Isaiah 42:18 - 43:21 - A New People for His Praise

Let's take our Bible and go to the book of Isaiah, chapter 42.

Isaiah 42 · chapter mention

We were just there last week and we're going to be moving into chapter 23, but we're going to start in chapter 43, but we're going to start in chapter 42.

If you ever had a moment in your life you wish you could walk back, where you knew there was something that you should have said or done, but in a moment of hesitation you didn't do it.

I've got several of those, but one of them is I was in my mid-30s.

I was getting into cycling and beginning to race a little bit.

I was enjoying club rides but wanted to do more than that, so I was starting to race a little.

I bought a racing road bike for my son, Matthew, and a Bianchi with Bianchi green.

It was a beautiful little bike and I was showing it to him and his little brother, ben, decided to hop on it first and I should have told him wait until you're bigger, you don't know how to ride this, it's too much for you.

He got on and he took off and went right into the mailbox and chipped his tooth right.

And you're thinking way to go, doug.

That was a good dad moment right there.

I should have done something.

Perhaps you've had those moments, something like that, something you should have said, maybe something you could have done, some kindness you could have shown or some truth you could have stood up for.

But you look back on it and you think, man, I had the opportunity, I knew what to say in the moment and I didn't, and you wish you could just sort of pull that back.

Well, that's a small example of a far larger issue that we're going to be looking at here in Isaiah 42 and 43, because this is Judah's story, and they're confronted in this passage with a sobering truth, and it's not just one by way of personal experience.

It was a national issue and it wasn't just a momentary lapse.

It was habitual and it was purposed disobedience.

And it wasn't a minor issue either.

It wasn't like they ran into a mailbox and chipped their tooth.

This was covenant-breaking disobedience.

They were called to be the light to the nations.

They were chosen by God, they were commissioned by God.

They were entrusted with the message.

They had so many things that God had surrounded them with that would have equipped them.

For that they had the covenant, they had the scriptures they had.

For that they had the covenant, they had the scriptures, they had the promises, they had the prophets, they had the temple worship.

They were meant to be a lighthouse on the shore, shining a bright light of how to navigate life and eternity to all the nations, and they didn't.

Over the past two weeks, we've been looking at chapter 42, and we're looking at the end of it and the end of 43.

Now, and two weeks ago, we were told to behold God's servant, that a servant was going to arise, one that God would uphold and one in which he delighted or in whom he delighted.

And this coming servant was to be the one who would truly reveal the tender heart of God, who is truly going to be the one who brings justice, who is truly going to be the one who was a covenant for the people and who was going to make the things that are broken whole again.

Matthew, of course, tells us that that servant is Jesus.

And then last week, we gathered together around verses 10 to 17 of this chapter and we listened to the song of rejoicing over the servant's ministry, a chorus that would ring all around the world.

The coastlands and the deserts and the mountaintops would all give their praise.

Isaiah's voice would join with the nation's voices and it would join with God's own voice too in this prophetic anthem of victory.

But now we're in chapter 42 and verse 18.

And all of a sudden the music stops and the spotlight shifts from the nations back to the people of Judah and a different kind of song is sung, not a song of victory or of praise, but a lament, a confrontation, a call to remember who they were meant to be.

And this passage in front of us is going to sort of just move us a little bit further into this song of Isaiah 40 to 55.

And I told you, this section of scripture is like a symphony.

There are things in it that are whispered in, allusions that are introduced a little bit, that are built up and are expanded and then eventually reach a crescendo.

We're still in the early chapters here.

So chapter 42 and 43 whisper more than they reveal, but they're beginning to build up the anticipation of something that's going to be grand and glorious in just a few chapters as we get into it.

And this passage in front of us is going to give us just a taste of understanding of why, in the light of Judah's failure, god has us turn our attention to a true and faithful servant, and also how and why God would continue to look upon this disobedient people and still maintain a promise to them.

You see, this passage of scripture that we're in in these early chapters of 40 to 55 in Isaiah, have a lot of tension in them.

It's there for a purpose, so we would catch the tune of these themes and find them culminating soon.

What I love about this passage, even though it's full of tension, it's also full of tenderness.

We're going to see that Judah has failed spectacularly, and yet God is not finished with them.

Instead, as we'll see, he reaffirms his call to them, even while he confronts them with their blindness and their hardness of heart.

So let's move through this section of scripture, and there are four movements I'd like for us to look at.

The first of all is the failure of God's servant.

It begins in verse 18 of chapter 42, and it runs down to the end of the chapter.

The spotlight, as I said, is now shifting from a global song to a national confrontation.

Verse 18,.

Listen you deaf, look you blind, so that you may see who is blind but my servant, or deaf like my messenger I am sending.

Who is blind like my dedicated one, or blind like the servant of the Lord.

One are blind like the servant of the Lord.

What a way to be talked about.

God turns to Judah with this stinging lament that he's chosen this servant for a purpose.

But they're blind and they're deaf.

And remember, isaiah is speaking before the captivity of Babylon, but he's speaking to the people who are in captivity in Babylon.

Isaiah's ministry is locked into a time frame in which the people are still diving deeper and deeper and deeper into idolatry, before they get ripped out of the land and brought to Babylonian captivity.

But like no other book in the Bible, isaiah is speaking to that generation ahead.

And here he gives the diagnosis about why they are where they are or why they will be where they are going to be.

Their blindness is willful, it's not passive, their deafness is chosen, it's not circumstantial, and their disobedience is habitual.

And in verse 21, the Lord drives this home Because of his righteousness.

The Lord was pleased to magnify his instruction and make it glorious.

But this is a people plundered and looted, all of them trapped in holes or imprisoned in dungeons.

They become plunder with no one to rescue them, and loot with no one to say give it back.

Why?

Because they had completely neglected God here.

They refused God's revelation, they refused to receive it with reverence, they neglected the glory of God that was revealed in it and they failed to be the light to the nations, knowingly.

Imagine walking through the dark hole halls of a of an office building and all the lights are shut down and there's no windows around and it's completely pitch dark in the hallway and there's a sign that says warning wet floor ahead.

And indeed there is, and you walk down that and you pass the sign.

You can't see it.

It's pitch black, dark in there.

Your eyes are not adjusted to it and you come across this wet floor and you and you fall down and hurt yourself.

Now you'd say, well, that's tragic.

How much worse is it if the lights are on and there's windows that are shining the outdoor light in there and there's a sign staring you in the face that says warning wet floor ahead.

And you look at it and you go, yeah, whatever.

And you keep on going and there's a wet floor there and you decide, well, I can do a power slide on this baby.

And you try and you just end up somersaulting over yourself and landing on the ground.

You're not going to pick yourself up and say well, somebody should have put a bigger sign down or somebody should have told me to wait.

You're going to look at yourself and say I was told, I was instructed.

The failure is mine.

And this is precisely where Judah should have been.

They weren't walking in ignorance.

They were walking down a path that was illuminated by God's revelation.

They could have lived in the radiance of that revelation.

Instead, however, they decided not to, and by so doing, not only were they not a light to the nations, they were dragging the name of Yahweh through the mud in every step of disobedience and idolatry that they committed.

They were that stubborn.

I don't have time for us to look at this, but if you went to Psalm 106 and spent some time reading Psalm 106, there it declares the spiritual deafness and blindness of the people in great detail, but it also gives the root cause for it.

It says they forgot the God who saved them.

They did not remember his kindness.

Their neglect of rehearsing the favorable grace of God to them had caused them to drift away and disobey and to plunge themselves in utter rejection of God.

You see, their forgetfulness was not just a momentary lapse of memory.

This was a purposed not calling God's goodness into their life.

And Isaiah is here trying to wake up these same people.

And Isaiah is here trying to wake up these same people.

Look at verse 23.

Who among us will hear this?

Let them listen and obey in the future, but will they?

He tries to tell them.

Look, this that is coming to you is not accidental.

It's not incidental.

You're not just a small pawn on the world stage.

God is doing something here.

Verse 24, who gave Jacob to the robbers and Israel to the plunderers?

Was it not the Lord?

Have we not sinned against him?

They were not willing to walk in his ways and they would not listen to his instruction.

God is going to raise up the Babylonians, not in spite of the people's disobedience, but because of it.

And Isaiah here is connecting the state of the people with the covenant rejections that Moses warned about in chapter 29 and 32 of Deuteronomy.

And they won't listen.

Verse 25, it gets even worse.

And so he poured out his furious anger and the power of war on Jacob.

It surrounded him with fire, but he did not know it.

It burned him, but he did not take it to heart.

Now Al asked me a question a little bit ago about.

Why is Jacob mentioned here?

And I wasn't going to mention this, but I think, al, we're going to go ahead and go with it, right, al said, why is Jacob mentioned here?

I don't see Jacob anywhere.

Well, you might remember Abraham, isaac and Jacob, right?

Jacob wrestled with the angel and in the wrestling with the angel, his heart was changed.

He was once called Jacob or Surplanter, but now he's called Israel or the Prince of God, and Jacob, with the new name, limped the rest of his life.

But he wanted to walk with God from that point forward and his character was transformed into being God's prince rather than being this guy who's trying to always do one up over someone else.

But here the people are called Jacob again, and they're called Jacob because they're acting like what Jacob used to act like, and Isaiah is crying out to them.

Who among us will not hear this?

Certainly, if you listen, if you obey, it will go well.

And Isaiah preaches to the people and is speaking to them, but look at the words.

He also speaks with them.

Verse 24, was it not the Lord?

Have we, we, we not sinned against him?

Isaiah is putting himself into the shoes of the people that he's preaching to and he's recognizing that, as many fingers as he might have pointed at them, he's got more pointed at himself and he's recognizing, in solidarity with them, that the whole nation needs a revival and repentance.

And this ought to give us pause when we speak so directly to people, to recognize that we are part and parcel of the problem.

Also, daniel, when he prayed the great prayer of confession in Daniel, chapter nine we have sinned, lord, we have done wickedness, we, we, we.

And so this passage shows Isaiah's humility as well as his bravery to bring the message to these people, and we need to receive this passage as well.

How often do we sin against the light of the revelation of God to us?

How often are the hallways lit up and the window shades drawn open and the lights flooding in and there's signs all over that says warning you keep going down this hallway, you're going to slip and fall and break your knuckles and your head.

And we keep on walking and we keep on walking.

We attend church, we read scripture, we're around God's people, we sing hymns, we know Jesus has come, he is our savior, and we walk right down the hallway.

We shouldn't be tone deaf to God's word here.

We should enter into the we, just as Isaiah did.

But let's not forget last week and let's begin to weave this together, because there's movement in this section of scripture here.

It doesn't stop here.

Remember last week, with Isaiah's surprising twist, a gospel, a good news, a shout of praise that goes to all the islands, to all the deserts, to all the mountaintops, all the people that were condemned in the chapters to the nations chapters 13 to 23, tyre and Sidon, and Edom and Kadar, all of them once judged, but are now invited into the song of praise.

And here the lighthouse, judah, forgets the light and refuses to shine.

God will relight that light to the nations through a servant, one who sees, one who hears and one who will lead the nations to sing a song of deliverance and salvation.

So obviously, chapter 42 is not the end.

And boy, sometimes chapter divisions do us a lot of harm.

Because look at the next verse, chapter 43.

Now, this is what the Lord says the one who created you, jacob, the one who formed you, israel, do not fear, for I've redeemed you, I've called you by your name, you are mine.

Wait a second.

Chapter 42,.

He didn't know it, he didn't take it to heart, he didn't listen, he wasn't willing.

But chapter 23, 43 opens up with these tender declarations Fear not, I've redeemed you.

I've called you by, I've called you your name.

You're mine, you're mine.

This is Isaiah speaking to a people who are going to be in exile in Babylon because of their idolatry, after having faced devastation and this dislocation, and certainly full of disillusionment and disappointment.

And yet Isaiah is speaking comfort into that future.

He's telling them that he's not given up on them, that he's chosen them, that he's named them, that he's claimed them.

Take a look at verse 2.

When you pass through the waters, I'll be with you.

In the rivers they will not overwhelm you.

Now Isaiah doesn't have to go Red Sea Exodus Exodus To remind the people that he's got a track record of bringing people through water.

And Isaiah is using this Egyptian Exodus imagery here to assure us that God still claims to be the God of these people.

Whatever disasters they brought upon themselves, they're still his and he still wants to use them for his glory still his and he still wants to use them for his glory and that there's redemption and renewal on the other side of the exile.

Now, scripture often uses water and fire to speak of judgment.

The earth was covered with water in Noah's day, and everyone perished except for eight souls.

In Noah's day, and everyone perished except for eight souls.

Peter says at the end of one of his letters that the world, the heavens and the earth are going to be burned up with a fervent heat, with a fire.

But this water and this fire are meant to refine and purify and prepare the people for a mission that God still wants them to be on.

And so not only do we see the faithlessness of the people, we see the faithful, covenant-keeping God, and verses 3 and 4 give us an understanding to that.

You are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you.

Wow, I love you.

You're precious and honored in my sight.

This is covenant language here on God's part.

He calls himself in these chapters the Holy One of Israel.

He calls himself a savior, a deliverer.

He calls himself the redeemer.

He calls himself, in the book of Isaiah, their king.

All of these titles and all of these words are to remind the people that God hasn't abandoned his role toward them.

His electing love is unearthed and it's certainly undeserved, but it is absolutely unwavering, unwavering.

His electing love is unerved and it's certainly undeserved, but it is absolutely unwavering, unwavering.

And then comes a promise to them that is meant to soar beyond Babylon Verses 6 and 7.

I will say to the north give them up.

I'll say to the south do not hold them back.

Bring my sons from far away, my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who bears my name and is created for my glory.

I have formed them, indeed I have made them.

Yes, there is going to be a second Exodus and he's going to bring the people back from captivity in Babylon.

But there's something beyond just that.

Here the movement is more than just about the nations letting the people go to return back to Jerusalem and begin to repopulate the land, because this language is expanded here.

It's beginning to build up a theme that's going to just explode here soon.

And this isn't just about the Jewish people that returned from the east under the edict of Cyrus and the small band with Ezra and Nehemiah, some 42,000 people, as recorded in Ezra 2 in verse 64.

No, there's something bigger than this.

Notice that there's a gathering from all places, from the north and the south.

There's a regathering from all the places.

This is the people being rescued from judgment that are going to be purified by grace, that are going to be formed together for praise.

Now let me just jump us ahead a little bit, because this theme needs us to recognize and realize.

In John, chapter 1, john opens up a prologue about the coming Messiah in the first several verses of his gospel, and there he talks about Jesus coming unto his own.

John 1 · chapter mention

But his own did not receive him, but to as many as did receive him, he gave them the right to be the children of God.

He gave them the right to be the children of God to those who believe on his name, who were born not of natural descent or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God.

There was going to be children that weren't just children of the people of Abraham, isaac and Jacob, and there was going to be a second exodus in which those people are going to find deliverance.

And so in John 1 and verse 12, he speaks of people being called the children of God.

And a little bit deeper in John's gospel, in chapter 11, again he speaks that same phrase that Jesus would die not just for the Jewish nation but to unite the scattered children of God.

You see, isaiah is looking forward to a day when the Spirit would be poured out and the gospel would be proclaimed and a new creation would be formed out of the second exodus.

Just hold on to that, because we're still whispering that at the moment.

And so he tells them don't fear, in verse 1 and verse 5.

You see, the Redeemer is still going to work through them.

He still called them by their name, he still created them for his glory, and so the failure of the people gives rise to the faithfulness of God, the Redeemer, which leads us into verses 8 to 13, which show us something of the future hope of God's work, the future hope of God's work.

Isaiah pivots now from comfort to calling, and these people who were once blind and deaf are now being summoned to testify.

And God is going to entrust these very people that he's brought through the water and through the fire to be his living witnesses in this world.

Now, let's just let that sink in for just a second.

In this world.

Now, let's just let that sink in for just a second.

These people who failed in chapter 42 are being comforted at the beginning of chapter 43 and are now, as we're getting deeper into this chapter, being commissioned not to silence but to speak.

You see, redemption is not the end, it's the beginning.

It's the beginning of a life of proclamation and we'll get there.

But Isaiah builds this court scene and he summons the nations to bring their idols and to have the idols testify against God, to see if they could compare.

And he says to them which one of you can tell the future?

Take a look at verse 9.

All the nations gather together, the people are assembled.

Who among them can declare this and tell us the former things?

Let them present their witnesses to vindicate themselves, so that people may say it's true, to vindicate themselves, so that people may say it's true, you are my witnesses, the Lord declares.

And so the idols are called upon to talk about a people for God's praise, something God would do in the future.

Could the idols do this?

Could they know the future?

Could they actually empower a redemption of a disobedient people?

Let them bring their witnesses and let them speak out and see if that could be true.

And the challenge is settled in this one thing that God is doing what the idols could never do.

He says here in verse 12 I alone declared, saved and proclaimed.

Verse 11 I am the Lord, beside me, there's no Savior.

And so he is speaking to the idols saying can you do something for these people?

Can you do something like what I'm about to do?

Can you take a disobedient, rejected people and still envelop them and restore them and set them up on their feet and send them out with a message?

Can you do that?

This is how God shows the world who he is, where Israel has failed to be the faithful witness there is going to be, through the people of Israel, one who is and there is still going to be through the people of Israel, one who is and there is still going to be among the people of Israel, those who will be set on their feet and filled with a message to tell.

In a few chapters we'll look at Isaiah, chapter 49 and verse 6.

Isaiah 49 · chapter mention

And there God speaks to the servant and he says it's not enough for you to be my servant raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the protected ones of Israel.

It's not enough for you to do that.

I will make you to be a light for the nations, to take my salvation, or to be my salvation, to the ends of the earth.

There's this building theme that someone has been sent who is going to be the faithful servant, who is going to make God's name known in Israel and the world.

Revelation, chapter 1 and verse 5,.

Revelation 1 · chapter mention

Jesus is called the faithful witness and there's a reason why in the early chapters of the book of Acts, jesus is called the servant, my servant Jesus, because he lived the truth, he spoke the truth, he died for the truth and he resurrected with the truth.

He's going to do something.

When you read this passage of Scripture, I hope you're hearing some echoes in the New Testament that are beginning to reverberate, the symphony that's starting to be played here.

In Acts, chapter 1 and verse 8, and you will be my witnesses, witness word again In Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth, isaiah 43 is coming to fruition, when those Jewish people gathered together, believed on the Messiah, jesus Christ, and were filled with the Spirit and were told with the Spirit and were told to take a message to the nations.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Now there's this obscure passage at the end of the book of Romans which you may have just passed over or just looked at and went.

I'm not really quite understanding it, but when you read Isaiah 42 and 43, along with Acts, chapter 1, and what John has to say in chapter 1 and chapter 11 about the children of God.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Listen to this passage again.

Paul gives a doxological statement Now to him, who was able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation about Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept silent for long ages but now revealed and made known through the prophetic scriptures, according to the command of the eternal God, what To advance the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles To the only wise God through Jesus Christ.

To him be glory forever, amen.

And this is why in Acts, chapter 13, the apostle Paul took his Bible and opened it up to Isaiah, chapter 49, and he's preaching the gospel.

Acts 13 · chapter mention Isaiah 49 · chapter mention

And he looks down at chapter 49, and he reads this passage of scripture that says says it's not enough for you to be my servant raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the protected ones of Israel.

I will make you to be a light for the nations, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.

And Paul said the apostolic preaching of the gospel is the fulfillment and the furtherance of the faithful servant's presence on earth to fulfill the work of God.

Now, church, that is us, all of us.

That is who we are, because we have been gathered with the same mission, with the same message and the same purpose that the nations might know that God alone is the Savior, that all of the idols on earth are nothing in comparison to Him.

Verse 13, when I act, he says who can reverse it?

You see, this isn't just a teaching.

This is the dynamic of God's activity.

This is dynamite, as God is putting himself on display here.

He's putting his glory on display by taking broken people, putting his covenant love upon them, restoring them in his tender mercies and then putting them back on their feet and sending them out with a message.

And so it is also with us.

Chapter 42 could be our songbook in the way we lived our lives, but you need to put chapter 43 into your hymnal too, into the hymnal of your life.

Like all of us, we are cracked mirrors, we're blemished, we're imperfect, we're flawed, we're broken.

But God delights in using cracked mirrors to reflect his glorious light.

Paul put it a different way we have this treasure in earthen vessels, clay pots, so that the excellency might be of God and not of ourselves.

You see, we're not just spectators of God's grace here, looking at chapter 42 and 43.

King of chapter 42 and 43, we're participants in it.

You see, we're living proof that God is God alone.

Because our stories speak louder than the world's theories, and our worship, in our acts of glad and grateful obedience and our songs of praise speak louder than the world's systems and the machinations of men.

Because you who were once full of bitterness are now a forgiving person.

You who were once seized by fear are now persevering through difficulties you can't imagine, with glad endurance.

You who were once hopeless are now filled with rejoicing in that coming day in which you will participate in the resurrected glory of God.

You see, god is demonstrating himself through us and by us, because, as his own, we join in to the faithful servant's person and the faithful servant's commission and the faithful servant's message around this world.

See, god is not just restoring old things.

He's making something completely new and he's revealing it here.

And that leads us to our last point.

We've talked about the failure of the people, the faithful redeemer that God is and the future work.

But the song picks back up again in the fresh work of God's future salvation in the new Exodus, in verses 14 to 21.

Isaiah lifts our eyes beyond Babylon.

Isaiah lifts us to a salvation that's greater than Sinai.

He lifts us to an ocean of God's mercies that are deeper than the Red Sea.

You see, he's got something to do in this world that is far, far grander than just bringing a nation out of Egypt.

Take a look at verse 19.

He makes this proclamation in chapter 43.

Look, I'm about to do something new.

Even now it's coming, do you see it?

Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness rivers, in the desert, and on.

It goes.

Now back up a little bit.

Let's build right back up to that a second.

In verses 16 and 17, the Lord brings back images that the people of Israel will be very familiar with.

This is what the Lord says.

Who made a way in the sea, a path through raging water?

Who brings out the chariot and the horse, the army and the mighty one together.

They lie down, they do not rise again.

They're extinguished, put out like a wick.

This is Exodus imagery again, god triumphing over Pharaoh and his army as he closed the Red Sea over the top of them.

In verse 18, there comes this contradictory command Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old.

Wait a second.

The people are told to forget the Exodus.

The people are told to forget the Passover.

I mean, that's why they celebrate it every year, because they're told not to forget it.

But now they're told don't look back.

Why?

Because pulling the people out of Egypt, allowing the firstborns of the people of Israel to pass, to be left alive when the death angel came, because there was blood shed on top of a door and a side post, because the Pharaoh finally relented after 10 merciless plagues and they got to the edge of the Red Sea and it parted in front of them and they entered it on dry land and they crossed over it to see their enemy swept up in the rush of water behind them.

Forget all that.

Why God tells us in verse 19, I'm about to do something new.

It's going to be so grand and glorious that even that freedom out of Egypt could not compare.

It could not compare at all.

This is not parted waters, but flowing rivers, and they're not just going to cross a little bit of dry land, they're going to traverse the deserts.

What is this talking about?

This is figurative language that lifts us into a second exodus, and the prophets are not afraid to talk like that.

In Isaiah 11 and verse 15 and 16, the Lord will divide the Gulf of Suez, and he will wave his hand over the Euphrates with a mighty wind and split it into seven streams, letting people walk through it on foot, and there will be a highway for the remnant of his people who survive, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

That's Isaiah 11.

Jeremiah 16.

Look, the days are coming when it will no longer be said, as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt?

It'll no longer be said that, but, as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites from the land of the north and from all the other lands in which he had banished them?

For I will return them.

And then, ezekiel 36, I will take you from the nations and gather you from the countries and I will bring you into your own land and I also will sprinkle clean water, the countries, and I will bring you into your own land and I also will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean.

I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

I'll place my spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.

That's new covenant.

That's new covenant language.

Right there, what is the prophet Isaiah whispering here.

He's whispering of a faithful servant.

He's going to take the unfaithful servants and preserve them, because he's going to bring out of them the son in whom the Lord is well pleased.

Who is going to be the servant?

Jesus?

Who is going to be the faithful witness of Revelation chapter one.

Who is actually going to do this second exodus, because he is the second exodus?

On the Mount of Transfiguration, two men stood with Jesus Moses and Elijah, and they were talking to him about what was about to be accomplished in Jerusalem.

What was about to be accomplished in Jerusalem?

What was about to be accomplished?

The death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Moses was there on that mountain because he was awaiting the day when God would pull people through the dark waters of death, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, when the Messiah would gather not only the peoples of Israel and Judah and bring them through the dark waters of death into the glorious light of the dry land of God's presence for eternity.

That this Jesus was going to die, not just for those, but for all those, all those who believe.

And so Moses stood in the presence of the greater Moses, the Moses who held up his arms and saw the land form in the middle of the sea, looks at Jesus who's about to go to the cross and into a tomb and is going to come out of there and he's going to break the power of death over everyone who believes on him.

This is the new thing.

This is the new thing.

This is the message.

That is great grandeur.

Sorry, sorry, cecil B DeMille Moses movie was kind of cool, but this is so much grander.

This is a restoration of all things.

In Romans, chapter eight, paul says even the world, the universe itself, the things that are created are yearning for the day.

What are the revelation of the sons of God when the fullness of this redemption is finally revealed and even the earth can say my bonds are unshackled, we're free and we can live life eternally in the presence of God, without blame or judgment.

That we can live our life to the fullness of what we were designed and never say I should have and I shouldn't have, and I, why didn't I?

And we can interact with each other without having our little backroom gossip sessions, right.

We can live with each other in holiness and purity and generosity and we can interact with this world and find it flourishing every time we put a seed in instead of watching things that ought to have lived die, and we can say to our loved ones no more goodbyes.

Why God?

Because Isaiah is quoting the words of God just as the symphony's beginning to play some common themes.

That's going to rise and build and crescendo, and right at the moment he's still just whispering.

Something new is coming.

Something new is coming.

Something new is coming, something grand is coming, something so glorious you won't even want to remember the old things.

And it all stems from this glorious fundamental truth in the juxtaposition of these two chapters.

Glorious fundamental truth in the juxtaposition of these two chapters.

God is not finished with a failed people.

He's not done with them.

And he is not done with you or me.

He's not done with a failed people.

We began just a little bit ago in the dark, with this servant who was blind and deaf and disobedient and deservedly going to be exiled, a people who had missed their moment, who failed in their mission, who forgot their God and turned away from their maker.

But now here we are again.

Remember, just whispers, slow movement to a coming crescendo of a redeemer who's going to walk with them through that fire, a fire that won't destroy them but refine them.

Who's going to call them by their name, who's going to reignite their purpose and restore them to it, one who's going to lead them to a new exodus in which they're going to see an eternal weight of glory far beyond any earthly deliverance.

And, as I said, this is not Judah's story, this is all of ours, because the culmination of that glorious movement among the people of Israel was the coming of Jesus, who would be the Savior of the world.

And so we are entering in yes, once blind, yes, very wayward, yes, cracked mirrors, but now called, now redeemed, now restored, now chosen, now witnesses created to praise God, to be one of his people, to be enveloped within the faithful servant, so that we might forget the former things, that we might forget the shame and we might look to the greatest deliverance.

We've received the new thing that God is doing through this faithful servant.

So, if you're here this morning and you've come and sat in this place and you've asked yourself some questions, I don't think God could ever forgive me the things that I've done.

If I told you, you would not even want to look at me.

I want to say something to you the people of Israel were all that and more, because they weren't just walking down a darkened alleyway and slipped on the wet floor.

They brushed past every light God gave them, including his very presence in the pillar of fire and cloud, and they fell on that floor hard because they wanted to fall.

And God says I love you and I will restore you.

If you're here this morning thinking God could never forgive you, oh yes, he can, absolutely he can.

He sent the Savior to die for people worse than you are, to die for people worse than you are.

And Paul himself said that God's patience could be seen in him because he was once a blasphemer and a persecutor of the church.

He was one who stood against the very design and purpose of the servant to try to squash it out.

And yet God knocked him down with grace and not judgment.

And if God could envelop Paul with that mercy, he can envelop you with that mercy.

If you're here today and you're looking back and your life is filled with those why did I not?

I should have the words and you're filled with the entrapments of guilt for things in your past that are now consequences of your present.

Forget the former things in the light of God's glorious mercies, because he can restore you and he can remake you and reshape you in ways right now, as you're sitting there you could never dream he can and he does.

This is a beautiful, beautiful passage of scripture.

We're not forsaken, we're not forgotten.

We should be able to step out of here, like verse 21.

And we'll finish with this the people I formed for myself will declare my praise.

Let's pray, father, thank you for the glorious reversal of redemption that you proclaim in this passage of Scripture, in which you are going to be, despite the utter apostasy of the people, faithful to your promises to work through them so that there would be among these people one in whom all the nations would be blessed.

Father, we thank you for that glorious unfolding of your character and your purposes and design.

And, father, as we sit here some thousands of years later, beyond the writing of this prophecy, to recognize, you have been and still are faithful to your covenant, keeping promises, because all of them are yes and amen and jesus christ, father, we pray that we might not be so bound up in our disobedience that we think we have lost the connection of life and hope that's found in Christ and the gospel.

And we pray, father, for whatever there might still reside in any of us here hanging on to sin and iniquity.

Lord, bring them through the refining waters and fires, but hold their hand through it and confirm your love.

And Lord, set them on their feet, restore them.

We pray Father, move so that all the people that are called by your name might sing your praise.

We ask this in Christ's name, amen.