Isaiah 65:1-16 - A Remnant Will Be Saved

Sacred Bible and go to Isaiah chapter 65.

Isaiah 65 · chapter mention

Isaiah chapter 65.

Isaiah 65 · chapter mention

There's some passages that hit us immediately.

Strike out when we're not even ready necessarily to hear.

They don't give us time to gather ourselves or to prepare ourselves, they just simply speak.

And Isaiah 65 is one of those.

It opens with a voice that we're not expecting to hear, and before we decide what to do with it, is decided what to do with us.

Reminds me of a moment in the life of Augustine.

Augustine tells in his confessions of a story in which he was in a garden in Milan, sitting there, very troubled about the life he was living, restless and unsettled, pacing around in circles, trying to figure everything out.

At that time, he wasn't seeking God.

He wasn't even sure he wanted to, actually.

And he's wrestling with himself and wrestling with those things that he can't make sense of that drive his desires and that are pulling him apart.

And right in the middle of that moment in that garden in Milan, he hears something and he can't explain it.

It comes from outside the garden wall, and it's the voice of a child.

And he doesn't recognize the child's voice.

He doesn't even recognize what the child is saying.

Tolaloge.

Tolelog.

Or lege, I should say.

Take up and read.

What a weird thing to say.

What a stranger thing for a child to say.

And what an odd phrase that comes wafting over the wall into that garden of Milan.

The word startled Augustine.

Take up and read?

It doesn't fit anything.

It didn't fit any child's game that he knew.

It didn't fit any discussion that he might have understood.

It just comes out of nowhere and it lands right in his ears.

What does it mean?

He couldn't tell.

But it shook him.

And there close to him was a copy of Scripture.

And so reluctantly he opens it up.

And he's like, I think I need to take this up and read it.

And he lands on Romans chapter 13.

Romans 13 · chapter mention

And right there is his heart.

All the things he had been wrestling with, all the things that had been disturbing him and disorienting him, are being exposed right in that passage.

And later he described that experience and he said to God, You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.

This is what I think of when I think of Isaiah 65.

Take a look at the first two verses.

I was sought by those who did not ask.

I was found by those who did not seek me.

I said, Here I am, here I am to a nation that did not call on my name.

Here's, like I said, a chapter that doesn't wait for us to begin searching, or for us to be spiritually alert or attentive.

God here is saying that he's speaking into places that are not listening for him, that have grown accustomed to their own patterns.

And when he speaks, as we'll find out, it's not only comforting, it's also unsettling.

It's going to name things that we wouldn't prefer to have named, and it will shine light in places we'd like to keep dim.

But it also blazes glorious light in places where we would long to see that light be.

So this morning, as we look at this passage, I'd like for us to hear those words tolalege, tolalege, that Augustine hurt.

Take up and read.

And may we not take it up reluctantly like he did at first, but may we take it up with amazement and reception as it speaks to us.

The first thing I want us to hear, we're going to look at three points, is that God stands ready.

God stands ready.

Verse 1, again, I was sought by those who did not ask.

I was found by those who did not seek me.

I said, Here I am, here I am to a nation that did not call on my name.

Now, when we step into this verse, we're stepping into God's answer to the prayer that started in chapter 63 and 64, where the people cried out, Where are you?

Why did you let us wander?

Are you ever going to restrain yourself more?

Why are you silent?

Prayer full of longing and confusion, as we looked at it last week, and this coming out of this deep sense that God is far, far away.

Life is a mess and it's trouble.

And where are you, God?

God doesn't explain his silence.

He actually reveals his presence.

He says, I've always been here.

I've always been here.

He gently towards to the people who are asking these questions, who are saying, Why aren't you speaking?

And he responds and says, I've been calling.

You just haven't been listening.

To these people who say, Why are you hidden?

And he's saying, I'm right here.

I'm right here.

Isaiah wants us to feel the weight of that.

God is not responding to people who are seeking him with all his heart.

He's stepping into people's lives when they aren't listening.

What's so sad about this passage, and we'll see this in a moment, it's talking to people who have become so accustomed to their patterns, so used to their spiritual drift, that they couldn't recognize the Lord even when he did speak to them.

It's sad.

But what the Lord is telling us in essence here is that he is ready to be found by people who are not ready to be found by him.

It shows something of the generosity of his heart, of his ability to move in grace to those who ignore him.

He's the one who speaks first, he's the one that steps forward first, and he's the one who finds them when they're not even crying out.

To reshape their lives.

Now, a lot of us in this room can look back on that, right?

And we can see those moments when God invaded our lives with grace and mercy when we weren't seeking Him.

Life was full, thought it was great.

Our responsibilities we took care of, our family we loved.

We weren't asking spiritual questions until something unexpected found us.

A conversation, a moment of clarity, a word from a friend.

I was in a bar in Plattsburgh, New York, sitting next to a friend named Chuck, who's still a friend, by the way, who sends me crazy things on Facebook from time to time.

And I look over at him and I'm saying, Chuck, why aren't you drinking tonight?

I started going to a church.

You could have pushed me over with just a finger.

I'm like, what?

You guys know what that's like.

All of a sudden, that one single moment, unexpectedly, completely out of the blue, you have no idea what it is, and there it is, that single moment when you're like, God is here.

There's others, and I'm grateful that you have this experience, not the kind I had, where you've grown up in church, but sometimes church is just part of the fabric of your life and your routines, and you're not tuned into it at all.

You're going on, and then all of a sudden there's that one sermon that just lands completely differently.

And you're thinking, I'm listening now.

Or that time when a friend reaches out and you realize that it's the extension of God's loving arm when that friend spoke to you.

Or a passage that you've read and you've ignored a hundred thousand times, and then all of a sudden, there it is, staring at you, and it awakens you.

What is that?

I was heard by a people who were not seeking me.

That's what that is.

Maybe you're here today and you said the last thing on earth I thought about doing today was going to church, but here you are.

On September 4th, 1983, walking out of my barracks room, and there's Chuck in the hallway saying, You're gonna come to a church with me today?

That was the last place I woke up, I thought about when I woke up.

And I look at him and I say, Well, okay, let me get my clothes on.

And I go to church.

Maybe you're here today.

Maybe for the first time in your life, you're listening to God's word.

It's not something you've sought, but now you realize he's got your attention and he wants to say something to you.

These are the kind of moments Isaiah is describing here, and we'll see how that fleshes out even more as we go forward.

When we look back, we get better understanding and we realize those those are the those are the moments, those are the cross crossroad places of my life that seemed so insignificant at the time, but were absolutely life-changing, that weren't anticipated at all, but brought me into an altering, eternally transforming moment.

And when we look back and see that happening, it should comfort our hearts in the realization that that isn't about how good we've become for God to accept us, but to recognize it's never been about that at all, anyway.

It's been about a God who reaches out in mercy, even to those who aren't asking for it.

But Isaiah doesn't stop there.

We need to progress through this.

He now turns to people whose voice, his voice is still distant, not because he's silent, but because they've closed their ears to him.

So not only does he stand ready, but he also stands against, against those who refuse him.

And here we get into a section of this passage that is rather striking.

We've just seen God's hands outstretched, his posture open, his invitation ready, his mercy extended all day long, but they don't want to turn toward it.

They want to keep moving down the wrong direction.

And in these verses that we'll look at, we'll see the indictment and the implication that God provides these people.

We'll begin with the indictment in verse 2.

Let's take a look at it.

I spread out my hands all day long to a rebellious people who walk in the path that is not good, following their own thoughts.

For the people of Israel, this was a direct confrontation.

These were people being talked to by their covenant God, who had rescued them, who had given them promises, who had instructed them, who had warned them not to be in the place that they're at.

And he says he's been standing there with outstretched arms.

And they just simply walked by it like they didn't even see his reach, following their own thoughts.

He said, These are people whose lives are shaped by their own instincts rather than my revelation, whose habits are reflecting the values of the surrounding world rather than the revelation of my person.

Ignoring God, ignoring his counsel, ignoring his invitations, and even ignoring his warnings, building their entire spiritual world in direct contradiction to God.

And the indictment lays that out really clearly.

Take a look at verse 3.

These people continually anger me to my face, sacrificing in gardens, burning incense on bricks, sitting among the graves, spending night in secret places, eating the meat of pigs and putting polluted broth in their bowls.

Wow, the indictment is striking.

Now, these things seem a little odd to us, especially those of us who like bacon.

But there's something about how treacherous these practices are, because every one of them is a direct violation to God's covenant stipulations to them as a special people.

They sacrifice in the gardens, the places God forbade them to make those sacrifices.

They burn incense on bricks, rituals borrowed from pagan idolatry.

They sit among the graves and spend nights in secret places talking about their love of the occult, of trying to get a word of wisdom from the diviners and the soothsayers, eating the meat of pigs and polluting broth in their bowls.

These are not missteps, these are egregious and deliberate violations of God's law.

And Isaiah wants them to see something that's even more sobering than that.

Take a look at the next verse.

They say, Keep to yourself, don't come near me, for I am too holy for you.

Wow.

These are people who are living in open rebellion to God's word.

At the very same time, they're claiming a superior holiness to other people.

What a contradiction.

It's deceived self-righteousness wearing the clothes of devotion.

And they think that their practices are legitimate.

They have wandered so far from God and have so closed their ears to hearing Him that they can no longer tell the difference between worship and idolatry.

They can no longer tell the difference between devotion and rebellion.

They can no longer tell the difference between the voice of God and the voice of their own desires.

God wants us to feel the weight of that too.

He wants us to see that sin left unchallenged will cause us to drift.

And that drift will harden and blind as it grows.

And it will harden and blind so much so that we can have a spiritual life that feels sincere and be in direct rebellion against God Himself.

And all the while thinking, wasn't that a great worship experience?

God warns us to listen.

Paul understood the dynamic of this, and he speaks about it in a developmental way in Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

He looks at his own people in his generation.

People who had the scriptures, people who had the covenants, people who had the promises, people who had had the reception of the Messiah himself, and he sees in Isaiah 65 the tragedy that Isaiah saw in his generation.

Many of Paul's fellow Jewish people, as he was, were zealous, devout, sincere.

But their sincerity of religion was not submission to God.

It was actually self-righteousness.

Their devotion wasn't an expression of love and attachment to God.

It was actually denial of Him.

Their worship was not genuine.

And Paul in Romans chapter 10 explains the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

He explains its growth and its development in the world.

And he talks about whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, for the same Lord is rich over all to Jew and to Gentile.

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And he talks about that message going forth.

And he says, faith comes from what is heard.

Have they not heard?

Yes, they did.

He says in Romans 10.

The voice has gone out to the whole earth, and the words to the end of the world.

But I ask again, and Paul brings in that question again.

Did they not understand?

First, Moses said, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation, and I'll make you angry by a nation that lacks understanding.

And Isaiah says boldly, I was found by those who were not looking for me.

I revealed myself to those who were not asking.

But to Israel, he said, All day long have I held out my hands to a disobedient and defiant people.

Paul looks around him and he sees things happening.

He sees Gentiles, people who are not seeking God, turning to Christ in joy.

And he sees the people who are expecting the Messiah and waiting for him and letting Jesus walk right by them without saying, that's the one.

Who have every advantage but are refusing the gospel.

And so he uses Isaiah 65 and verse 1 and says, Those are the Gentiles.

I was heard by a people who were not listening.

And he uses verse 2 and says, Those are my fellow countrymen.

God has been stretching out his hands all day long to them, and they haven't responded.

He's put the voice of his wondrous grace in the Messiah out there, and they have not opened their ears.

What does Paul say?

What does Isaiah say?

It is possible to be deeply religious and deeply defiant against God at the same time.

You've got your truth, I've got my truth, you've got your way, as long as we're all just sincere.

Because really it's sincerity that matters.

Yeah.

Have you asked God whether that's Right or not?

Because here he says it isn't right.

It's actually defiance, not sincerity, that you're practicing in your worship time.

And it's not just an out there problem either.

There are people in churches today who live in patterns of sin just as sensuous and serious as what Isaiah describes here.

Patterns of behavior, while they're singing about the marriage supper of the Lamb, they're doing things that are destroying their own marriages.

Who are saying, I love the God who cannot lie, but then they're distorting the truth with their neighbor.

Who are saying, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner, and then they step all over vulnerable people in their business decisions, who violate the holiness of God and yet see themselves as faithful Christians.

Speaking the language of devotion, practicing the rhythms of worship, assuming they're walking with God, people today who are rewriting moral boundaries in order to accommodate their personal desires, reshaping scripture to fit their life choices rather than their choices being fit by what Scripture says.

Who's saying that the things that they're doing are simply their ability to have freedom or they're just showing their authenticity and using that as a cloak for their disobedience, or speaking of grace and love and peace to defend what they're doing rather than naming it what God says.

It's destructive and sin.

People who cloak greed or lust or gossip under the veneer of Christian respectability.

Learn how to appear righteous and yet nurture patterns that contradict everything God says.

And it's not just in the pews, it's in the pulpit, all over the place.

Pastors who use their sexual their spiritual authority to manipulate vulnerable women, who frame sexual sin as caring for the shepherd.

Or we have some special connection.

God has brought two hearts together.

How horrible and horrific that is.

Look, look, look, it's written in front of me, I will not keep silent.

I will repay.

I will repay them fully.

For your iniquities and the iniquities of your ancestors together, says the Lord, because they burned incense on the mountains and reproached me on the hills, I will reward them fully for their former deeds.

So now in verses 11 to 15, God unpacks what that chosen path of rebellion leads to.

And what is he doing?

He's using very stark language, very, very startling language to break through the illusion that you can be self-righteous and refuse God and still be blessed.

To show us that the consequences of turning from God are not just abstracts, they're personal, they're devastating, and they're real.

And he presses this down on us so that we might be awake, that we might be prompted to repentance, lest we be crushed by the judgment that this speaks about.

And just look at the verses, verse 12, all the way through 15.

I will destine you for the sword, and all you will kneel down to be slaughtered, because I called and you did not answer.

I spoke and you did not hear.

You did what was evil in my sight and chose what I did not delight in.

Therefore, this is what the Lord says.

And then in verse 13, he says, You're going to be hungry, you're going to be thirsty, you're going to be put to shame.

In verse 14, you're going to cry out with a broken spirit and heart.

In verse 15, you will leave your name behind as a curse for my chosen ones.

And then it ends up, the Lord God will kill you.

All of this to words, to people who are assuming that the direction of their life doesn't matter.

That God will always be there to bless, that God will always be there to comfort, that God will always be there to affirm, no matter how far they've drifted away.

Isaiah says those assumptions are deadly.

That's poison.

Because a life that continually pushes God away is going to discover that they're not able to find any of the things that they had hoped for.

Because the ultimate end will be no peace, no joy, no stability, no identity, no life.

None.

And that heart that started out refusing God's voice becomes a heart that can't hear God's voice.

But one day that voice will break through the deafness and silence.

And it will not be a word of welcome.

It will be barren and bitter.

These are hard, hard words.

But they are the consequences of refusing God that finally lands in ultimate judgment.

It begins with the slow erosion of the soul, the quiet hardening of the heart, the gradual loss of spiritual appetites, the growing inability to recognize God's voice, and the voice of your own desires, and the call of the people outside begins to speak louder to you than that, and then you eventually end up here.

Right here.

Simply to scare, but to awaken.

To bring us to the end of ourselves.

For us to say, you know, what am I doing?

Why am I not listening to him?

Thankfully, this is not the end of this story here.

Because we've skipped over a little section and we've entered into a part that we've emphasized only half of.

It tells something else.

And it goes back to those first words in verse 1 of this God who says, Here I am.

Here I am.

And he shows us here that God not only stands ready to receive, he's ready to reward all those who are his.

Take a look at verse 8.

And listen to it now.

The Lord says this as the new wine is formed in a bunch of grapes, and one says, Don't destroy it, for there's some good in it, so will act because of my servants and not destroy them all.

I will produce descendants from Jacob and heirs to my mountain from Judah.

My choice ones will possess it, and my servants will dwell there.

God now turns our attention to his mercy, mercy, that he is going to act even amongst those who are not paying attention to him.

And he draws an understanding from an imagery in a vineyard about a worker who's about to discard a cluster of grapes because, well, it just looks ruined.

And someone says to that worker who's about to throw those grapes away, saying, Look, don't destroy those.

Give them here.

There's still something good in that.

And God says that's how He's going to deal with Judah.

He's not going to utterly crush the people.

He's not going to leave them utterly left dead in the wasteland.

He's going to do something there.

He's going to take people from what looks like a ruined bunch of grapes, and he's going to make sure that they're alive, that some of them are still responsive, that some of them are still capable of bearing fruit.

And to those, he's going to protect and keep.

And in verse 9, he talks about bringing forth descendants from Jacob and heirs of my mountains from Judah and his choice ones possessing it.

What is this?

This is language of God's promise of his covenant keeping promises.

And what he's saying here is he's not simply preserving individuals, he's preserving his promise.

He's safeguarding the line through which his purposes will come to final completion.

And even though the nation of Judah is bleak and worthy of judgment, even though they have nothing to offer and have not been listening to him for generations, he's going to keep a remnant among them, to keep the line of his promises intact, so that his redemptive plan will continue to move forward.

Because here we see that this remnant theme is not just a side note in a poetic expression, but it is the theme that carries the story of Israel forward into the New Testament.

Because God keeps his people alive and preserves them.

And from those preserved people will come their Messiah.

And some of them will believe.

And the remnant that will receive this Redeemer will also be those who will open the doors to the nations that they might believe.

And this is why Paul reached for Isaiah 65 in Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

I was found by those who did not seek me.

Even among the Jewish people as well as among the Gentile people.

Because God here is saying he's going to keep his promise.

He's going to be found by people who aren't thinking about him right now.

He's going to give mercy that will guard the remnant in order to give mercy to an unseeking world.

And then he talks about how delightful that's going to be in verses 13 and 14.

My servants will eat.

My servants will drink.

My servants will rejoice.

My servants will shout for joy from a glad heart.

Some people are going to do that today during the Super Bowl.

They're going to eat, they're going to drink, they're going to rejoice, and they're going to shout for joy.

Especially if you're a Patriots fan, right, Royal?

She's the only one in the room who's a Patriots fan.

She's already talking new dynasty.

Now these are simple images, right?

And we could put them into the framework as something as really as unimportant in the big sphere of things as a Super Bowl.

Eating, drinking, rejoicing, shouting.

We could do that this afternoon.

But this isn't just because they're simple and familiar words to us, they speak of something far better.

My servants will eat, my servants will drink, my servants will rejoice, my servants will shout.

Why are they shouting?

Why are they eating and drinking in gladness and delight and joy?

Because their sins are forgiven.

Because they're restored to God.

Because they're now His.

This is not a shallow joy.

This is a shout of people who deserve judgment, who have been preserved and welcomed.

And he goes on in verse 15.

He said, I will give, he will give his servants another name.

Another name.

These are people whose identities have now been changed.

Shaped not by their failures, but by God's faithfulness and his grace.

Their old name, one that was tied to rebellion, it's not going to define them anymore.

God's going to give them a new name.

And he himself will name them.

And he wants them to know that his relationship to them is not reflective of what they were in the past, but reflective on who he is and his grace.

This is the new name.

And Isaiah just drops this in as a seed of thought here.

But when we get to the New Testament, Jesus talks about having his people and calling them out by name.

And Paul talks about people being part of a new creation, and all things are new.

Something's different about all of us.

And then Peter talks about us being a people for God's possession.

And then it culminates in the book of Revelation in Revelation 2.17, where Jesus speaks and he says, I will give them a white stone, and on that stone a new name.

And then in chapter 3 and verse 12, I will write on him the name of my God and my new name.

And they're going to be identified as his.

Lord, where are you?

Why are you silent?

Remember God's answer.

Here I am.

Here I am.

If he was a God who made his voice be heard in your heart when you weren't seeking him, you don't need to doubt if his ears are toward you now that you're one of his.

You don't have to cry, where are you?

You can say, My troubles have so overwhelmed me, I'm not sure I can listen well.

But you never have to say in truth, where are you?

Because he's here.

Certainly he can speak into the places of your weakness and your thirst and your hunger.

He can speak into your uncertainties.

He can speak into your pain.

If you're here this morning and you're and God forbid, one of the ones who's just making a show of being here, I have to warn you the way Isaiah warned, that end is destruction.

This is no place to be playing games with God or with God's people.

And if you're here this morning and you're saying, I feel like Augustine sitting in a garden in Milan and hearing the words tolalegay, tolalegay, take up and read.

I wasn't expecting to hear anything.

I just showed up because a friend yanked me here, and now I'm listening.

What's going on?

Think of it this way.

This might just seem like another day on your calendar at the moment.

But maybe in a week or a month or a year, you'll look back and say, that was the day that changed my whole life.

When God's word broke in, and I finally heard him, and I heard him say, Come unto me and I will give you rest.

And I finally wanted him to be the one who does.

Listen to him.

Listen to him when it's pleasant, listen to him when it's painful.

Listen to him when it's comfortable.

Listen to him when it makes you squirm.

But don't ever close your ears to him.

Because if you close them now, you may never be able to hear it again.

Listen to him.

Let's pray.

Oh Father, thank you for these words that come to us this morning.

Words that have been written nearly 3,000 years ago, and yet are as contemporary as today's news.

And much, much more important.

Father, thank you that you're a God who is found by those who do not seek.

And that you say, Here I am, to people who are not calling on you.

Father, we don't want to be those who are passing by your outstretched arms and to walk in a path that's not good.

We want to be those who are embraced by those outstretched arms.

And so, Lord, we come.

And we say, Lord, help us to hear better, to hear you.

Father, I pray that what we've heard today will bring, as you design it, comfort to those who need comforting, distress who are too comfortable.

And Lord, truth to those whose eyes are filled with falsehood.

But bring security to the troubled, those who are wondering, Father, whether you could ever love them.

We pray that it will be words that will give their hearts rest, renewal and hope, security and safety, life and vitality, as they find their days anchored in the promises that you grant here, that if they come to you, they will be a part of that new heaven and new earth.

And they will be part of that experience where the past events come to their end and the newness opens up into everlasting joy.

Father, cause them to see that.

The sound of weeping and crying will no longer be heard.

One day.