Keep Trusting the Rock

Sister, why don't you come forward and read our sermon

text for us Isaiah twenty six and twenty seven. And

let me just ask you to stand for the reading

of God's word. This is two lengthy chapters. It's going

to help us focus. If you're able, please.

Stand Isaiah twenty six and twenty seven. In that day

this song will be sung. In the land of Judah,

we have a strong city. He sets up salvation as

walls and bulwarks, open the gates that the righteous nation

that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in

perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he

trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever. For the

Lord God is an everlasting rock. For he has humbled

the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays

it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it

to the dust. The foot tramples it, the feet of

the poor, the steps of the needy. The path of

the right is level. You make level the way of

the righteous, in the path of your judgments. O Lord,

we wait for you. Your name and remembrance are the

desire of our soul. My soul yearns for you in

the night. My spirit within me earnestly seeks you, For

when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of

the world learn righteousness. If favor is shown to the wicked,

he does not learn righteousness in the land of uprightness.

He deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of

the Lord. Oh Lord, your hand is lifted up, but

they do not see it. Let them see your zeal

for your people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for

your adversaries consume them, O Lord, You will ordain peace

for us. You have done for us all our works,

O Lord, our God. Other lords besides you have ruled

over us. But your name alone we bring to remembrance.

They are dead, they will not live. They are shades,

they will not arise. To that end, you have visited

them with destruction. Why doubt all remembrance of them. But

you have increased the nation, O Lord, you have increased

the nation. You are glorified. You have enlarged all the

borders of the land, O Lord. In distress they sought you.

They poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was

upon them. Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries

out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth.

So were we because of you, o Lord, We were pregnant,

we writhed, But we have given birth to wind. We

have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, And the inhabitants

of the world have not fallen. Your dead shall live

their bodies. Shall rise, You, who dwell in the dust,

awake and sing for joy, for your due is a

dew of light, and the earth will give birth to

the dead. Come, my people, enter your chambers and shut

your doors behind you. Hide yourselves for a little while,

until the fury has passed by. For behold, the Lord

is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants

of the earth for their iniquity. And the earth will

disclose the blood shed on it and will no more

cover its slain. In that day, the Lord, with his

hard and great and strong sword, will punish Leviathan, the

fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay

the dragon that is in the sea. In that day

a pleasant vineyard sing of it. I the Lord am

its keeper. Every moment I water it, lest anyone punish it.

I keep it night and day. I have no wrath,

would that I had thorns and briars to battle, I

would march against them, I would burn them up together,

Or let them lay hold of my protection. Let them

make peace with me. Let them make peace with me.

In days to come, Jacob shall take root, Israel shall

blossom and put forth shoots, and fill the whole world

with fruit. Has he struck them as he struck those

who struck them? Or have they been slain as their

slayers were slain? Measure by measure, by exile, contended with them,

He removed them with his fierce breath in the day

of the east wind. Therefore by this the guilt of

Jacob will be atoned for. And this will be the

full fruit of the removal of his sin. When he

makes all the stones of the altars like chalk stones

crushed to pieces, no ashram or incense altars will remain standing.

For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken.

Like the wilderness there, the calf grazes. There, it lies

down and strips its branches. When its boughs are dry,

they are broken. Women come and make a fire of them,

For this is a people without discernment. Therefore, he who

made them will not have compassion on them. He who

formed them will show them no favor. In that day,

from the river Euphrates to the brook of Egypt, the

Lord will thresh out the grain, and you will be

gleaned one by one, o people of Israel. And in

that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those

who were lost in a land the Syria and those

who were driven out to the land of Egypt will

come and worship the Lord on the Holy Mountain at Jerusalem.

This is the word of the Lord.

Amen may be seated. It wasn't too long ago that

doctor James Hamilton released the book A Biblical Theology, which

is to say, a book that looks to scan all

of what Scripture teaches and put it under one heading,

kind of to sum it all up into one category

and to show how from beginning to end and throughout

the Bible is following the same storyline. And the way

he summed it all up was this God's glory in

salvation through judgment. God's glory in salvation through judgment. That

to something that's a jarring title. I mean, God's glory, okay,

awesome salvation beautiful through God's judgment. What is Hamilton getting

at there? In what way is God's glory in salvation

through judgment? Yet, Isaiah points to something very much like

that in these two chapters, actually through his whole book

and to all of it, is this verse trust in

the Lord forever for the Lord God as an everlasting rock.

In other words, there's a way in which trusting God

transforms our relationship with his judgment. There's a way in

which trusting God transforms our relationship with his judgment. I mean,

what is your relationship with God's judgment? How would you

describe it? How you feel about God's judgments? Sense of dread,

sense of anticipation, gratitude? Do you even know how you

feel about God's judgments? Well, what I'd like to convey

this morning from Isaiah twenty six to twenty seven is

that we can endure in trusting God to bring perfect

peace through his perfect judgments. We can endure in trusting God,

hold fast, continue in, press on in your trust, press

on in your faith in Him to bring perfect peace,

which is a very loaded term, through his perfect judgments.

So we're gonna take that in three pieces, three pieces

right out of that sentence, enduring trust, perfect peace, perfect judgments.

Enduring trust, perfect peace, and perfect judgments. Hopefully we'll see

how that all fits together. Let's start with enduring trust,

enduring trust, continuing on, pressing forward, digging in to trust God.

Why is it hard? Why is it hard to trust God? Well? Some,

for some of the answer is just having a heart

that doesn't want to a rebellion, a refusal to trust God.

We would rather trust ourselves. In fact, Isaiah speaks to

that throughout his book, and in chapter twenty six. The

characterization of those who trust in themselves is what Isaiah

calls the lofty city. You see that in verse five,

the lofty city. He lays it low. By the way

he lays it low to the ground. This is essentially

what defines what verse eleven calls your adversaries, God's adversaries,

those who would trust in themselves rather than trust in Him.

It is a distrust of God that works its way

out into what verse twenty one would call iniquity. I

think John Owen would say something a lot like this,

that it's trust in God. Faith that is the eye

of the soul that looks to him. It is the

hand of the soul that reaches out and lays hold

of him trust such that distrust is the eye that

wilfully closes, blinds itself will not see, and withdraws the

hand so that it would not hold on to God.

Why do we lie or lust or envy. It's a

matter of believing that God is not enough. We must

have something else. We must have a claim or satisfaction

or this thing or that thing. And the truth is,

that's not just unbelief, that's a false belief. It's a

belief that says sin is more satisfying than what God

has to offer. I can trust myself more than I

can trust God. It is what Isaiah would call and

has called throughout his book Pompous Pride. What's hard about

trusting God? It's very hard to trust God if you

don't want to. And yet it may also be hard

to trust God because it's simply hard to endure to

press into the waiting. How long, o Lord, how long

you see? In verse eight of twenty six, your name

and remembrance are the desire of my soul. I want

to trust Verse nine, My soul yearns for you in

the night. My spirit earnestly seeks you, and yet sometimes

that it's an earnest seeking for earnest seeking, because there's

a real element of enduring. There's a real element of waiting.

Verse eight says, Oh Lord, we wait for you, and

waiting is hard. Yet if God is who Scripture says

he is, it only makes sense to trust him. It

only makes sense to endure in trusting him. Verse four

says he is an ever lasting rock. And one of

Scripture's clearest, most central instructions is right there in verse four.

Trust the Lord? How long? What does it say? Forever?

Trust the Lord forever? Yet, as I've heard it said,

waiting exposes the heart. It removes the illusion of control.

We're not steering anymore. When we're waiting. We're not steering anymore.

We're being steered. And God uses waiting to reshape the heart.

He does deep work in the waiting. He rearranges our values.

He reveals what we really worship. Waiting is where the

promises of God fight for your heart. It's not passive,

actually deeply formative. God is at work in you as

you fight for enduring trust, as you press on, as

you continue, as you dig in. I will trust the Lord,

though I wait, though I yearn though I earnestly seek,

and the waiting is hard. I will trust the Lord forever.

But the question arises, what are you trusting the Lord for? What?

Does scriptures say we're trusting God to provide? What will

we receive from him? What are we waiting for? Well,

that brings us to perfect peace, enduring trust for perfect peace.

What are we waiting for from God? Well? We could

use a lot of terms. One term we could use

is abundant life. A term that Isaiah uses repeatedly over

and over again is peace. In verse three, it's perfect piece.

You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed

on you because he trusts in you. And when Isaiah

is talking about peace here, when he's talking about perfect peace,

the thing that we are waiting for from God, he's

not just talking about absence of conflict. He's not just

talking about calm. He's talking about perfect peace. And there's

a lot of a lot of aspects to it. There's

a fullness to the perfect peace that we're waiting for

from God. It's big, it's abundant. It includes things like this,

And I'll just give you five aspects of this. This thing,

this life that we're waiting for from God. Here's just

five from these two chapters. One we're waiting for, we'll

continue to wait for, we receive, and we continue to

wait in our receiving for God given righteousness. God given

righteousness says in verse seven, you make level the way

of the righteous. Those who are trusting in God are

trusting that He would make a path for us to

walk in His ways and to continue to walk in

His ways. How often do we find ourselves frustrated that

we have strayed from the path and desire that God

would bring us back, that he would rush us back

to the paths of righteousness. That is all a part

of what we are desiring to receive from God as

we trust him. Here's another God given flourishing It says

in verse fifteen, You've increased the nation, Old Lord, You've

increased the nation, and you are glorified. There's coming a day,

and there has already been the work of God to

increase the number of his people and to grow them

in both numbers and in grace. He has enlarged his people,

he has caused them to fly. And what we are

waiting for is a day in which all of God's

people flourish to the greatest extent. We're waiting for that

perfect peace. Number three, We're waiting for a god given resurrection.

It says in verse nineteen, your dead shall live, their

bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake

and sing for joy. For the your due is the

du of light. The earth will give birth to the dead.

What are we waiting for? What are we enduring in

our trust for that God would bring a perfect peace

that involves not only righteousness and flourishing, and involves eternal

life life, that all who are His would be returned

from the grave, birth from the earth, and be with

Him and with one another forever. We're enduring in our

trust for that. We're digging in to trust God for

his promises of life. Here's a fourth, a god given cultivating,

a God given cultivating verse three of twenty seven. In

that day a pleasant vineyard, sing of it, I the

lord of its keeper. Every moment I water it. Isaiah

is picturing a day where God's people are flourishing in

such a way that He is providing water and sustenance

and richness directly to his people, and nothing else can

touch them. We're waiting for it, renduring in our trust.

Here's the fifth, just from these two chapters, Verse nine

of twenty seven, a God given repentance, So the guilt

of Jacob will be atoned for, and this will be

the full fruit of the removal of his sin. When

he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones

crushed to pieces. Isaiah's picturing a time with the people

of God forgiven by God, under the grace of God,

with sin fully atoned for, make the full fruit of

their repentance known, and they worship no one but God alone.

We worship no one but God alone. No longer we

scrambling after the creation. No longer we scrambling after other

things to draw them close to our hearts and worship.

But rather, our hearts are completely fully dedicated to Him

in worship forever. And we have finally and fully tossed

every idol over our shoulders, waiting for perfect peace. In

other words, what Christians are trusting God to give is

what He has in fact promised, a whole bouquet of

spiritual increase and eternal life, and full repentance and righteousness,

a perfect peace for those who endure in trusting Him,

and it's far more valuable than all those other things

that our hearts scramble and grasp for in this world.

Even though distrust grumbles in our ears, drawing our thought

away from the peace that God is bringing for his people,

and distrust plays this little movie in our mind of

the good life that has very little to do with

God at all, a little movie that has very little

to do with what God provides to those who trust

in Him, A little movie whose basic message is what

God has to offer just isn't enough When you and

I know that the real yearning of our hearts is

these God given things. Full repentance, real righteousness, eternal life,

god given flourishing and cultivating. This is what we want,

and this is what our hearts yearn for. And the

real promise of Scripture is that God will give them

and the real provision for a people who truly haven't

earned their way, but who keep trusting God to grant

by grace through faith, all of these God given things

to grant perfect peace. There's coming a day. There's coming

a day. Endure in your trust because He is the

only source for perfect peace. He's the only source for

what we really really want. But how does he provide this?

By what means? Has he set about to bring perfect

peace to his people? We're enduring in our trust for it.

What he's bringing is amazing. How has he chosen to

bring it? That's what brings us to perfect judgments, perfect

judgments because God has designed to bring perfect peace through

his judgments. First of all, I mean, we can see

right away, and we know it's not by our works.

We're not receiving perfect peace from God's hands because of

our works. I mean, Isaiah tells us this right there.

In verse twelve of twenty six. It says, Oh Lord,

you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed

done for us all our works. We know we're going

to get what you have for us, because it's not

even up to us. You have indeed done all our works.

In fact, verse eighteen, we were pregnant, we writhed, But

we have given birth to wind, all of our strain,

all of our fleshly righteousness says, we've accomplished no deliverance

in the earth. No, it's not by our works, but

rather it is by His judgments, by his judgments. Well,

what does that mean? I mean, it says in verse eight.

In the path of your judgments, Oh Lord, we wait

for you, it says in verse nine. When your judgments

are in the earth, they learn righteousness. But as you

read these two chapters, you have to notice that God's

judgments don't bring just one type of thing. Right. We

ordinarily think of God's judgments as bringing just destruction cataclysm.

God's judgments and they do bring that. I there's definitely that.

Look at verse five. The inhabitants of the height, the

lofty city, he lays it low. He lays it low

to the ground, and cast it to the dust. There

are those who have refused to trust him and refuse

to walk in his ways, and have rejected and rebelled.

And God's judgment brings destruction. But that's not the only

thing God's judgments bring. God's judgments also bring relief, relief.

Verse thirteen says, Oh Lord, other lords, besides you have

ruled over us, But your name alone we bring to remembrance.

They're dead, that they will not live. They are shades,

they will not arise. In other words, there have been

those who oppressed us, and they're gone. You've brought in

your judgments, and you've brought relief to your people. And

not only that. You've brought relief to your people, and

you will bring relief to your people one day against

all moral evil. Look at verse one of twenty seven.

In that day, the Lord with his hard and great

and strong sword will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent. You

recognize probably that serpent from Genesis. The enemy. You probably

recognize that serpent or dragon from Revelation again, the enemy,

the cunning, lurer and tempter towards all moral evils, as

Leviathan the twisting serpent, he will slay the dragon that

is in the sea. One day. He will bring relief

to all his people from all moral evil, and he'll

do it by judgment. It doesn't just bring relief, chief though,

either It also brings discipline. God's judgments bring discipline, it

says in verse twenty six, sorry verse sixteen of twenty six,

they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was

on them. And then again in verse seven and eight

of twenty seven. Have they been slain as their slayers

were slain, measure by measure, by exile, you contend with them.

In other words, God brought judgment and destruction on the faithless,

but by his judgments he also took those who were

faithful and made them more faithful. He restored a remnant

by his discipline, and his discipline came through his judgments.

He is bringing perfect peace to his people, and he's

bringing it through his judgments. And there is even way,

there is even a way that God's judgments bring peace. Listen,

bring peace to those that deserved destruction. There is a

way in which God's judgments bring peace to those that

deserved destruction. If you look at verses four and five

of twenty seven, God says, if I had thorns and

briars to battle, I would burn them up or let

them make peace with me. Let them make peace with me.

In other words, God, who throughout this whole book of Isaiah,

has had a judgment of destruction for thorns and briars,

for those who have been faithless, for those who have

chosen the satisfaction of sin, over the satisfaction that God

offers those who have trusted themselves instead of trusting Him,

those thorns and briars. He's offering a way of peace.

How does that happen? How do thorns and briars whom

God has judged for destruction instead receive his peace. Well,

this is what the Gospel speaks to, that by nature

we are like thorns and briars, believing sin is more

satisfying than what God has to offer, Believing we can

trust ourselves more than we can trust God. We are as,

if he says, by natured children of wrath, like the

rest of mankind. But God brings peace by way of

his judgment. God brings peace by way of his judgment,

that we would be given a place, like it says

in verse twenty, a place to hide, and the fury

would pass by, that an everlasting rock would stand over us,

and not just stand over us, but rather just also

to stand in for us. That in God's judgment, God

saw fit that Christ would be under God's judgment, so

that perfect peace would be ours. According to God's judgment,

God brings peace by way of his judgment on him.

Christ the rock that we keep trusting for God's perfect peace,

because if his judgment hadn't fallen on him, it would

be on you. He is the one who is worthy

of our enduring trust. He's perfect in all his judgments.

He's the only one who stood under that judgment to

provide what our hearts actually long for. More than all

of these other things that we grasp for and we

scramble for. What we long for is perfect peace from God, Righteousness,

flourishing resurrection, repentance, righteousness. This is what we want, and

God has provided that perfect peace through his judgment on

his son. Praise the Lord MHM