‘Joy unending’ (Isaiah 65:17-25)

 

I was talking to the Youth Group and I asked them about their favourite holidays.  I think I can say that there were three features to their replies.

1.      Abundance:  I think two of them mentioned all-you-can-eat buffets.

2.      Refreshing activities:  I prompted this one.  The point I wanted them to realise that the best holidays don’t just involve sleeping in, but doing things we enjoy.

3.      Great relationships:  more than one of the young people said how they loved spending time with grandparents and cousins.

The book of Revelation tells us that when Jesus returns at the end of time He will establish a New Heaven and a New Earth.  In Isaiah we get a description of what this glorious recreation will be like.

An abundance of Joy

One of the things that can spoil our joy is regret.  We look back over our past and we might feel ashamed of certain things.  However, in the New heaven and the New Earth it will be impossible to feel regret.  For behold, I create new heavens and new earth, and the formed things shall not be remembered or come to mind (17).  Never again will anything from your past haunt you.  God will not allow anything to spoil your joy.

In this New Heaven and New Earth, we will have resurrected bodies.  These bodies will have an increased capacity for joy.  In particular we will experience an increased capacity for rejoicing in Jesus.  No longer will we get bored when we worship.  No longer will we be tempted to look to those things that do not satisfy to find the satisfaction that is to be found in God alone.

Not only will we rejoice in the love of God, but in love God will rejoice over us.  But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, for behold I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.  I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard the sound of weeping and the cry of distress (18-19).  We will sing about Him, and He will sing over us.

One of the saddest things in this life is when a life is cut short.  In the New Heaven and the New Earth such tragedy will never grieve us again.  No more in it shall there be an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed (20).  I believe that there is poetic licence here, for we know from Revelation that there is no death in the New Heaven and the New Earth.  Never again will the life of one of God’s people be cut short!

Refreshing activities 

Before Adam and Eve fell into sin they had work to do.  It was satisfying work.  After they rebelled against their loving creator work become backbreaking and frustrating.  In the New Heaven and the New Earth there will be work with purpose.  We all love the occasional sleep in.  But a really good holiday includes doing refreshing activities.  The work we do in heaven will bring great satisfaction.

They will build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.  They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall be the days of my people be, and my chosen shall enjoy the work of their hands.  They shall not labour in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them (21-23).  There will be no more exploitation.  No more taking advantage of the work of others.  No one steeling what you have done.  Two things that I fear more than almost anything else is boredom and loneliness.  The work will be enjoyable and rewarding, never pointless and dull.  As we will see there will be no chance of loneliness.

Great relationships

I realized that I had a reservation about heaven.  You see we have pictures of great multitude worshiping Jesus.  But that looks a little impersonal.  Will we just be one of a vast nameless crowd.  I think that is the danger of forming your understanding of the afterlife with just one image.  We will rejoice together in Jesus but we will also know Him personally. 

God uses relationship language when He promises, before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear (24).  Speaking of Jesus’ return, the apostle Paul writes, ‘for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known’ (1 Corinthians 13:12).  On the night before the crucifixion Jesus promised His disciples, ‘I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am’ (John 14:3).  He wants us to be where He is.

Once a dying patient told the Bible teacher, Jack Miller, that she wasn’t interested in going to heaven because it would be boring.  Jack asked her, ‘What was the most happy moment in your life?’  She said, ‘the best and happiest times of my life came when I was with someone I really loved.’  Jack replied, ‘That is what makes heaven so very special.  Jesus is my very best friend.  And the greatest thing about heaven is being there for ever with your greatest and truest friend.’

Finally, we read of great peace in this New Heaven and New Earth.  Nature will be at harmony and there will be no threat.  The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food.  They shall not hurt or destroy in my holy mountain (25).

Conclusion

I have to point out that in contrast to the joy of the New Heaven and the New Earth this great chapter in Isaiah begins with a warning to those who refuse to seek their joy in God.  I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me.  I said, “Here I am, here I am.”  I spread out my hands to a rebellious people …’ (1-2a).  But they were not willing to be swallowed up in His love. 

Jesus died that we might be forgiven.  He came that we could become beloved children of God.  He invites us to know His friendship.  He wants to give us life with purpose.  He desires that we would have hope.  But if we refuse His life transforming grace we will get what we have asked for.  Instead of knowing His forgiveness we will experience His righteous condemnation.  Instead of the New Heaven and New Earth eternity will be spent apart from Him.  When He returns He will not come as your Saviour but only as your judge.

To end on a positive note, I want to point out for those who are living in Jesus there are aspects of the New Heaven and the New Earth that we enjoy already.

Although our joy is not what it will be then, we have joy now.  Although God does not promise that life for His people will be easy we are ‘sorrowful yet always rejoicing’ (2 Corinthians 6:10).  We know that we are forgiven.  We know that we are loved by God.  We know that He is with us.  Indeed, He rejoices over us, even now in our imperfect state (Zephaniah 3:17).  The Lord takes delight in His people (Psalm 149:7).

Even though work can be stressful in this life, it is still a gift.  Our boss might not appreciate what we do but we serve wholeheartedly knowing that we serve not just people but the Lord (Ephesians 6:7).  One of my favourite verses tells us that we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).  Even serving a cup of water for His sake does not go unnoticed or unrewarded (Matthew 10:42).

While there are many things that are greater in the New Heaven and the New Earth than under this heaven and in this earth, one thing that won’t be greater then is the strength of God’s love for those who are trusting in Jesus.  We will experience Jesus with more intimacy, we will see Him face to face a fully know Him, but He loves us now as much as He will love we then.  So we pray, ‘I pray that through the power of the Holy Spirit you would show me more of the length and breadth and height of God’s love for those who are in Christ Jesus, so that I might know more of the New Heaven and New Earth even as I wait the day of Christ’s returning.’  Amen. 

‘You are not in control’ (Isaiah 44:24-45:7)

‘You are not in control’ (Isaiah 44:24-45:7)

You are not in control of your life.  You have no power over world events.  You can do nothing about the weather.  You don’t even know if you will be alive this time tomorrow.  It is actually quite terrifying if you think about it!  But what if the God who is in control of everything was on your side and that He would move heaven and earth to bless you?  Wouldn’t that fact help you sleep at night?

When I was in my twenties I got to go on a placement to Sri Lanka.  I knew that I was going to encounter poverty there in a way that I had so experienced before, so I asked a friend if he knew any good books about suffering.  He recommended, ‘How Long, O Lord?’ by Don Carson.  That book changed my life.  It didn’t give easy answers.  It didn’t always give answers I would have wanted.  But it reasoned from the Bible with a clarity that I had not seen before.  It made me realize that God is greater than I had imagined. 

‘I form the light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things’ (45:7).  While God is never dirtied by it, evil and chaos our not outside His control.   

1.      God knows the future (44:24-27)

This section begins with the verse containing the words, ‘I am the LORD who made all things’ (44:24) and ends at ‘I am the LORD who does these things’ (45:7).  I don’t know much Hebrew, but in the Hebrew original these are the exact same words and form bookends of a little section.  God is telling Isaiah that He is in control!

He is the God who has made us.  He is infinitely personal seeing ‘my unformed body’ and knowing ‘all the days ordained for me … written in your book before one of them came to be’ (Psalm 139:16).  Yet while infinitely personal He is also unimaginably majestic—He stretches out the heavens.

He knows the future.  While ‘fools of diviners’ try to tell what is to come (44:25) the truth is these false prophets haven’t a clue.  Yet God can confirm the word of His servant and fulfil the counsel of His messengers (44:26).  God tells them what is going to happen and what He says comes to be.

Isaiah was speaking around 740 B.C., during a period when the Old Testament people of God was divided into two kingdoms.  Isaiah spoke to the southern kingdom of Judah whose capital was Jerusalem.  He warned them about their corrupt religion.  He told them that if they did not repent God would punish them.  The people did not listen, and eventually the Babylonians crushed them and took them into exile around 586 B.C. 

From chapter 40 Isaiah is speaking prophetically ahead of his time to those who were in exile in Babylon.  What were God’s first thoughts for those wicked people?  ‘Comfort, comfort my people,’ says your God, ‘Speak tenderly to her …’ (Isaiah 40:1-2a).  ‘God’s deepest intention towards His people is comfort’ (Ortland).  Now we are introduced to somebody else—King Cyrus.  Cyrus was the Persian king.  The Persians were the superpower after the Babylonians.  In the first year of his reign, Cyrus issues an edict that says that all the exiles in Babylon can go home to Judah and Jerusalem.  That was 539 B.C.  Isaiah is talking about things that take place one hundred and fifty years after his time. 

Can you see the problem for Bible scholars who do not believe that Isaiah could know the future?  The Assyrians were the super-power of his day.  How could Isaiah know that they could be overwhelmed by the Babylonians?  How could Isaiah know that the Babylonians would take the people of Judah into exile?  How could Isaiah know that the Babylonians know that Babylonians would be replaced by the Persians?  How could Isaiah know that the Persian leader would be called Cyrus?  These things all took place after Isaiah died!  Many Bible scholars conclude that someone later than Isaiah must have written these words.  But we know that Isaiah was told these things by the God who knows the future!   

2.      God will bring you home (44:28-45:7)

God calls Cyrus ‘my shepherd’ (44:28) and refers to him as ‘His anointed’ (45:1).  The word for ‘anointed’ is the word for ‘messiah’ (Hebrew) or ‘christ’ (Greek).  God is going to use this evil man to issue a decree that will pave the way for His people to return home.  God is in control even over the mightiest ruler of that time.  ‘Many are plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails’ (Proverbs 19:21).  ‘In the LORD’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water that he channels toward all who please him’ (Proverbs 21:1).

Through this ‘anointed one’ God will remove every obstacle that threatens to get in the way of His purposes for His people.  Though Cyrus does not know God (45:4) our God says, ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.  I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me; so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know that there is none besides me.  I am the LORD and there is no other’ (45:5-6).  God has plans that aim to display His glory to the whole world!

So, God uses an evil man to bring blessing for His people.  This is control.  This is what happens at the cross.  Jesus was the anointed one/messiah/christ who was not a tyrant like Cyrus but is gentle and lowly.  He was the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep.  At the cross evil men who did what they wanted to do, and yet they accomplished God’s greatest and most loving plan for the return of His people.  The cross enables us to return home, not from exile in Babylon, but as forgiven people welcomed into the loving embrace of the Father.

3.      God is in control (45:7)

‘I form the light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things’ (45:7).        

There was a deacon in a church who was talking to a group of people about the issue of suffering.  She said that she liked the idea of what she called a ‘weak god’.  She comforted herself with the thought that God would like to help us in our troubles but that He simply is not able to.  Such reasoning might let God off the hook when it comes to why He allows evil, but it is not really comforting.  It would mean that ultimately chaos reigns.  Speaking about their struggle with depression someone said, that while God’s control over our suffering leaves me with many hard questions, I would rather put my trust in the God who is all-powerful, and who has revealed himself in the beautiful person of Jesus Christ, than think that my life is going to be blown around in the whims of chaos.

Paul Tripp, ‘I don’t know if you have ever thought about it before, but God’s promises are only as good as the extent of his sovereignty.  He can deliver what you need only in the places where he rules.  If his rule is not firm and unchanging his promises are not either.’

Conclusion

Just a few things to be clear about before we finish.

The most important thing to realise is what the good is that God wants in your life.  When I say that the God who is in control will move heaven and earth to bless you, that does not mean that He promises a life of health and wealth and comfort and ease.  God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, and the good of those who love Him is that we would be conformed into the image of His Son.  One of the main ways that happens is that we learn to trust Him in the pain of this life.

This is not determinism.  Determinism would suggest that because God is in total control what we do does not matter.  Our actions have real consequences.  Take the issue of prayer - James writes, 'you do not have because you do not ask'.  Certain things happen because we pray that would not happen when we don't pray.

The Bible does not teach dualism.  Dualism teaches that there are two opposite forces at way with each other.  When bad things happen that is because the devil got His way, when good things happen that is because God got His way.  The Bible teaches that the devil can do nothing outside of the ultimate rule of God.  A friend of mine acted like a duelist,  Her mother was ill, and the prayed for healing.  She died and they assumed that they must have slipped up in their prayers.  That their was a weakness in their prayer cover and the devil got in and got his way.  That is dualism.

There is mystery.  One of the mistakes we make is assuming that God owes us an explanation for everything that happens in life.  The Bible teaches that God reveals everything we need to walk in obedience, but not everything to satisfy our curiosity (Duet. 29:29).  I don't know why He allows you to go through all that you have to go through.  But keep clinging to Him in the mystery!

A young man was honest enough to admit that he was angry at God.  He could not understand why God was letting Him experience so much pain.  I assured Him that God is big enough and caring enough to deal with our questions. 

Read the Psalms and you will see a raw honesty that can be shocking.  ‘How long, O LORD, will you forget me forever?  How long must I wrestle with my thoughts all day long?’ (Ps. 13:1-2). 

But then we must also remember the words that come after our reading in Isaiah.  ‘Woe to those who quarrel with their maker’, like a pot saying to its maker, ‘what are you making?’ or ‘your work has no handles on it’ (45:8-9).  We can be honest in our questions to our loving heavenly Father, but we must not accuse Him of making a mess of our lives or not knowing what He is doing.  

‘When joy comes to town’ (Isaiah 61:1-3)

Heba was a Syrian refugee in Lebanon.  There was a church in the area where she had an apartment.  One evening her six-year-old son asked ‘why is that building glowing?  Can we go in and see?’  Her son, Ali, saw a light every time he looked at that building.  But Heba would not let him go in to a church building.

This went on for a month until one day Ali let go of her hand and ran into the building.  Heba followed but could not see him among the people.  What she did see was a group of people singing and the words of those songs washed over her and touched her deeply.  Her feet felt fixed on the floor.  After a few songs someone touched her, it was Ali.

Then someone got up to preach.  Heba had been told that Christians had corrupted the scriptures and so shew as not going to listen.  They left, but she could not forget the songs.

Next Sunday evening they were barely out of their apartment when Ali asked to go to the church again.  She agreed to slip in quietly for a few minutes.  She was disappointed that they weren’t singing, the pastor got up and spoke from Isaiah.  What Heba didn’t know was the pastor had changed the text when he saw her come in.  He looked at her and decided to speak on a passage that clearly spelt out the beauty of the good news.  He spoke Isaiah 61.  This is what he said:

‘He [Jesus] has come to preach good news to the poor.  He has come to bind the brokenhearted.  He has come to set the captives free.  He has come to comfort all who mourn.  He has come to give a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning.  He has come to give you a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.  He has come to set you free.  He has come to give you life!  Come to Jesus and everything will change.  You will start your life over and be born again.’

He then closed with an invitation: ‘are there any of you who feel like you are held captive the as Isaiah described?  Do you want to be set free?  Jesus wants to forgive your sins.  Settle all this with Jesus tonight and come to the cross.  Who wants forgiveness and freedom?’

Heba shocked herself, and everyone else, by shouting out, ‘I do!’ 

But her new found faith has not been easy.  Her husband reacted sharply.  She can’t even hide a Bible in their apartment, so she learns large passages off by heart.  Eventually, memorizing the Word of God became more important to her than the food she ate.  Her joy was to teach Ali about Jesus.  Her greatest prayer is that her husband would know Jesus for himself.

1.      Jesus preaches the good news to the poor

Why the poor?  It is not necessarily wrong to be rich, but it is interesting that for every time the Bible talks of the blessings of possessions it gives nine warnings of the dangers.  Wealth can make us proud and self-sufficient.  In the book of Revelation, a wealthy church says to the risen Jesus, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing’, to which He says, ‘you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked’ (Revelation 3:17). 

This word for poor can speak of poverty of any kind.  It is only when we realize that we are empty that we come to Jesus to be filled.  It is only when we find that life does not satisfy that we come to Him for meaning and purpose.  It is only when we see that we are morally bankrupt that we seek His forgiveness.

What about sight to the blind?  In the book of Acts the apostle Paul shares his story of being converted from having being a persecutor of Christians to being a lover of Jesus.  Jesus tells him that he was being sent to the gentiles [non-Jews] ‘to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness from sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me’ (Acts 26:16-18).  There is a spiritual sight that this good news gives.

2.       Jesus binds up the brokenhearted

One of my favorite descriptions of God is found in 2 Corinthians.  ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort which we ourselves are comforted by God’ (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).  Notice that this is not a promise of a life without pain but of a God who is with us in all we face.  Earlier in Isaiah God says, ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you …’ (43:1b-2a).  There will come a day when God Himself promises to wipe away all the tears from our eyes (Revelation 21:4).  But as we await that day there will be plenty of times where our joy in belonging to Jesus will be mixed with the sorrow of living in a broken and corrupt world.

There is one sorrow in our lives that God wants to deal with straight away.  You see when the Holy Spirit works in us He convicts us of our evil and guilt.  This is different than the work of the evil one who simply seeks to accuse us.  Unlike the devil, the Holy Spirit points us to God and His infinite mercy.  He gives us hope!

In the most important verse in the Bible on theme of repentance the apostle Paul writes, ‘godly sorrow produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly sorrow produces death’ (2 Corinthians 7:10).  Worldly sorrow is rooted in pride.  It hates the fact that you have been caught.  Whereas godly sorrow realizes that first and foremost the evil we have done has been committed against the infinitely holy love of God.  The Spirit causes us to cry out to God that He would change us.  Delight comes as we realize that no matter how evil our hearts the mercy of God is greater.  On the cross the Messiah was pierced for our transgressions and the punishment that brings us peace was upon Him (Isaiah: 53:5).

3.      Jesus sets the captives free

Isaiah was originally addressing a people who had continually pushed God aside and done what they knew to be wrong.  God had repeatedly warned them, but they would not listen.  As a result, their land was invaded and they were taken into exile in Babylon.  Even there they would not turn back to Him.  But God’s mercy did not give up on them.  He continued to speak to them.  He spoke tenderly to their hearts and He won them back with words of kindness.  Now God is going to bring them home to their land.

Apart from God you are not free!  Don’t we all find ourselves doing things that we don’t want to do?  Have you got regrets?  Wouldn’t you like to change?  A famous author recently admitted that she felt a god-shaped hole in her life.  All her success could not fulfil her.  Come home!  ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool’ (Isaiah 1:18).  ‘Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price’ (Isaiah 55:1).

When Jesus’ birth was announced to the shepherds, the angel declared, ‘I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people’ (Luke 2:9).  When the apostle Peter wrote of what it means to know the risen Jesus, even as he faced opposition and eventually martyrdom, he called it ‘joy unspeakable’ (1 Peter 1:8).  Isaiah promises ‘the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.’ (3a).  The flavor of Christianity is joy (Ray Ortland).

Conclusion

Remember Heba.  The pastor in that church had planned to preach on another passage, but chose these verses when he saw her come in.  He chose well, for God had it ordered in such a way that when Jesus spoke in the synagogue of his home town of Nazareth at the beginning of his ministry he would start here.   

But when Jesus read these verses in the synagogue at his home town of Nazareth, he deliberately left out the line about the day of the vengeance of our God.  Why?  Because that day has yet to come!  Today is a day when we are to 'seek the Lord while he may be found' and 'call on him while he is near'.  He will return and bring perfect justice, and on that day we want him as our saviour and not our judge.

So why have we stopped rejoicing?  Maybe we have forgotten how great this good news is!  Maybe we have forgotten that we are beggars who have been given bread.  Maybe we have forgotten that we are prisoners who have not only been set free but have been taken to the master's house to dine at his table as beloved sons and daughters.  Maybe we are not living in awareness of the truth that there is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Maybe it is because we are not preaching the gospel to ourselves every day.  Maybe it is because we are hearing the accusation of the accuser of our souls, not realising that while 'while we all stumble in many ways' (James 3:2), nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. 

May the Holy Spirit cause us to cry out 'abba, Father', and assure us that this good news is good news for us!

Isaiah 43:1-7 ‘When you pass through the waters’

 

Keith Jones worked with the Mission Aviation Fellowship.  He served for two years in Chad, and as chief executive.  His wife Lynn was diagnosed with Leukaemia.  He went to visit her in the isolation ward, and she was skin and bones.  She looked at him and declared, ‘Keith, get out of my life.  I don’t want to see you again.’  He told her at the end of the visit, ‘I will see you tomorrow.’  ‘Don’t bother,’ she replied.  ‘But, I can’t leave you.’

Lynn died at the age of forty-three.  

A few months later God spoke to Keith in his mind.  ‘Remember the time Lynn rejected you?  I felt something similar.  My Son was unrecognizable in his suffering, I wanted to embrace Him.  But I turned my back on Him.  I did that for you.’

The Father wanted to embrace His beloved.  The Father withheld that embrace in love for us!

1.      God does not love you because are good

Look back a few verses and see what these people are like!  God had brought His people into exile in Babylon because they would not obey Him in love.  There he sought to win back their hearts.  Yet they continued to sin.  They are blind—refusing to look at Him, deaf—refusing to hear Him.  Here was their God ‘in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?’ (42:24).

But in His amazing grace God is not going to treat them as their sins deserve but according to His loving kindness.  ‘But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’  They have shown no interest in God and yet He has always loved them.

2.       God is with you in the storm

I spoke on these verses in a church, and after the service a young woman, health problems came and spoke to me.  She said that when she was a young Christian God had woken her in the middle of the night with these words.  ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’  She wasn’t particularly familiar with this passage and had to look them up.  She holds on to these words in the storms she passes through.  The most important thing in your life is not what people say about you but who you belong to.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk on the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you (2).  It is quite like Psalm 23, isn’t it?  In the middle of that Psalm David says that he fears no evil ‘for you are with me’.

Notice that God says ‘when’ not ‘if’.  When you pass through the waters I will be with you.    These people in exile in Babylon would pass through many difficulties before they returned home.  They are loved by God, but they are not promised that life and easy life.  Circumstances may suggest that God does not love us, but His promises tell us that He is with us.  Corrie ten Boom famously said that ‘there is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper deeper still.’

Psychologists say that the brain cannot process anxiety and gratitude at the same time.  I have tried to use this to deal with stress.  When you are passing through the waters try to remember God’s presence by thanking Him for His goodness.  Try to thank Him for those beautiful pictures of Jesus’ sympathy that we see in the gospels.  Try to thank Him for the way that He has brought you through similar stressful situations in the past.  Most of all thank Him for what He has done through the cross.

3.      God wants us to know His love in the storm

He will be with us in the waters and the fires, ‘For I am the LORD your God.’  It is His very nature to be with His people in the midst of our storms.  He is Yahweh.  The God who revealed His name to Moses at the burning bush.  Moses was to tell his people that God was going to confront the Egyptians and bring them out of Egypt.  When they thought that the task was too great for them Moses was to tell them that God is the great ‘I am’.  Yahweh is the God they need Him to be in the situation to which He is calling them.  Yahweh is the God we need Him to be in the storms that we find ourselves in.

He is our Savior who gave up Egypt as our ransom.  He overturned Egypt to bring their ancestors our of slavery in Egypt.  Why did he do that?  ‘Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you’ (4a).  ‘I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life’ (4b).  In fact, God has done something far greater than overturning Egypt to bring His people out of slavery.  He has given a man—the man Christ Jesus so that we could be set free from guilt and the fear of death, and we could live our lives in the gaze of His love.  This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us (1 John 3:16).

‘And I love you’ (4b).  Those are life transforming words.  My friend Georgina was given a copy of the little book, ‘The Heart of Jesus’, by Dane Ortland.  She read it twice in a week and it turned her world upside down.  She said, ‘In all my forty-seven years no one ever told me that God actually loves me.’

For some of you those words are harder to accept than for others.  Maybe you look at the circumstances of your life and they seem to speak against God’s love for you.  Please ask God for the strength to trust Him.  Please ask God for the ability to look at the cross and see the objective evidence of His love of His love.  For some it can be our disposition.  In our struggles with our mental health we are beset with doubts.  I think one of the most important prayers that we can pray for our struggling brothers and sisters in Jesus is that they would have the strength through the Holy Spirit to comprehend with all God’s people what is the length and height and depth of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:14-21).

Our reading ends with God gathering His scattered people to Himself for His glory.  He would bring the exiles home.  He continues to gather people from every corner to Himself.  Jesus invites us saying, ‘Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.’  He promises to never turn anyone who comes to Him.

Conclusion

When I heard that illustration about Keith Jones and his wife, Lynn, I actually thought of it a different way.  I say ourselves being like his wife saying, ‘Keith, get out of my life, I don’t want to see you again.’  And God is the one who says, ‘I can’t leave you.’  We break His heart all the time, but He goes on loving us.  He loves us despite all our failings; He is with us in the storm: He wants us to know that love in the storm.

Isaiah 55:6-13 “God is more merciful than you realise”

 

Has anyone ever said to you that ‘God’s thoughts are not our thoughts; God’s ways are not our ways’? 

We tend to say this when things happen in our lives that are not what we would have wanted or expected.  That is true, but it was only when I read Gentle and Lowly that I realised that the context of this truth is actually the mercy of God. 

What Isaiah is saying is, ‘while we struggle to forgive, and sometimes imagine that God is reluctant to forgive, his ways are not our ways, and His mercy exceeds our greatest expectations.’

God is more merciful than any of us can grasp!

1.      It is not too late to come home

‘Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near’ (6). 

You have to realise that the very ability to call on the Lord is a gift from God.  By nature, we run from God’s call.  We are hostile to the idea that we are wicked people whose only hope is God’s abundant mercy.  We would rather prove ourselves worthy than admit that our only hope is Jesus’ taking our guilt on His shoulders.  It is a sign of God at work when we call on Him!

John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, wrote that ‘you can never come too late to Jesus Christ if you truly come.’  Maybe you have resisted a real relationship with him for years.  You have a lifetime of rejecting His offer of grace.  It’s not too late.  But be careful.  It could become too late.  You could drop dead this afternoon and have to face Jesus not as rescuer but as judge.  It could become too late because your heart might become so hard from saying ‘no’ to Christ’s invitation that it reaches a place where it can no longer say ‘yes’.

Come now!  If you have never known him before, come now!  If you have drifted away from Him, come home!  He will welcome you with open arms!  ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the LORD, that he may abundantly pardon.’ (7).  Notice that there is no small print in this promise.  There are no exceptions.  Come and He will embrace you!

2.       God’s welcome has no exceptions

But maybe you have small thoughts of God’s forgiveness.  You fear that He could not forgive you.  Your problem is not that you have exaggerated thoughts of how awful your sins are—they are worse than you realise—but you have too small a view of God’s willingness to show mercy.

In Psalm 103:11-12 we read, ‘for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’  In our passage we God says, ‘as the heavens are higher than the earth, so and my ways greater than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’.  His thoughts are greater than ours because they are rooted in a love that can barely imagine and a forgiveness that is immeasurable.

John Bunyan lived an awful life before he came to Jesus.  He had rejected Jesus many times and had spoken hateful words against God.  He worried that he was too great a sinner to be forgiven.  He writes about it in a book called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.  He came to peace by thinking hard on Jesus’ promise that ‘I will never cast away anyone who comes to me’ (John 6:37).  He wrote a whole book on that verse, it’s called Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ.

‘But you don’t know what I did.  If you knew what I did you would realise that there is no hope for me.’  I don’t need to know what you did!  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’

‘But I strayed very far from Jesus.  I loved Him and left Him.  I denied Him and rejected Him.’  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’

‘But I knew exactly what I was doing.  I sinned against the light.  I knew how evil what I did was.  I willing broke Jesus’ heart’.  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’ 

‘But I think I have committed what the Bible calls the unforgiveable sin.’  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’  If you were guilty of the unforgivable sin you would not have the slightest desire to come to Him.

‘But I can do nothing to make up for what I have done.’  Look at the beginning of this chapter of Isaiah.  ‘Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat …’ (1).  Jesus is the bread of life who wants you to feast for free!

The great Welsh preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that the most common thing people came to him for advice on was ‘that one sin.’  They feared that there was something so terrible in their past that forever excluded them from the love of God.  Lloyd-Jones would point them to the promises of God and then explain that their real problem was not their past sin, which Christ has dealt with, but their unwillingness to take God at His word.

I have noticed that come people who suffer with clinical anxiety—I struggle with O.C.D.—can find it almost impossible to feel secure in Christ’s forgiveness.  Sometimes we need medical help as well as spiritual help.  Sometimes we need the doctor as well as the pastor.  But whatever stops you from taking God at His word battle against it.  We pray with that noble father who cried ‘I do believe, help me in my unbelief’ (Mark 9:24).  Remember that God is merciful with those who doubt (Jude 22).

3.       No how great your sin, God’s mercy is greater

Following on from our reading we read of the refreshing word from God that does not return empty.  This word is a word of mercy, forgiveness and life.  When we accept this word it refreshes our souls.  This word says that we need a new heart and promises that we come to Jesus he will change us from the inside out.  This word says we need to follow a new way of life and promises that when we come to Jesus He will give us new desires.  This word commands us to stand firm and promises that if we fall Jesus will pick us up and restore us.

For you shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and hills before you will break forth in singing, and the trees of the of the field shall clap their hands (12).  These words were originally spoken to a nation whose guilt had led them into exile in Babylon.  But God had not given up on them.  They are coming home.  What celebration! 

I have noticed that the most joyful Christians are simply those who marvel in the fact that God has forgiven them.  They don’t try to justify any of their wickedness.  They are truly humble about themselves.  But they have thought God’s thoughts after Him and realised that he abundantly pardons.  They are really confident in God.

Conclusion

John Bunyan was onetime criticised for always going on about the love of God.  The objection came, ‘if you keep going on and on about Jesus’ love people will simply do as they please.’  Bunyan replied, ‘No, if I keep going on and on about the love of Jesus they will do what he pleases.’  Always keep Christ’s love before your eyes.  Love much as you see that you have been forgiven much.  Ask God to bring us to that place where obedience to Him is the source of our greatest joy!  

Isaiah 55:1-11 ‘The source of satisfaction’

 

‘Our world is a vast marketplace of unsatisfying but costly remedies for our God-shaped longings.  But we are not very smart shoppers’ (Ray Ortland).

‘You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you’ (Augustine).

‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ (Mick Jagger).

1.      Come and listen (1-3)

Into our emptiness God invites us: ‘Come, everyone who thirsts.  Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come buy and eat!  Come buy wine and milk without money and without price’ (Isiah 55:1).

What is being offered here?  Wine, bread, rich food and an everlasting covenant. 

What is an everlasting covenant?  It is a solemn promise and commitment made by God.  The covenant God refers to here is the fact that God wants to take us and make us the objects of His infinite Fatherly love.  ‘I will give you all the love I promised David’ (N.L.T. verse 3).  He offers this to everyone!

It is interesting that Jesus takes these themes and uses them for Himself.  He says, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst’ (John 6:35).

My friend Georgina recently read a little book called ‘The Heart of Christ’.  It has transformed her life.  She read it twice in one week, and then she told me, ‘in my forty-seven years in this world no-one ever told me that God actually loved me.’

Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls’ (Matthew 11:28).

2.      Look and return (4-5)

He talks about the great Old Testament king, King David, and then he says, Behold, you [David] shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that you did not know shall turn to you (5). 

The people that Isaiah was speaking to knew that King David was dead.  But Isaiah is preparing them for a new king like David.  A better king.  We know that this Son of David is Jesus.

Again, notice the wideness of his invitation.  A nation you did not know shall return to you.

The first church I did pastoral ministry in was Dungannon Methodist Church.  While I was there I played on the bottom teams of the rugby club.  There was an older guy who used to come along and watch who was called Ronnie. 

One Friday I met Ronnie in the town.  It was only lunch time, but he was upset and drunk.  I asked him what was wrong and he told me that he had been given bad news by the doctor.  I said that I would call in and visit him.

When I visited he told me that his wife and his son were Christians.  I asked him if he had ever thought of giving his life to Christ.  He relied saying, ‘I am not the sort.’  I tried to explain to him that there is no one who is not the sort for Jesus.  Look at the people who flocked to Jesus!  People caught in adultery experienced a fresh start.  People who were known for being corrupt were given another chance.  There is no one who is beyond the forgiveness and restoring grace of Jesus.  Seek the Lord while he may be found … let him return that the Lord may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

           

3.      Rejoice (10-13)

This passage that began by addressing a people who could find no satisfaction ends with rejoicing.  For you shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands (12).  Something similar is found in the book of Psalms.  ‘Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.  Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing for joy; let them sing before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.  He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity’ (98:7-9).  The amazing thing is that so many people in our world suggest that all this is of little relevance.  The truth is that there is nothing all more important.  God is going to the thorns and the thistles of our dysfunctional lives and bring beauty from it.  Such grace will be a sign for God’s glory.

Conclusion

Imagine you no longer had to fear death.  Death can be a scary thought as it is a step into the unknown.  The Bible also teaches that there will be a judgement after death and that those who have not taken hold of God’s free of forgiveness and life will be eternally condemned.  Imagine that because you trust in Jesus death was simply a step into a deeper relationship with Jesus.  Imagine that you would never be condemned.  One of the reasons that we are restless is because our consciences are uneasy.  We know that there is something wrong with our hearts and we see evidence of this is some of the nasty things we say and do.  Imagine that you were loved with a love that will never let you go.  A love that does not treat you as your thoughts and actions deserve but simply based on the infinite love in the heart of God.  As one philosopher writes, ‘What can earth do to you if you are guaranteed heaven?’ (Kreeft).  It all seems to good to be true!  But it is not!  Jesus died that we might know life.

There is an invitation in the last verse of the Bible: ‘Come!  And let those who hear say come!  Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life’ (Rev. 22:17).