Isaiah 56:1-8 - More Than You can Imagine

Buongiorno.

We're back in Rome, and so the Italian is flowing out.

I just really want to thank you so much for just uh receiving me once again.

This has been a wonderful trip, a quick trip, and uh uh have been back to just celebrate the baptism of our son Samuel in Atlanta, and that was a real joy.

But uh I didn't want to go back without visiting you all.

And uh it's just been a real privilege to be with your pastor this week.

Uh, I will say, without embarrassing him, there is no one who has uh ministered to me more uh than he has done over the course of uh this past year and ministered to our family.

And so you are very blessed to have him in your midst and of course all your leaders.

Uh and I have consider myself incredibly privileged to preach Isaiah and to uh sort of interrupt um in the midst of wonderful sermons that you are receiving already, having listened to your pastor online and discussed Isaiah, and so this is a rich moment for me.

And yes, I am also here for Banu's cooking.

In Isaiah 56, beginning verses 1 through 8, we will look at the servant according to Isaiah, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the coming of the Son, more specifically, and the people to come.

God's people that will be drawn to him through the Son's coming.

And so our focus will be on the sun and on the people.

Before us, then in our passage is the sun and the people, the people to come, the people the sun will bring to salvation with his coming.

Through the prophecy, Isaiah's vision, we we are given a portrait of salvation in the last days.

Salvation in the last days, what does it look like?

Isaiah's message is in the last days, salvation will include all peoples.

All peoples.

Herein lies the subject matter of chapters 56 through 66, this final section of the book that you have been blessed to go through until now.

The salvation Isaiah looks to, in other words, includes all the peoples of the earth, all those God will draw, called to himself through the sons, justification of the many, you know this, through his being pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, chastened for our peace, and wounded so that we could be healed, Isaiah 53, 5.

This salvation will reach to the end of the earth, Isaiah 49.

Jesus tells his disciples before his ascension, and you shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the end of the earth, Luke 118.

And so may this message give us great encouragement to continue on being his disciples to a people through the Son.

Please follow along as we read our passage, Isaiah 56, verses 1 through 8.

Isaiah 56:1–8

Thus says Yahweh, keep justice and do righteousness, for my salvation is about to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.

How blessed is the man who does this, and the Son of Man who takes hold of it, who keeps from profaning the Sabbath, and keeps his hand from doing eve any evil.

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to Yahweh say, Yahweh will surely separate me from his people.

Nor let the eunuchs say, Behold, I am a dry tree.

For thus says Yahweh, to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me, and hold fast my covenant, to them I will give my house and within my walls a memorial, and a name better than that of sons and daughters, and I will give them an everlasting name, which will not be cut off.

Also the foreigners who join themselves to Yahweh to minister to him, and to love the name of Yahweh, to be his slaves, everyone who keeps from profaning the Sabbath and takes hold of my covenant, even those I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them glad in my house of prayer.

Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.

Lord Yahweh, who gathers the banished of Israel, declares, Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered.

Our passage can be understood according to the following outline, just by way of help.

The salvation the Lord is bringing in the last days includes, first of all, the perfect son.

Verses one and two will highlight the perfect son.

He is the perfect people, perfect head of the people of God, because this is all about, all about the people, the nature of the people that God will save on that last day, the perfect son, the servant, as you've heard until now.

Our passage begins then with the son, who represents the sons, plural.

And secondly, as you already heard, the people, the people to come with the son, the perfect son of God, verses three through eight.

And so as we begin to understand our text and focus on the sun, please follow along with that overview as we draw upon our passage to look and exalt this perfect son.

He is the one through whom the people will come.

Salvation, in other words, in the last days, please hear me out, will be the work of the sun.

We are gathered here this morning to worship the sun as a fruit of his saving work.

Salvation in the last days will be the work of the Son.

It is He alone who is the perfect one, the righteous one, the only one who can fulfill the righteous requirements of God's law and who fulfilled them.

Please observe the presence of the law, God's law, in verses one and two of our text.

Notice again, thus says Yahweh.

The first part of verse one introduces the authoritative word of God's special revelation.

This is his law.

Notice how the first two verses then proceed to employ legal expressions and terms.

Keep justice and do righteousness, and my righteousness to be revealed.

How blessed is the man who does this, who keeps from profaning the Sabbath, all throughout verse 1.

All of the language, all of the language heard, from Yahweh's word, thus says Yahweh, onward, is covenantal language, the language of covenant.

It is, moreover, the language of a legal or law covenant.

Follow along, listen to Deuteronomy 5, verses 1 and 2.

Deuteronomy 5:1

I'll read these passages for us.

Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the judgments which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and be careful to do them.

Verse 2 of Deuteronomy 5 continues, Yahweh our God, cut a covenant with us at Horeb.

What is a covenant?

At its core, a covenant is a relationship whereby God chooses to love a person and a people for himself.

In return, he expects those same people to love him through their obedience to his commands.

Righteousness and righteous living results from this.

The obedient life, living in obedience to God's law, upholds justice and righteousness.

You know this from the Old Testament, walking wisely in the fear of the Lord and giving testimony to the oneness of God, that He alone is God and there is no other.

Deuteronomy 6.4 is another example.

Summons Israel to this obedient life.

Hear, O Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one, you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your sons, and shall speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.

Back in Exodus 19, where the covenant between God and Israel is first cut, we hear these familiar words.

So now then, if you will indeed listen to my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

These are the words that introduce our passage, the context, if you will.

And yet we know that this is not only Israel's covenant, but it is our covenant, in that God established it from the very beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth with Adam, our forefather in the garden.

Do you remember?

Then Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may surely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for it.

For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.

Genesis 2, 15 through 17.

Please, please hear the law through that first command given to Adam and the requirement to keep it by way of his obedient work in cultivating the garden.

It is this principle of righteousness that God requires from those he has chosen to love and to be in relationship with, covenant with.

It is this same expectation to keep justice and righteousness present throughout Israel's history, as witnessed from the citations from Deuteronomy and Exodus and from Isaiah's prophecy, as heard in our own passage in Isaiah 56:1.

Isaiah 56:1

It is this same requirement, by the way, that still holds true for us today.

A Pharisee tests Jesus, asking him, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law, Matthew writes.

And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and foremost commandment.

And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, Matthew 22.

Summarizing the Old Testament, Jesus adds, On these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets, and you say, What is your point?

Here is the bad news.

It continues to be that principle of obedience to God's law that we have all broken.

Speaking of transgression and death in Adam, Paul writes to the Romans, Therefore, just as though one man sinned and entered, and sin and death entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because we all sinned.

Isaiah himself acknowledges this in his own vision when he declares in Isaiah chapter 24, 5, you've heard it before, the earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they trespassed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant.

Isaiah 24 · chapter mention

If we are gathered here this morning to exalt the Son, it is certainly not our merit, nor our works.

Please listen, our works, works of righteousness to keep and do the law, have brought upon us a curse.

For as many as are the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to do them.

Returning to verse one of our passage, Isaiah 56, we now have a context to understand the words that follow God's word.

Keep justice and do righteousness.

The second half of verse one.

Very interesting.

While the command for God's justice and righteousness does not change, while the command results in condemnation for the people's inability, inability to keep justice and do righteousness.

God's own salvation and righteousness are drawing near and to be unveiled.

This is the sense of the revealing.

Hence God's grace.

Herein lies the good news from Isaiah's day forward.

And grace of God for the people, for all peoples.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

Galatians 3:19, 3.13.

Galatians 3:19

We have a Savior projected already from this time forward, who will obey, who will keep justice, who will do righteousness on our behalf.

What is then the meaning of God's salvation about to come and God's righteousness about to reveal to be revealed in Isaiah 56.1?

Better yet, better yet, who is God's coming salvation and revealed righteousness?

He is none other than Jesus Christ, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, the Son of God, who will be given as a covenant sacrifice for the peoples, Isaiah 42, Isaiah 49, for Jews and Gentiles.

Obedience He will obey in their light, in light of their disobedience to God's law and covenantal relationship.

That is why he is my Savior and Lord.

That is why I stand here with you in brotherhood and fellowship in the Spirit today.

He obeyed on my behalf and took my curse.

Notice Isaiah's words in chapter 55.

You've already heard it wonderfully preached.

Just immediately prior to our own passage and chapter, incline your ear and come to me.

Listen that your soul may live, and I will cut an everlasting covenant with you.

According to the faithful, loving kindness of David, behold, I have given him as a witness to the peoples, a ruler and commander for the peoples.

Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, and a nation which knows you not will run to you because of Yahweh your God, even the Holy One of Israel, for he has adorned you with beautiful glory, by the servants, obedience.

We are adorned with beautiful glory, so that we join with other people and peoples of nations to be one by grace to worship.

Notice verse two as we move forward of our passage, Isaiah 56, verse 2 continues the theme of law-keeping by the lawkeeper, not by us.

Isaiah 56:2

The servant, God's coming salvation and righteousness revealed, Jesus Christ once again through the though the people are in view, as in verse 1, the perfect son is truly he who is the fulfillment of God's expectations for and on behalf of and as a representative of the people.

And so, as we understand our passage and read it, we are always thinking of the Son, the Son, the Son, or better yet, we are thinking in Christ, in Christ, in Christ.

The perfect son.

Hence, as in verse 1, and together with verse 1, the Son is Yahweh's intent.

It is he whom the people must hope in to fulfill all righteousness, Matthew 3:15.

Matthew 3:15

I am not attempting to keep justice and do righteousness on my own behalf, apart from Christ.

But Isaiah presents my hope by which I am a people, by which I stand with the family of God in God's church.

It is Him and only Him.

Turn to Christ.

Whether you have not believed or believed, turn to Christ.

The language depicting the Son is even more pronounced than in verse 1.

Observe the mention of the man in How Blessed is the man, beginning verse 2 of our passage.

How blessed is the man, the son of man, spoken of in the second line of verse 2.

The references address every man in general, pointing to the common man and a universal manhood, man and woman.

It is this son of Adam and Son of God, going all the way back to the creation of the first man, that must do and take hold of God's justice and righteousness.

God's law, I am hidden behind him.

He must also keep from profaning the Sabbath and keep his hand from doing any evil, verse 2.

These latter two commands are stated as, notice, repeated patterns of conduct.

There is no interruption in this lifestyle at all.

All of the actions themselves in verses 1 and 2 emphasize, particularly in verse 2, emphasize a continuity such that this man is consistently walking in obedience to God.

Here in Isaiah's expectations on behalf of God, he takes hold of this obedience.

At the end of the second line of verse 2, the expression itself, taking hold of, is rooted upon a very strong term addressing strength.

The behavior, moreover, is intensive.

This man, in other words, has a firm grip on the law and resolutely does not let it go, but walks in it blamelessly.

You say, Is this me or is this you?

Not at all.

This is certainly not Paul, nor you and I apart from Christ.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the working out of the good is not.

For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want to do.

You know this, Romans 7.

A few verses later, Paul says, I find then this principle, the principle of the law, what Isaiah is talking about.

I find then the principle that in me evil is present, in me who wants to do good.

You know how this passage ends so marvelously.

Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death.

You could almost say it, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

That is the message of Isaiah 56, verses 1 and 2 for the people.

Isaiah 56:1

Thanks be to God.

Jesus Christ is the one, the one and only who can completely fulfill the principle Paul and every man, including you and I, struggles to obey because of our captivity, enslavement to the law of sin and death.

Jesus alone is the blessed man of Psalm 1.

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of Yahweh, and in his law he meditates day and night.

Jesus is the man of Psalm 15.

Please don't read Psalm 15 apart from Christ.

David, the author, fixes his eyes on the coming servant when he asks, Oh Yahweh, who may sojourn in your tent, who may dwell on your holy mountain?

He who walks blamelessly and works righteousness and speaks truth in his heart.

And as we even heard this morning in our ABF class, and repeatedly you've heard through Isaiah, that is no one, no one among the prophets, among the people, and among even God's church, except for who?

Christ, the suffering servant.

The suffering servant.

David ends the psalm with the words He who does these things will never be shaken.

Herein lies the character from Isaiah onward.

Notice, from the Old Testament, herein lies the character of our Christ, God in Christ.

The character of the Son of Man is the character of the one, the only one who has taken hold of the law, set his face like a flint to perfectly obey it and die on our behalf.

The author and perfecter of our faith, he is the true Israel.

The Son called out from Egypt, out of Egypt, fulfilling our redemption in Israel's place, where both Adam and Israel failed.

He is the Lord of the Sabbath.

Both Isaiah 50, Isaiah 1 and 58, by the way, unmask Israel's hypocrisy, even in Sabbath keeping.

Notice our passage as we end our first section on looking at the perfect sun.

There's almost a play on words in the last two lines of verse 2 as related to the Sabbath.

Israel's Sabbath keeping was just that: profaning and doing evil on it, using their hands, there is the imagery of violence, using their hands to do harm rather than good.

In other words, they were showing up to the temple, as you know, to give lip service.

And the Sabbath had become a paganistic ritual.

Like Sodom and Gomorrah, the people, though the people convened in solemn assembly and appointed times, though they were very religious on the outside, new moon festivals and Sabbaths, their sacrifices and offerings, the Lord pronounces as worthless.

They spread out their hands in prayer, but their hands were full of blood.

They did not reprove the ruthless, nor execute justice for the orphan, and did not plead for the widow.

They couldn't, because they were enslaved and needed to take hold of the promise of the servant, and yet they refused, and remained in their wickedness, and then and yet worshipped.

How ugly is that?

The Lord therefore hated their gatherings and was burdened and weary of bearing them.

Isaiah 1, verses 10 to 17, paraphrasing, get away from me, get away from me, get away from me, and yet keep justice, do righteousness.

Isaiah 1:10–17

Lord, how?

Lord, how come to the servant?

Come to the servant, come to Christ.

That is the same message for us.

Dear beloved brothers and sisters, from the perfect son, our passage moves to the people to come, from the perfect son to the people to come.

God's people that will be drawn to him through the son's coming.

This is the people we look forward to.

This is the people by God's grace that we are.

This is the church.

From the Son, we move to the people.

With the coming of the fullness of time, in that future day, please listen, God will send forth his son, who will be born of a woman.

Paul says in Galatians 4, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who are under the law, so that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Our sonship is again by the grace of God in Christ.

Verses 3 through 7 of Isaiah 56, verses 3 through 7 of our passage, in our passage, notice they point to the type of sons this future day will join together in solemn assembly.

Isaiah 56:3–7

In other words, the foreigner and the eunuch, while they are welcome and demonstrating the Abrahamic promise already in Isaiah's day, please don't stop there.

They are a type of what the coming and gathering will be.

Thanks be to Christ, to God in Christ.

These are the type of sons.

Yahweh speaks to the foreigner first.

The verses three, the first part of verse three and six and seven, and then we have to the eunuch second.

Again, last part of verse three through five.

Verse eight concludes our passage by looking to the others.

Praise God for the others, because that is you and I.

The fulfillment of the types of people, the foreigner and the eunuch, that God is assembling to himself in Isaiah's day.

These include all peoples, all the peoples universally that will gather as God's people in Christ's body in the last days.

There is no exception, there is no exclusion to and in God's church except by grace through faith alone, through the blood of the Lamb.

Notice to the foreigner first, to the foreigner, literally, literally, the word means son of the foreign, intended as foreign land.

At the Exodus, it is recorded that a foreign multitude also went up with them, Israel.

And so, again, already we see the signs of where God's redemption is leading, along with flocks and herds, a very large number of livestock, Exodus 1238.

At the institution of the Passover meal, at the institution of the Passover meal, Yahweh speaks to both Moses and Aaron concerning such foreigners.

They shall not eat of it unless all their males are circumcised.

Then the foreigners, sojourners sojourning within with Israel, can come to celebrate it, and he shall be like a native of the land.

But no uncircumcised person may eat of it.

Both native and sojourner, notice, will be under the same law.

In other words, they will be treated as equal before the Lord, as the same one people.

There has always been a place for foreigners in Israel among God's people.

Notice their description here in our passage at verse 3 again.

Look at verse 3.

They are the ones who have joined themselves to Yahweh.

The meaning of joining is very profound here.

The joining is similar to that of the man and the woman uniting in marriage.

There is a covenantal bond established.

The word is, moreover, in the passive, such that the foreigner is joined to God.

In other words, God is joining him.

God's drawing them to him, a call to God in faith as a proselyte to Israel.

At the end of verse 4 of our passage, referring to the eunuch, Yahweh speaks of him as holding fast my his covenant.

Last part of verse 4.

Furthermore, furthermore, verse 6 once again refers to foreigners joining themselves to Yahweh.

And in verse 7, Yahweh welcomes them, bringing them to his holy mountain, making them glad in his house of prayer, and accepting their burnt offerings and sacrifices as acceptable on his altar.

Verses 6 and 7.

Please notice the grace, the long suffering of God.

He wants people.

It's almost as though you hear repeatedly, please come, please come, come in repentance and faith.

Come, let nothing stop you.

Come to the Savior, bow before him in worship.

Please come.

It is he who will wash you in belief.

It is he who has washed you as the elect people of God being drawn.

Please come.

Everything is evidence again of the Abrahamic promise coming to fruition.

And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

These foreigners, notice, these foreigners hold fast not to the law covenant, nor to the principle of law, but they are holding fast to the promise of a new covenant.

The author of Hebrews speaks of Christ as the mediator, you know, of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, says the author of Hebrews, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.

Let me ask you, whose fault?

Whose fault was the failure of the first?

Answer Israel's, the people's, ours, if you will.

They could not keep justice and do righteousness.

They could not take hold of the law, nor keep from profaning the Sabbath and their hand from doing evil.

They are, they are the vine growers, whom Jesus recounts in a parable to the people in Matthew 21, Mark 12, and Luke 20.

What did the vine growers do?

They thought they were the privileged ones, and yet they killed the beloved son of the owner of the vineyard.

And so the vineyard owner destroyed them and gave the vineyard to others.

In Matthew's version of the parable, Jesus tells the chief priests and the Pharisees, Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it.

I am looking out at this nation.

By grace, rejoice, embrace the Savior, and continue in Christ's likeness according to the Savior.

There is more fruit and harvest out there.

To these others, then, the foreigners who did not reject the chief cornerstone, nor fall on the stone that crushes those who stumble on it, but love Yahweh, walk in his ways and cling to him, Deuteronomy 11.

Yahweh promises that he will, please notice our text again, verse 3.

Yahweh promises that he will surely not separate them from his people.

Verse 3, Isaiah 56.

Surely separate is intensified so that the beginning negation, not in let not the foreigner at the beginning of verse 3, the foreigner is urged, in other words, to banish the thought that he should ever be cut off from God's people.

Hey, who am I?

Why should God choose me?

Banish the thought.

You are nothing, I am nothing, but once he chooses you, he will never let go.

It is, it is an everlasting choice by his choice and grace in Christ.

And so the foreigner is tremendously encouraged here.

Rather, the end of verse seven, rather than letting go and cutting away, as those who refuse the stone and the servant, the end of verse 7 says that the foreigner will be in God's house of prayer, because it is a house, notice, for all peoples.

At the dedication of the temple, Solomon prays that the newly built house of God would receive the prayer of foreigners.

First Kings eight.

Solomon prays, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as do your people Israel, and to know your name is called upon this house which I have built.

Solomon's prayer.

Notice the temple is God's dwelling on earth to listen to the prayers and supplications of his people Israel.

We get a very profound picture of the temple here back in Solomon's day, and all those who joined themselves to Israel.

This is Solomon's description of it, 1 Kings 8, 28 to 30.

Yahweh, uh notice, Yahweh is to listen to the people's confession of sin and pardon them, forgiving all their transgressions, for they are his inheritance.

In speaking of the new covenant, Jeremiah says, But this is the covenant which I will cut with the house of Israel after those days, declares Yahweh.

I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And they will not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother.

I love thee each man, saying, No, Yahweh, for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares Yahweh, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more.

The new covenant, please observe, will accomplish what the temple pleads for full forgiveness, full forgiveness that you and I today have, by virtue of Christ, complete pardon.

Do you realize the grace that abounds in our midst and in our lives by the Spirit of Christ?

Notice then the temple's role.

The temple's role.

It is a house of prayer that supplicates God for his atonement.

It is the place of refuge, what the promise of atonement, complete pardon, awaits God's fulfillment of it as pledged to David, Solomon's father in covenant, 1 Kings 8.

It is the temporary dwelling that points to the arrival of a new covenant and a new David.

From that house, we have moved to this house in Christ by the Spirit, full pardon, full access, full grace, one with God in Christ and His people.

This coming one will be displayed publicly by God as a propitiation in his blood for a demonstration of God's righteousness and forbearance, passing over the sins previously committed, sins from the temple days, as the prayers of the foreigner and the Israelite in Solomon's temple hoped for, hoped in, all of this, so that in the last days, at the present time, he, God, would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

And when you walk into this assembly, that is the that is what we proclaim the message, so that in all that we do, whether it be in our love among each other and love for our neighbors out there, and whether it be through the listening of the preaching of the word to exalt God and to worship him, all of this is to proclaim so that all people know that he is just and the justifier of him who believes, who has faith in Jesus.

You do not leave this place without knowing that, without receiving that, because that is what this gathering is for.

That is what we are the fruit of.

From the foreigner to the eunuch, quickly.

Deuteronomy 23 addresses those who are to be excluded from God's people.

We heard from the scripture reading this morning so wonderfully.

The first two verses say, No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of Yahweh.

Notice the gripping details, the deformity, the exclusion and humiliation.

No one of a legitimate birth shall enter the assembly of Yahweh.

Even to the tenth generation, none of his seed shall enter the assembly of Yahweh, Deuteronomy 23, verses 1 and 2.

Deuteronomy 23:1

The law concerning the eunuch is paramount to calling him, as in our passage, the last part of verse 3, a dry tree, a dry tree.

What does that mean?

His physical deformity leaves him literally without hope of inclusion.

To the eunuch, however, who trusts in the promise, just like the foreigner cited before him, and because of the promise, keeps Yahweh's Sabbaths, chooses what pleases Yahweh, and holds fast, holds fast to Yahweh's covenant by promise.

God will give him a house.

Please notice, verse 5.

God will give him a house.

God will give him his house, and within God's house a memorial.

In other words, the one that was completely excluded, who had no possibility of children or a future, God will give him many sons and daughters that will remember him by his righteousness.

God will do the impossible.

The blessing of the eunuch in covenant with Yahweh, who awaits the fulfillment of that covenant through the coming servant and son, is an everlasting name, never to be forgotten, with all the saints of God, to him who has never had sons and daughters to be remembered.

Second half of verse 5, God will have the eunuch remembered forever by the righteousness he trusts in.

This is our family.

This is our trust.

This is how we are remembered as we live for Christ.

Of interest, of interest, at the cleansing of the temple, Jesus drives out all those who are buying and selling in the temple and says to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a robber's den.

Matthew 21.

Right after Matthew writes those words, he says, And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

Matthew 21, 14.

The buyers and sellers of Israel, those included in the temple, are compared to robbers, while the blind and the lame, those excluded, are received as heirs.

To all the peoples, finally, verse 8, after speaking to the foreigner and after speaking to the eunuch, the types that will come, God addresses the fulfillment of the people.

To all the peoples, verse 8, we see this portrait of salvation in the last days coming to a close, which with much emphasis on the Lord's work of gathering.

Notice verse 8.

It is so profound.

Observe the repetition of the word gather.

Lord Yahweh, who gathers the banished of Israel, declares, Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered.

Three times.

He gathers his own.

Rejoice.

Go out and preach the gospel because he is gathering.

Yahweh is described as a gathering God.

Isaiah 60 reveals this gathering to reach its completion in a glorified Zion, in a new heavens and new earth.

In the present age, in the present age, we continue to live in the day of harvest, a plentiful harvest.

As Jesus prays to the Father in his high priestly prayer in John 17, hear these words.

Jesus prays, I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me.

There are still, there are still New Hyde Park, there are still others to be gathered to his people.

We come to worship this morning Jesus, who was faithful to him who appointed him, as Moses also was in all his house.

Only, only Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, and we are a better house because Jesus was a faith was as faithful as a son over God's house.

We have a better covenant.

Please, please.

Isaiah 56 calls us to press on to maturity in Jesus Christ and proclaim him.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word this morning.

We thank you for its truth.

We thank you for its ancient truth, ancient and yet contemporary, because it reaches us, it convicts us in this present age, it saves us.

And so as we live out this present age, please, Father, give us the grace and humility, the trust and hope in Christ to continue being used as vessels of mercy to gather those who are yours.

In Jesus' name, Amen.