Anticipating After All This

Isaiah twenty five. You sure you're there now, why don't

you come and read our sermon text for us, brother,

and we're gonna jump in as you are able.

Would you please stand for the reading of scripture Isaiah

twenty five. Oh Lord, you are my God. I will

exalt you. I will praise your name, for you have

done wonderful things, plans formed.

Of old, faithful and sure.

For you have made the city a heap, the fortified

city a ruin. The foreigner's palace is a city no more.

It will never be rebuilt. Therefore, strong people's will glorify you.

Cities of ruthless nations will fear you, for you have

been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the

needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm, and

a shade from the heat. For the breath of the

ruthless is like a storm against a wall, like heat

in a dry place. You subdue the noise of the

foreigners as heat by the shade of a cloud. So

the song of the ruthless is put down on this mountain.

The Lord of Hosts will make for all peoples a

feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine,

a rich food full of marrow, and of aged wine,

well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain

the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil

that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up

death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears

from all faces, and the reproach of his people he

will take away from all the earth. For the Lord

has spoken, it will be said on that day. Behold,

this is our God. We have waited for him that

he might save us. This is the Lord, we have

waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in

his salvation. For the hand of the Lord will rest

on this mountain, and moab shall be trampled down in

his place, as straw is trampled down in a dunghill.

And he will spread out his hands in the midst

of it, as a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim.

But the Lord will lay low his pompous pride, together

with the skill of his hands, the high fortifications of

his walls he will bring down, lay low, cast to

the ground, to the dust.

This is the word of God. Amen, you may be seated.

We've been studying the Book of Isaiah, and as we've gone,

we've continued to note that these writings of Isaiah's are

delivered to a people who badly need to live with

a godly perspective on what's going on around them. I mean,

who is that not true of a people who badly

need a Godly perspective on what's going on around them. Now,

what had been going on around them was kind of

a situation of blessing in abundance, and they responded to

that with pride and selfishness. And so God sent judgment

removed so much of that plenty, disciplining them, calling for

them to put their eyes on Him. And in many ways,

the response to that scarcity was now despair. They couldn't

handle plenty and they couldn't handle lack. In neither case

did they put their eyes on God. And so Isaiah

brings this word giving them a godly perspective on living

that's meant to meet the despair that they're experiencing because

they have done a lot of losing. Whether or not

you're a Christian, you might hear it be here this morning.

You're a Christian or you're not a Christian. Either way,

I think you would agree that at losing tends to

give us tunnel vision on what we have lost or

are losing. And lose your job, suddenly you're entirely focused

on job. You lose respect in your community, or you

lose your community, you're entirely focused on that you lose

or are in the process of losing a loved one,

and your mind and your heart seem to be fixated there.

That's just what your world shrinks to. And the message

that Isaiah brings that's meant to meet that that despair

and that tunnel vision on loss is this. He calls

the people to anticipate what's after all this. He calls

the people to anticipate what's after all this, to put

their eyes past their current situation, past even a change

in these current circumstances, and put their eyes on something

on the far broader horizon. We're gonna look at this

chapter chapter twenty five in five moves, which means they're

each gonna have to move pretty quickly because we're gonna

have the Lord's Supper after this too. So five moves

number one. How to anticipate? Well, if God is calling

us to anticipate what's happening after all of this, how

do we anticipate? Well, what does it even mean to anticipate?

Three things that God is calling us to anticipate? And

then how to anticipate confidently? That's one, two, three, four, five.

How to anticipate, well, three things God's calling us to anticipate,

and number five how to anticipate confidently. So let's jump

how to anticipate? Well, pretty important as Christians, as those

who are God's people, to understand how to wait on

the Lord? How to wait on the Lord? That is

the intent of Isaiah's pronouncement here is to call the

people to change the matter of their heart from one

that's just eyes are on what's going on on the ground,

to lifting up and anticipating waiting on God. You can

see that in verse nine, kind of in the middle

of this pronouncement, he says, it will be said on

that day, Behold, this is our God. We have what

does it say, waited for him that he might save us.

This is the Lord that we have waited for him.

Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. It's

easy to misunderstand the idea of waiting on God. It's

also in Isaiah chapter forty. You've heard this. Those that

wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, mount up

with wings like equals or Micah seven. I will look

to my God. I will wait for the God of

my salvation. And that's pretty helpful to include that I

will look to peace, because it makes clear that waiting

on God isn't passive, it's active. When I was younger then,

I heard the term weight on God. I thought that

just meant, you know, wait around, like in a doctor's office.

There's a waiting room, try not to think about what's

going on next. Flip through twenty sixteen, better homes and gardens,

play candy crush. Just waiting. That is not what the

Bible is calling us to when it says wait on

the Lord. It's an active thing. It is anticipation. I

would define it this way, to actively anticipate God showing

who he is, doing what he does. That's what it

means to wait on the Lord. To actively anticipate God

showing who he is and doing what he does. To

look to him. You know, they used to design waiting

rooms and hospitals that were a little different than just

the ones where you're trying not to think about what's coming.

It's the waiting room in the labor and Delivery department.

Some of you might be old enough to remember they

used to design those waiting rooms where there's a big window.

And while you're waiting there, maybe your dad or maybe

you're the family, and you're waiting for a baby to arrive,

and you don't spend your time flipping through magazines. You're

just all talking about the baby's coming. And you look

looking through the window and you're seeing all the babies

that were born that day. Which never mind. I'm just saying, like,

we make a lot of babies around here. We could

open up our own L and D department here. It's great.

It's a blessing and we're waiting for your kid and

the babies are showing up, and you're looking at what

is coming, and you're anticipating what's coming. It's not like

the waiting room of the doctor's office at all. It's

completely different. You've gone from waiting around to anticipating, Eyes up,

what's coming. That's what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about

what is coming, and that's what Isaiah is calling the

people of God to do. Eyes on the skies It's

like when my kids and I go dove hunting. We're

waiting for birds to show up. But we're not just

waiting around. We're not just like fussing around with what's

on the ground. We've got our eyes on the skies,

or at least most of my kids have their eyes

on the skies. One of them uses that time to sleep.

There's no shots coming from over there. You go and

you check on her and shotgun across the lab. That's

the difference between waiting and anticipating, right, What is God

calling us to anticipate? I have her permission to tell

on her that way. By the way, I asked her beforehand,

can I tell them when you fall want to go

to hunting? She said yes? What is God calling us

to anticipate? In his word? If he's asking our perspective

to change, if he is instructing us to change the

posture of our hearts, to change the direction of our eyes,

what is he calling us to lift up our eyes

and look for three things? From this passage here's the first.

Anticipate after all of this, after all of this feasting.

Anticipate after all of this feasting. Consider Verse six says

on this Mountain, the Lord of Hosts will make for

all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of

well aged wine, of rich food full of men, and

of aged wine, well refined. Isaiah is picturing for the

people of God a feast after all this, more than you,

more than you had before, certainly more than you don't

have now after all of this, a feast like Christ

says in Matthew chapter eight, I tell you many will

come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven. He's talking

about after all of this. Question comes up, so is

that literal like is God literally like prepping brisket and

cabernet for us after all of this. Am response to

that is like, why not. God can do whatever he

wants to do. He can provide for us whatever he

has planned. But what Isaiah is giving us is a

picture that shows what it shows, satisfaction and conviviality with

God and his people. That is what we will we

should anticipate after all of this, satisfaction and conviviality with

the creator of all things. That's what he has planned,

and we need that picture just like they needed that picture,

because we can see back in chapter five when they

didn't have a picture of what to anticipate from the

hand of God regarding satisfaction, the way they handled abundance

was they were to hoard it. They just they just

trampled over people, They oppressed other people. They were greedy,

they were gluttonous, they were vainglorious when they saw their

chance at satisfaction fixed on this world. That's how they behaved.

And really we're not that different. We kind of have

an understanding of how gluttony and vainglory go in our community, right,

I think you've heard it before. It essentially amounts to

spending money. We really don't have to buy things. We

really don't need to impress people. We really don't like

expecting more satisfaction from the things of this world, even

pretending we receive more satisfaction from the things of this

world than we can. But then when these folks no

longer had the chance to fix their sense of satisfaction

on the things of this world, when abundance was gone

and scarcity came, they moved from pride and selfishness straight

on over to fear and despair. They didn't know how

to deal with abundance, and they didn't know how to

deal with scarcity. And here Isaiah is holding out a

secret for dealing with both abundance and with scarcity, saying,

put your eyes on the feast that's coming. Here's what

you need to anticipate after all of this, A feasts.

And if you can anticipate the satisfaction and then viviality

that God has planned for you with him and his people,

you can rightly handle abundance, and you can rightly handle scarcity.

You can wait. It's coming. It kind of reminds me

of the two types of Thanksgivings I've experienced only two.

I've experienced Thanksgiving in a family with a Scandinavian background

and Thanksgivings with a family with an Italian background see

growing up Scandinavian background. I don't know if you're Scandinavian

and you didn't have this experience, I'm sorry. This is

the way it was at my grandparents' house. Feast was coming,

smelled delicious. You could go in the kitchen and look

at it. You couldn't touch it, you could look at it,

and it was going to be glorious. Anticipated. The feast

is coming, and that's all that's coming. That's it. You're

expected to not eat all day long. Some of you

are looking back at me like, yeah, that's the way

it's supposed to be. And we could handle it. We

could handle it with joy. The feast is coming. We

don't need to eat. Why would we eat? Look at

what's coming. We can handle this now. In my wife's family,

in the Italian households same thing. Feast is coming. It

looks great, it smells great. You can go in the

kitchen and look at it. But not only is the

feast coming, there's also appetizers, and plenty of them. There's olives,

there's salami, there's cheese, there's little christinis with garlic all

spread over. It's fantastic. But we can handle those without

gorging ourselves because we know the feast is coming. Oh,

we can be so generous to those. Oh no, please

take more. I don't know, I don't you know what

I'm gonna. I can hold off on this. We can

handle the abundance because we know the feast is coming,

and we can handle the scarcity. Sorry, Grandma. Because we

know the feast is coming, we can enjoy abundance with

godly contentment, and we can enjoy scarcity with godly contentment

because what we anticipate after all of this is perfect

satisfaction and conviviality with God and his people forever we

can wait. Feast is coming. Now. You might say, well, okay,

are you saying, are you claiming, preacher, that this is

merely a useful biblical doctrine so that we handle the

things of this world properly? Is this just something to

believe in order for us to have a proper attitude. No,

I'm claiming more than that. I'm claiming that it helps

us have a proper attitude. It helps us to handle

both abundance and scarcity in a godly way because God

has actually designed us for our deepest satisfaction to be

found in Him. That is why anticipating sorts out our

attitudes and desires. This because we're made that way. You say, well,

but is it true, Is it true that after all

this a feast with God? Well, I'd say this one

of the pieces of evidence that God is telling the

truth about the way He's designed all the redemptive history

is right here in this passage. It says, on this mountain,

the Lord of host will make for all peoples a feast.

He's gonna swallow up the veil that has cast over

all peoples, all nations. He wipe way tears from all faces.

And for the longest time the people of Israels have

that Isaiah is giving us this pronouncement. How is this

for all peoples? How is that going to happen? And

they're puzzling over this In the eighth century BC, and

now twenty eight hundred years later, the gospel has gone

forth to nearly all the peoples and all the nations,

over all the earth, and all the people who have

come to know Him will come to this mountain, and

they will have the satisfaction of their God, whom they

have trusted through the grace of Christ Jesus. God knows

what he's doing. He's made his promises, He's constructed history,

and we should believe him for what happens after all this,

anticipate it, not only anticipate feasting, Anticipate this, after all

this victory, after all of this victory. You could probably

pick up on all the language here about victory and

protection and conquering. Like in verse two, you've made the

city a heap in verse five, the song of the

ruthless has put down, in verse twelve the high fortification

of his walls, he will bring down, lay low. Isaiah

is saying, there will come a time when the enemies

of God are put down, and those who rely on

him will be lifted up in victory. In fact, you

might have noticed all of the up down language throughout

this whole chapter. They are brought down low into the dust,

and yet those who have trusted in Him are lifted up.

They will feast on the mountain. It's a little bit

like God has said, I know, it looks like you're

losing right now. If you're sitting down at kind of

the chessboard of life, it looks like things are almost lost.

But here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do a

big reversal, and I'm gonna flip that chessboard around, and

you're gonna be in the winning position. All my enemies

will be defeated, and those who trust in me will

have victory. And so those who read this naturally have

to ask, Okay, is Isaiah talking about like eighth century

BC enemies here, or is he talking about like ultimate

like after all this enemies yeah. Yes. In fact, we'll

see this in Isaiah over and over again, more and

more throughout the book. Isaiah weaves in aspects of his

pronouncements that have to do with those people then and

then also right in the very next verse, aspects of

his pronouncement that have to do with ultimate and eternal things,

just continually weaving those things in and out, as if

to say, I'm pronouncing for you a pattern of God working.

This is who God is, this is how God works,

and he's doing this with his people and his enemies now,

and he will continue to do so until the very end,

and every last enemy will be conquered, and all my

people will experience victory in the end, which has been

super helpful for God's people throughout redemptive history as they've read,

because they have faced ruthless enemies of various sorts, and

many many times they have been in the situation of

this congregation right now, which is to say, we're not

looking at the enemies of God like beating down our

doors right now in the flesh. But I know that

the struggle against the enemy of God that this congregation

has had has been with one of the oldest enemies

of the people of God that has ever been, and

that's sin. In fact, there's a group of us that

are in a study cohort right now on Monday mornings,

and we're studying John Owen's Mortification of Sin, considering about

how that old enemy is out to defeat, kill name,

destroy our lives and our families and our congregations. John

Owen says, be killing sin, or it will be killing you.

That old enemy requires constant warfare. In fact, one person

asked Pastor John MacArthur one time, what are you looking

forward to about heaven? And he said, you know, a

lot of things, but one that's on my mind right

now is no more sin. No more sin, No more

of my sin, no more of come I congregation sin.

No more destruction of people's families because of sin, destruction

of relationships that we love, destruction of congregations that we

love because of sin. Finally, victory, no more fighting, no

more losing. That is an encouragement worth taking. Letting the

anticipation of final victory shape what you desire. Now, do

you desire no more sin for all eternity, then kill

it in your life. Now. I know it's hard, it's

a fight when the Bible says kill sin. It doesn't

say it's going to be easy. Doesn't expect it to

be easy. I know it's hard, but listen, listen. If

we're taking Isaiah seriously, how many more decades do you

think you have to be in this fight? And then

after all this isn't that worth it? Just a little

bit longer fight? And then nothing but victory, including this victory,

victory over the last enemy. Death. Death. That is the

next thing we're called to anticipate. That's the third one anticipate.

After this death swallowed up. It says in verses seven

to eight, he will swallow up on this mountain, the

covering that has cast overall people, the veil that has

spread over all nations, which I think we should take

as a shroud, because it says he will swallow up

death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears

from all faces. You know what yolo means, y l

you only live once, which is usually used as a

justification to do something stupid. Is it true you only

live once? Well, in one sense it's certainly not true.

This isn't all your life. Death is being swallowed up,

and the end that we think death is will itself end,

It will be undone. There is so much more than

just this life, this way, in this place, this way,

And yet in another sense, you only live once. Is right.

In other words, this life is all you have for

preparing for after all this, This is what you have

for trusting the one who rules eternity. This is what

you have to walk away from the sin that seems

so irresistible right now. But I promise you will be

turning to ash in your mouth before long. It will

transform before too long into bitterness. And if you want

to be savvy to that transformation, all you have to

do is just anticipate eternity. Just live with your eyes

on eternity, eyes on the skies. Look up. Consider the

love that he is calling you to. Consider the grace

he is calling you to share with other eternal souls.

Consider the obedience which will shine forever after all this.

I know it's hard. I know it's hard. It will

shine forever after all of this. The sacrifice is worth it,

The humility is worth it forever. Don't let your eyes

just fuss around with what's on the ground. Don't fall

prey to the mistake that this handful of decades is

all there is. I read in a book once a

suggestion to test yourself in times of stress or conflict,

just ask, well this matter in a hundred years? Okay,

that sounds like a pretty good question to ask. Here's

a better one. As you consider the eternal souls that

you interact with in your family and in your office,

as you consider the obedience that he's called you to,

the sin that he's calling you to put away, the

humility he's calling you to step forward and ask yourself

what in all this will matter for eternity? Because the

death that seems so final and so voracious will itself

be swallowed up and we live. We're called to live

anticipating that, anticipating what's after all of this. Now, I said,

from the beginning we would talk about anticipating well, but

then later we would talk about anticipating confidently. Because it's

one thing to understand what it means to wait with

anticipation active. It's another thing to know what can I

root my confidence in When I'm being asked to look

up towards something I can't see. I mean, I know

the Bible is telling me to look up. I know

the Bible is telling me to have an eternal perspective.

But what I see is just what's around me, and

it's easy for my confidence to just drop to the

level of my sight. I would give you this number

one plans plans. Consider Verse one says you've done wonderful things,

plans formed of old, faithful and sure. In other words,

what I mean to say is you can have confidence

in your anticipating because he has planned all of this.

These are plans, faithful, sure. He has planned for the

serpent's head to be crushed. He has planned for death

to be swallowed up. He has planned for this gospel

to go into all the nations, and then the end

will come. He has been planning this from the beginning.

You can anticipate with confidence because this isn't just some

random course of action. He's been doing this from the

very beginning. He has made these plans. They are faithful

and sure. Anticipate with confidence. Not only plans, consider the past.

The past you know you see there in verse two,

you have made the city a heap. You can see

in verse four you have been a stronghold to the poor.

God has been fulfilling his promises from the very beginning.

Consider the past. Consider what he said he would do

and how he has already done it. He promised that

he would give Abraham the land. They've got the land.

He promised he would take them out of Egypt. He

split the sea. He promised that the gospel would go forth.

The Gospel has gone forth. All you have to do

is reflect on the way that God has kept his

promises in the past, and you can anticipate He's going

to keep his promises in the future. Whenever I take

my kids to visit their grandparents, my parents, I always

tell them, you know, I love them being around you

because I'm counting on you telling them what God has done.

So I was there when God did what he did

in our family. I know the stories. They've heard them

from me, but I want them to hear it from you.

You were the adult then you prayed, You prayed what

you prayed, and God answered the way he answered. And

I want my kids to hear the faithfulness of God

in the past, because how else will we anticipate the

faithfulness of God in the future. Plans past person, the

person of Jesus Christ, the person who is already demonstrated

that death will not hold his people the one of whom,

when he was risen, was called the first born of

many brothers. In other words, death has already started being

swallowed up. He was the suffering servant that Isaiah pronounced,

born of a virgin, as Isaiah pronounced lineved a sinless

life that we could not died for sinners like you

and me. Rose after three days and appeared over forty

days to over five hundred people in a variety of settings,

none of whom would turn go back on their story,

even under threat of torture and death. He's demonstrated by

what he can do and the willingness he has to

do it. What's after all this? And he said this,

here's what to anticipate. Christ himself said, here's what to anticipate.

Anticipate this feast, Anticipate this victory, Anticipate this life. Anticipate me.

That's how we live. Eyes up