Listen, Awake, Depart

I'd invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the

book of Isaiah. We're picking up where we left

off. We'll be looking at chapter 51

and into chapter 52 and find the page printed for you, page

number printed for you in the bulletin.

If you're using the red Bibles and the chairs around you,

Isaiah 51. I'll begin reading in verse one,

and we're going to read down through verse 12 of chapter 52.

And as we do, I want you to be listening and looking for three

words in particular. Listen awake, depart.

Let's read God's Word. Listen to me, you who pursue

righteousness, you who seek the Lord.

Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry

from which you were dug. Look to Abraham and your father,

and to Sarah who bore you. For he was but one when I called

him, that I might bless him and multiply him.

For the Lord comforts Zion. He comforts all her waste

places, and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the

garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found

in her Thanksgiving and the voice of song Give attention to

me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation.

For a law will go out for me, and I will set my justice for a

light to the peoples. My righteousness draws near.

My salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples.

The coastlands hope for me and for my arm They wait.

Lift up your eyes to the heavens and look at the earth beneath,

for the heavens vanish like smoke.

The earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in

it will die in like manner. But my salvation will be

forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.

Listen to me, you who are righteous, the people in whose

heart is my law. Fear not the reproach of man,

nor be dismayed at their violence.

For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm

will eat them like wool. But my righteousness will be

forever, and my salvation to all generations.

Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord, awake as in the

days of old, the generations of long ago.

Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?

Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great

deep, who made the depths of the sea away?

For the redeemed to Passover, and the ransomed of the Lord

shall return and come to Zion with singing.

Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.

They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing

shall flee away. I, I am he who comforts you.

Who are you that you are afraid of man, who dies of the Son of

Man, who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord your

Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations

of the earth? And you fear continually all the

day because of the wrath of the oppressor when he sets himself

to destroy. And where is the wrath of the

oppressor? He who has bowed down shall

speedily be released. He shall not die and go down to

the pit, neither shall his bread be lacking.

I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that it's

waves roar. The Lord of hosts is his name.

And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the

shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the

foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, you are my

people, wake yourself, wake yourself.

Stand up, O Jerusalem. You have drunk from the hand of

the Lord the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs, the

bowl, the cup of staggering. There is none to guide her among

all the sons she has born. There is none to take her by the

hand among all the sons she has brought up.

These two things have happened to you.

Who will console you? Devastation and destruction,

famine and sword, Who will comfort you?

Your sons have fainted. They lie at the head of every

street, like an antelope and a net.

They are full of the wrath of the Lord, the rebuke of your

God. Therefore hear this, you who are

afflicted, who are drunk but not with wine.

Thus says your Lord, Thus says your Lord, the Lord, your God,

who pleads the cause of his people.

Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering, the

bowl of my wrath. You shall drink no more, and I

will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who have said

to you, Bow down that we may pass over, and you have made

your back like the ground and like the street for them to pass

over. Awake, awake, put on your

strength those on, put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem,

the holy city, for there shall no more come into you, the

uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake yourself from the dust,

and arise. Be seated, O Jerusalem, loose

the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

For thus says the Lord, you were sold for nothing, and you shall

be redeemed without money. For thus says the Lord God.

My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there, and

the Assyrian oppressed them for nothing.

Now therefore, what have I here? Declares the Lord.

Seeing that my people are taken away for nothing, their rulers

wail, declares the Lord. And continually all the day my

name is despised. Therefore my people shall know

my name. Therefore in that day they shall

know that it is I who speak, Here I am.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feed of him who brings

good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of

happiness, who publishes salvation, Who says to Zion,

your God reigns the voice of your watchman.

They lift up their voice together.

They sing for joy, for eye to eye.

They see the return of the Lord to Zion.

Break forth into singing. You waste places of Jerusalem.

For the Lord has comforted his people, He has redeemed

Jerusalem, The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of

all the nations. And all the ends of the earth

shall see the salvation of our God.

Depart, depart, go out from there, Touch no unclean thing,

go out from the midst of her. Purify yourselves, you who bear

the vessels of the Lord. For you shall not go out in

haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the Lord will go

before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

Let's pray together. Father, Your word is powerful.

And so we would be so bold as to ask for the Holy Spirit to be at

work using your powerful Word to deepen our understanding of the

gospel, to deepen our love for You, and to change us to form

and to shape us that we might more and more be conformed to

the image of our Savior. For it's in his name we pray.

Amen. Well, if you've ever flown on an

airplane and had to navigate an airport, then we've all had a

common experience. You get to the gate from which

you are going to be leaving, and you then begin to wait until

it's time to get on the plane. And everybody in the area does

their own thing. Some people have their phones

out, they might be playing games, they might be listening

to music. Some people might be reading a

book. Others might be grabbing a bite

to eat. There might be some young

children playing on the floor. But as the departure time gets

closer and closer, everyone listens.

They're waiting to hear that the boarding is about to start

listening for when their zone is called, and when it does, it's

like a great awakening. Everybody stands up, everybody

puts everything in their bag, and everybody moves toward the

door. Everybody's ready to depart, to

get onto the plane and depart for their destination.

Every once in a while there's that one person perhaps sitting

across the hallway at another gate, or maybe at an adjacent

gate to stay out of the the mess of people that are there, not

paying attention, not doing a good job of listening for the

announcement, not awaken to the boarding process beginning.

And what happens eventually the boarding door is closed and that

person is not able to depart with the plane.

Listening, awakening, departing, three things that important

things that we do in so much of our lives.

And we have all three words here in our passage today.

In fact, listen, awake, depart. They are three imperative verbs

that are used, commands that God gives for what God's people are

to do and how they are to live. And it was true for God's people

in captivity, in exile in Babylon in the 6th century BC,

and it's true for God's people in this building in 2026.

So let's take a few moments and look at our passage and see what

we can learn about these three commands for us today and

reflect how they apply into our lives.

The 1st is listen. It's how our passage begins.

You see it at the beginning of verse one.

Listen to me. You see it again at the

beginning of verse 4. Give attention to me, my people,

and give ear to me. Again, at the beginning of verse

7, listen to me. All imperative verbs, the call

for God's people to listen to the Lord.

And did you notice here in these beginning verses of chapter 51

that as they are called to listen to the Lord, what does he

point them to? Well, in verses one through

three, he points them to look back.

You see that the end of verse one, look to the rock from which

you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug.

Verse 2, look to Abraham and Sarah, he says.

Verse three, he points to Eden, the garden of the Lord.

The call is for his people to remember the past to to look

back at how the Lord has been at work with his people, reminding

His people of his faithfulness to them, of how he fulfilled the

promises he made to Abraham. How he has kept his promise to

not forsake his people and how He is even preserving them while

they're now in exile. The promise that they would

return to the promised land. But but he doesn't just tell

them to look back as he calls them to listen to Him.

He also points forward. And you can see that in verses 4

through 6. Notice that in these verses he

mentions the things that He will do in the future.

His, His law will go out from Him.

He, He will set justice for a light to the nations.

He says His righteousness will draw near, and He will judge the

peoples. His arm, a sign of strength,

will bring hope for the people. He says a day is coming when the

heavens and the earth will be no more, but His promised that his

salvation will be forever. His righteousness will never be

dismayed. He's pointing his people to the

future to to look forward, to look ahead to.

The Lord has not abandoned his people in the past, and he will

continue to be at work in their lives in the future.

He will bring them out of exile. He will bring them back to their

home. And even in, in a greater way,

he points ultimately to the end of time when there will be a new

heavens and a new earth. Look back, He says, listen to

me. Look back, look forward.

But notice he says that as you look back, as you see the

faithfulness of the Lord, as you see his faithfulness to his

promises over and over again to his people, as you look forward

and see all of the things that the Lord is going to do, what

does he tell them they should do as a result?

Verses 7 and 8, fear not. They should have No Fear of man.

Fear not the reproach of man. Don't be dismayed or discouraged

at the doings of man. They are temporary, They are

finite. They will pass away like a moth

eats a garment. But the righteousness of the

Lord will be forever. His salvation will never end for

His people throughout generations.

He will redeem His people. So there's no need to fear.

So here's the first command, the command of God to his people.

Listen, listen to the Lord. Secondly, awake, awake.

You see it at the beginning of verse 9.

Awake, awake again in the first part of verse 17.

Wake yourself. Wake yourself, he says.

And again in chapter 52, the beginning of verse one, awake,

awake, God calls on his people to awake.

But interestingly, note first it's God who awakes.

That's what we read in verses 9 through 11 of chapter 51.

Verse 9 is the people calling on the Lord to awaken, to come to

their aid, to help them, that they call for the arm of the

Lord to be active, a sign of his strength and power and might.

And they say, wasn't it you who cut Rahab to pieces?

Now you may remember that that name Rahab was used to refer to

Egypt. Isaiah used it that way back in

chapter 30. They say, wasn't it you who

pierced the dragon? Probably a reference there to

Psalm 74, where the psalmist talks of the Lord crushing the

sea monster, the great leviathan, the dragon,

ultimately Satan himself. Here in verses 9 through 11, the

people are crying out to the Lord.

They're calling for him to awake and to come to their aid.

And as we move to verses 12 through 16, look at the

assurance that God gives them of His help, the Lord's response to

their cry for His help, for him to awake and come to their

rescue. He reminds them that it is He

who is the one who comforts them.

The Lord is the one who has stretched out the heavens, who

has laid the foundation of the earth.

He is the one who stirs up the sea and causes the waves to

roar. He is the Lord of hosts, it

says. He has put his words into their

mouths and He has covered them in the shadow of His hand.

He reminds them once again that they are still His people, His

precious treasure. They have no need to fear, no

need to fear any oppressors. The wrath of the oppressors, He

says, will be as nothing for them.

The people call for God to awake.

The Lord responds by reminding them that He is the one who

brings comfort to His people. The wrath of their oppressors

will be as nothing for them. But notice as we move to verses

17 to 23, not only will the wrath of their oppressors be as

nothing for them, the Lord's cup of wrath, the justice that

people have drunk, referring to their punishment in exile, the

the how they have drunk, the dregs of the bowl of wrath and

the cup of staggering. He says, I have removed that cup

from you. You will drink from it no more.

It will be your tormentors, those who oppose the Lord, who

would now drink from that cup. So first of all, God awakens.

The people call for His help, and He responds with His strong

arm of salvation and redemption. And He protects and He preserves

His people and He removes the cup of judgement from them.

They will drink from it no more. The exile will come to an end.

And remember, the people that are reading these words for the

first time are in exile. How encouraging this these words

must have been to them. But then notice after the Lord

awakens, God's people are called to awake.

Look at verse 1 of chapter 52. The Lord says awake, awake.

Put on your strength, O Zion, to call for God's people to awake.

God has awakened, He has initiated, He has acted, He has

provided salvation and redemption and righteousness,

and now his people are to respond.

They too are to awake. And notice what that entails,

verses one through three. They are to put on new garments,

beautiful garments, it says. It reminds us of the very end of

the Bible in Revelation chapter 19, where we see the marriage

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

supper of the Lamb Jesus with his beautiful and glorious

bride, the church, and she is dressed in beautiful garments

that are provided by Jesus, and we're told there that they are

the glorious good works of the church.

Beautiful garments are often used as a metaphor for inward

character. This is a call for God's people

to respond to God's work by living like who they are.

Verse 2, they're not able to break the chains of bondage, but

once the Lord breaks them, they are called to throw off their

bonds and chains. You can see how they're able to

do that. Verse 3 Because the Lord is

redeeming them, He will do so. He says without money, He will

pay nobody for their release. Their salvation would not be

bought, but it was going to cost the Lord dearly.

Next week we will come to the following passage, chapter 52,

verse 13, all the way down through chapter 50, the end of

chapter 53, one of the greatest sections of the Bible.

The suffering servant, the great and ultimate servant, would come

and bear our griefs, carry our sorrows.

He would be stricken, smitten by God, He would be pierced for our

transgressions, He would be crushed for our iniquities, and

on him would be laid chastisement that would bring us

peace, and through his wounds we will be healed.

And the Lord would lay on him the iniquity of all God's

people. God's people are called to awake

and to put on new garments, and to throw off the chains that

have been broken for them, and to live like who they are

because they have been bought. With an incredible price, they

are God's precious and treasured people, the people that He has

redeemed to the cost of the death of His own Son.

Not only are they supposed to put on new garments, you can see

in verses 4 through 6. Another aspect of the call for

God's people to awaken it is to realize that they're in a new

relationship with the Lord. Verses 4 through 6 are have the

language of relationship, a relationship between God and his

people. And verse four he says my people

again in verse 5, my people. And in verse 6 he says my people

shall know my name. They shall know that it is I who

speak here I am. This is language of a

relationship between God and His people, a relationship that was

established by His covenant with them.

The relationship was never fully severed or cut off, but it was

severely damaged as the people rebelled against the Lord as

they abandoned His ways and His law.

Like the prodigal son, they demanded their inheritance and

then departed. Because of their sin and

disobedience, they were sent away into exile, and the

relationship was damaged. But it was never severed.

It was never ended. The Lord never cut them off.

And here he reminds his people the relationship is moving into

a whole new era. The exile is about to be over.

You are going back to the promised land, and once again we

are in fellowship with one another.

You have been, you are, and you will be my people, he says.

And you will know my name. After the Lord awakens and

redeems and rescues his people, the people are called to awake

as well. And then notice they're called

to depart. Now that last command imperative

is actually down in verse 11. Depart, depart, go out from

there. But before we get to that

command in verses 7 through 10, this last section of our passage

today moves into a party. A party that breaks out as a

result of the good news of the Lord's salvation.

Look at it in verses 7 through 10, a picture of a messenger

coming with news. It's often done in times of war

and battles when a messenger would be sent back home to bring

news about the war. And as the messenger drew close,

the watchman on the towers would wonder, will it be good news or

bad news? Are we winning or losing?

Has the king survived or has he been killed?

And here the messenger, the beautiful feet of the messenger,

brings good news. Good news of happiness says news

of peace, salvation, that our God reigns.

So much so that when the good news of happiness and peace is

announced, even the watchman on the wall begins singing.

It says they break out in singing for joy, joyfully

praising the Lord for returning His people to Zion.

A call for even Jerusalem itself to break out into singing.

For the Lord has comforted his people.

The Lord has bared his holy and powerful arms and for all

nations to see. Everybody will see the salvation

of our God. And so the Lord calls his people

to a new exodus, depart, depart. He says the people are called to

come out of Babylon, to come out of exile.

But but notice here in verse 12, this new Exodus is not like the

old Exodus, the exodus from Egypt.

There they had to hurry, they had to leave in haste under the

cover of darkness. And here the Lord says you will

not go out and haste to cross the river as if Pharaoh and his

army were trying to recapture. You know the Lord will go before

you and protect you, and he would also be your rear guard,

ensuring your safety. There's nothing to fear.

There's no one to fear. You will travel home safely and

securely and surely. But notice he does call on them

not to bring with them any of the unclean or impure wickedness

of Babylon. Well, what do we do with all of

this? Well, it seems like 3 pretty

good takeaways for us today would be listen awake, depart,

listen. As God's people today, we are

called to listen to the Lord. Like he said in chapter 51,

verse 1, He calls us to to listen to me.

You who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord, we're

called to listen, quick to listen.

How do we listen to the Lord today?

How does He speak to us? It is through His word.

It is through the Scriptures reading and meditating on the

Word of God that is how we listen to the Lord.

And just like God's people in exile and Babylon, we too need

to look back. Back to what the Lord has done

in history. All of the promises that He has

already fulfilled faithfully. The faithfulness of the Lord to

uphold and fulfill all that He says that He will do.

And especially to look back to the Lord Jesus Christ coming

into this world, all that he accomplished, a life of perfect

love and obedience to his Father, of voluntary death on

the cross and resurrection from the grave.

We too need to look back. But we also, like God's people

in exile and Babylon, we need to look forward.

Forward to the promises that God has made but haven't yet been

fulfilled. The promise that Jesus would

come back again. The promise that we have of

eternal life through faith in Christ.

The promise that all sad things will come untrue.

The promise that everything wrong will be made right, that

injustice will be replaced with justice and righteousness.

The promise that the Lord who began a good work of redemption

and sanctification in our life will bring it to completion.

If the Lord has been promises, has been faithful to his

promises to his people so far, we can trust that he will be

faithful to fulfill the rest of the promises that He's made to

us. And as we look back, as we

listen to the Lord by looking back and as we look forward,

just like the people in exile, we are not to fear.

We are not to fear the reproach of man.

What are the ways that you fear man?

What are What are the ways that you fear the the reproach of

man? Maybe you have a fear of sharing

the gospel, of sharing the hope that you have in Christ because

you don't want to be ridiculed or dismissed.

Maybe you have a fear of others knowing that you're a Christian

because you'll be looked down on or made fun of or passed over.

Maybe you have a literal fear of man, a fear of what our

governing officials might do or decide.

We're called to listen to the word of God, to to look back at

his faithfulness, of his sovereignty and power and

holiness and in majesty. We are called to look forward to

the wonderful promises that he has made for us that will be

accomplished in his timing in Providence.

And as we do that, we are called to put off fear.

We serve the Lord God Almighty, the Lord of hosts.

Who are we to fear? We need to listen to the Lord.

We need to awake now. For some here today, that might

mean a call to awake spiritually for the first time.

Have you never put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?

Have you never acknowledged that you are a Sinner and that you

sin against God's Word, and that as a result you're at enmity

with God, unable to go to heaven?

Have you never admitted that you need a Savior to pay for your

sins? Acknowledge that Jesus is that

Saviour. If you haven't acknowledged

those things, then let today be that day.

There's a prayer in our bulletin at the bottom of page 14 that

you could use to help guide you, asking the Lord to forgive you

for your sins. Or you just could use your own

words and pray to Him. Confess your need for a Savior.

Confess that you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and believe

that He died on the cross to pay for your sins and that you want

a relationship with Him. Can I say that if you are here

and you do that for the first time, tell someone.

Tell Pastor Steve or myself. Tell one of our elders or

deacons. If you're a young person, tell

your parents. For others of us to awake may

mean a call to awaken from our spiritual slumber.

Maybe you're already a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, but

your way that you're living your life could accurately be

described as a spiritual slumber.

Not making use of the means of grace to grow in your faith to

to grow in Christian maturity. Not spending time with other

Christians for fellowship and community.

Not spending any time in prayer, talking with the Lord, deepening

your relationship with the Lord. If that's you, the Lord is

calling to you this morning and he says awake.

Part of awakening from our spiritual slumber could involve

thinking about and meditating on our adoption into the family of

God. It's one of the things we've

been reflecting on in our adult Sunday school class as we've

been going through the book of Galatians.

The idea of being adopted into the family of God, of being made

a child of God through faith in Christ.

It's a significant part of Paul's argument in that letter.

And if you are a Christian, if you are in Christ and you've

been united to Jesus by faith, then you are a child of God.

You have been adopted into the family of God, and that is your

official unchangeable status. And if you're a child of God, if

you have been adopted into the family of God, then you are an

heir to the precious promises and eternal inheritances.

The idea of our adoption into the family of God is a powerful

agent to awaken our hearts and our souls.

If we have been made a child of God, if we have been adopted

into the family of God, if other Christians are now our brothers

and sisters in Christ, won't we want to wake up from our

spiritual slumber, our spiritual lethargy?

As we meditate on the gospel, God's grace to us, his uniting

us to Jesus and all of his benefits?

As we meditate on the reality of our adoption and all that that

means for us, we will be more and more motivated and empowered

to read the Word of God, to spend time with the Lord in

prayer, to worship from our hearts, to be in fellowship with

our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Because our God is awake and has secured our redemption, because

He has broken off our chains of bondage, He calls us to awake to

live like who we are, the adopted children of God.

Lastly, depart now. The call for God's people in

Babylon in the 6th century BC was to depart Babylon, to depart

the exile and to return home. Now that's not an application

for us today. We're not called to leave exile,

return to the promised land. But we saw as we looked in those

commands in verses 11 and 12 of chapter 52, that there was

something else that he included. There wasn't just leave Babylon,

but we we saw that he said depart and go out from there and

touch no unclean thing. Go out from the midst of

Babylon's evil and purify yourselves.

He says. So the imperative that the

command to depart also has a sense of departing their old

ways, their wrong ways of living.

That part of departing still applies to us today.

So as we finish, ask you to reflect what are the things in

your life that you need to depart from?

What are the things in your life that you need to depart from?

Maybe it's ongoing, unrepentant sin.

Maybe it's a resetting sin that you find so easy to give into.

Maybe it's an unhealthy relationship in your life, a

relationship that causes your Christian life to suffer and to

languish rather than to flourish.

Maybe you need to depart from over commitment, having no

margin, going in too many directions, having too many

irons in the fire, saying yes to every opportunity.

Maybe you need to depart from worry, worrying about things

that you can't control, worrying about possible things and

outcomes in the future that are not certain.

Or maybe you need to depart from cynicism about other people,

about brothers and sisters in Christ, about your children,

about your spouse, about our politicians and governing

authorities, about other evangelical churches in town.

What are the things in your life where you need to depart?

God calls on us today to listen to Awake and to depart.

Let's pray together.