1:23). 

When does the exile end? 538 BC, yes!  When does the Exile really end?  When Jesus comes!  ‘He is the one who ends the Exile!  He is brings the new Jerusalem, the new Israel, the new community into existence.  He is the one who produces the new Exodus . . . the New Testament says “it is happening, God is bringing his people, his new people into existence”, this is the new Exodus.’[12] 

 

2.  A New Covenant:  We mentioned the new covenant when we looked at Jeremiah.  It is worth remembering that while this new covenant is greater than the old it works on exactly the same principles—God in his grace rescues people, draws them to himself, makes promises to them, and says ‘if you want to enjoy those promises live if faith and obedience.’

This new Covenant, as we saw in Ezekiel, involves the Spirit within us.  This is why the new Covenant law is not written on tablets of stone—outside of us, but is written deep within our hearts.  It enables us to want to be like Jesus, to want to be his people, to governed by his commandments, and obedient to his will.

In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit only lived within certain individuals, such as kings (1 Sam. 10:6; 16:3) and prophets (Ezekiel 2:2)[13] to equip them for particular tasks, but now in the new Covenant he lives within all of God’s people.  In the Old Testament we have noted the continued failure of God’s people, but now in the new Covenant that failure has been remedied as God actually entering into the personality of his people to transform us. 

This is the blessing of the new Covenant, God changes us from within.  It doesn’t happen to perfection in this life, but it starts—and it can grow, more and more and more.  We will never be sinless in this life, but we can sin less.  We can grow in grace. We can know the power of the Holy Spirit enabling us to live holy lives.

 

3.  A New Nation:  In Isaiah and Ezekiel we can see that God is going to form a new faithful people.  There will be a new Zion, a new city of God, a new community into which all the nations of the world will come and find God’s blessing.  If you are born-again you are one of God’s new covenant people, we are the new Israel (Galatians 6:16).   

With this in mind what does it matter whether we are British or Irish or Portuguese or Romanian?  It won’t win us any favours with God nor will it exclude us from the offer to become one of his people.  For God is forming an altogether different kind of nation, a new Israel, made up of people from every country.  And one day this multiethnic, multiracial people will gather around his throne praising God for his salvation (Rev. 7:9).  

All this things are fulfilled through the Lord Jesus, and by his Spirit within the lives of those who trust him and obey.

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[1] This sermon is composed largely of material adapted from David Jackman’s Bible Overview Lectures (with a little help from Full of Promise).

[2] They were never to have a separate existence again

[3] Zion is another name for Jerusalem.

[4] Boney M was a pop group from the 70’s and 80’s—if you are too young to remember!

[5] Isaiah is one of the great books of the Old Testament.  It has been called the Romans of the Old Testament.  It explores such themes as the Sovereignty of God, sin, judgement, salvation and the new creation.  With the possible exception of the Psalms, Isaiah is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament more than other Old Testament book. 

[6]When you get to the end of Isaiah you find that the faithful city is now a place to which all the nations are been gathered to by God (see Is. 66:10-12, 20). ‘. . . in the Bible you should always read the beginning of every book and the end of every book with special attention because it will tell you the themes of the book’ Jackman.

[7] Supreme among them is Isaiah 53—a great passage about the cross.   For Jesus as the servant of the Lord see Acts 8:26-40 and Philippians 2:5-11.

[8] We can divide Ezekiel into three sections.  Firstly, a chapter 1-24, are before the fall of Jerusalem—in these Ezekiel prophesies, to those already in exile, the fall of the city and as things unfold he interprets why these events are happening.  Then in chapters 25-32 we have oracles to the foreign nations.  Finally, after Jerusalem has fallen, and from this point Ezekiel’s ministry is one of tremendous encouragement about what lies beyond the exile—it is a ministry of restoration.

[9] In verse 23 we have the words, ‘they will be my people, and I will be their God.’  This is the great promise of the covenant that we see again and again in the Old Testament.  We see the ultimate fulfilment of this promise in heaven (Revelation 21:3).

[10] Jackman.

[11] In line with the people part of the promise!

[12] Jackman.

[13] In Exodus 31 the Spirit fills the craftsman Bezalel and the other craftsmen to enable them to construct the tabernacle, but he didn’t remain permanently within them.