Rebukes, Refining, and Redemption for God's Glory

Well, good morning. As you're turning to your Bibles

to to Isaiah chapter 48, which would be 6 O 8 and six O 9 in

Isaiah 48 · chapter mention

the Pew Bibles. Just want to share a little bit

of a story. Some of you may remember that I

preached a little over a year ago and I introduced that sermon

with a with a confession. I guess that I'd had a dream

that I was late for church on the day that I was supposed to

be preaching. That dream came true today,

almost came true today. I was about 5 miles from the

Highway 52 exit onto Hwy. 52 coming from high Interstate 90,

Started to notice a little wobbling in the back tire and

Lisa said I think it's kind of vibrating.

I think our wheels might be out of alignment.

Turns out it was way worse than that.

We we barely made it off the Interstate.

Some of you may know that on Interstate 90 and on Hwy. 52

there's a place of ill repute that is just South of the there.

I made sure I didn't park the car there.

I went all the way down to the to the quick trip.

I got parked there and thankfully my son Jake was able

to come pick me up. I was not late, but I did.

I did tell Pastor Steve that I might be late and he said, well,

we'll just sing another hymn if we need to do that.

So anyway, didn't need to do that.

So as as we return to Isaiah 48, invite you to hear with me the

word of the Lord and then keep it open afterwards because we'll

be walking through it during the message.

Let's pray. Well, actually I'm going to,

like I said, I'm not flustered at all by the experience of

today. We're just going to go right

ahead now to my copy of the Scriptures and Isaiah 48.

Hear this, O House of Jacob, who are called by the name of

Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by

the name of the Lord, and confess the God of Israel, but

not in truth or right, for they call themselves after the holy

city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel.

The Lord of hosts is His name. The former things I declared of

old. They went out from my mouth, and

I announced them. Then suddenly I did them, and

they came to pass. Because I know that you are

obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your forehead

brass. I declared them to you from of

old. Before they came to pass.

I announced them to you, lest you should say, My idol did

them. My carved image and my metal

image commanded them. You have heard.

Now see all this, and will you not declare it from this time

forth? I announced to you new things,

hidden things that you have not known.

They're created now, not long ago.

Before today, you've never heard of them, lest you should say,

Behold, I knew them. You have never heard.

You have never known. From an old your ear has not

been opened. For I knew that you would surely

deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were

called a rebel. For my name's sake I defer my

anger. For the sake of my praise I

restrain it for you that I may not cut you off.

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver.

I have tried you in the furnace of affliction for my own sake.

For my own sake I do it. For how should my name be

profaned? My glory I will not give to

another. Listen to me, O Jacob and

Israel, whom I called. I am He, I am the 1st, and I am

the last. My hand laid the foundation of

the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens.

When I call to them, they stand forth together.

Assemble all of you and listen. Who among them has declared

these things? The Lord loves him.

He shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be

against the Chaldeans. I even I have spoken and called

him. I have brought him, and he will

prosper in his way. Draw near to me.

Hear this from the beginning. I have not spoken in secret from

the time it came to be. I have been there, and now the

Lord God has sent me and His Spirit.

Thus says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of

Israel. I am the Lord your God, who

teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way that you should

go. Oh, that you had paid attention

to my commandments? Then your peace would have been

like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of

the sea. Your offspring would have been

like the sand, and your descendants like its grains.

Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.

Go out from Babylon, free from Chaldea.

Declare this with a shot of joy. Proclaim it.

Send it out to the end of the earth.

Say the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.

They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts.

He made water flow for them from the rock.

He split the rock, and the water gushed out.

There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.

The grass Withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God

will stand forever. Let's pray, Father, we trust

Your promise that the word that goes out from your mouth will

not return to you empty, but that it shall accomplish that

which you purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which

You sent it. Please attend to Your Word by

Your Holy Spirit and open our ears, enlighten our minds, and

warm our hearts to hear and receive and believe it.

Use this time for our prophet and for the glory of Your Son

our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, as we ask it in His

name. Amen was many of you will

remember Trinity hosted the most recent meeting of the Siouxlands

Presbytery just this last September.

The Siouxlands Presbytery is made-up of all the PCA churches

in the Dakotas as well as Minnesota.

It stretches from Duluth on the east, the northeast to Rapid

City in the southwest. It's about 13 hours or something

like that across if you're driving.

We meet three times a year at least the teaching elders or

pastors are required to be there are expected to be there unless

they have an excused absence. And we're also expected to bring

a representative a a congregational representative as

a ruling elder to have at least one of those ruling elders are

men like me who are they're also the other ones that you see on

the back of the bulletin who also leading in in

congregational prayer. We're generally not seminary

trained, but we serve on the session of the local church and

also then as congregational representatives to the

presbytery meetings or a General Assembly.

Our Book of Church Order, which we lovingly call the BCO, has

two sentences about the role of ruling elders In Chapter 8 and

Section 10 is what it says. It says elders, being of one

class of office ruling elders, possess the same authority and

eligibility to hold office in the courts of the church as

teaching elders. They should, moreover, cultivate

zealously their own aptness to teach the Bible and should

improve every opportunity of doing so.

I'm standing here today instead of sitting there this morning

because of both of those sentences.

To reflect the equality of the two orders of elders, the

Siouxlands Presbytery has a tradition that one year that the

moderator, the one who runs the meeting, rotates between the

ruling elders and the teaching elders. 1 And so one year it's a

teaching elder. And this next year coming up

happens to be a year for a ruling elder.

So, as Providence would have it, I was minding my own business,

literally minding my own business, on my laptop in the

church office on September 25th on the 1st morning of

Presbytery, when Pastor Johnson approached me and asked if I

would consider being a candidate for moderator in 2026 because

next year is is a ruling elder year in the rotation.

So I asked him the dates of the meeting and I checked my

calendar and I found out that I didn't have any conflicts.

So I said I was willing. I didn't realize I'd be the only

candidate. So it's kind of like when we

have our congregational meetings like next week and Pastor Harper

will ask, so we need to have somebody take minutes.

Does anyone want to take minutes?

And I end up getting to do it. So I was it unanimously elected.

How about that? Seriously though, I, I do look

forward to serving in this role. I think it's a great opportunity

for growth and building relationships with the other

ruling elders, with the teaching elders as I run the meeting and

rule them out of order and all that kind of whatever else I

need to do. So after I got elected to the

moderator role, Pastor Harper ordered a couple of books for

me. One of them is this

Parliamentary Procedure at a Glance, it's a guide to Robert's

Rules of Order. And then there's this page

Turner they got me. This is our bond of Union.

The subtitle is A Commentary on the Book of Church Order of the

Presbyterian Church in America. So as I was started reading

through this to prepare for becoming the moderator, I came

across this second aspect of the ruling Elder role, where it says

they should moreover cultivate zealously their own aptness to

teach the Bible and should improve every opportunity for

doing so. It was just a couple weeks later

that Pastor Harper asked if I'd be willing to preach on November

16th. So I thought and prayed about it

overnight and it seemed like a good opportunity for some

zealous cultivation. So as Isaiah said earlier in the

book, here I am, send me a pastor Harper said I could

choose my own text or I could continue in the Isaiah series.

And he said that Isaiah 48 was was Next up.

And it's such a majestic conclusion to the section of

Isaiah. I couldn't imagine picking

another passage since this was what was on the docket.

He again helped by providing several of his commentaries as

resources and I'm going to be adapting one of them by Alan

Harmon as the framework, guided by the others and filling in

some of the sub points. And as we say in the membership

follows in humble reliance on the grace of the Holy Spirit.

But it's that outline is on page 7, I guess, of your bulletin.

And so if you'd like to follow along, that'd be great.

So Harmon titles this whole chapter, the Lord's rebuke to

Israel to in many ways, a summary and A and a

recapitulation of the section of Isaiah that begins with chapter

40. Second Timothy 316 and 17 of the

New International Version says all Scriptures God breathed and

is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and

training in righteousness. So the servant of God may be

thoroughly equipped for every good work instead of useful.

The the ESV and King James say Scripture is profitable for

these things. So I kind of want to focus on

prophet today in the verse 18 of of our passage, the Lord our

Redeemer, the Holy one of Israel tells us he's the one who

teaches you to profit. So my prayer for this morning,

as has been for the last several weeks, is this time together

will be profitable for all of us, teaching, rebuking,

correcting, and training us in righteousness.

So we might be fully, completely, thoroughly equipped

for the good works that God has prepared for us beforehand that

we should walk in them. So as we as we begin walking

through the passage, the first half is on the refining of

Israel, and it begins with a sharp rebuke from the Lord.

Starting again at verse one, hear this, O House of Jacob, who

are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the

waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess

the God of Israel, but not in truth or right, for they call

themselves after the holy city and stay themselves on the God

of Israel. The Lord of hosts is his name.

God here is addressing their hypocrisy.

They're professing faith without possessing faith.

They call themselves after the holy city, but their claim

doesn't respond, doesn't correspond to reality.

As he says, it's not in truth or right.

So then the Lord through Isaiah continues the indictment of

their hard heartedness and their hard headedness.

Picking up on verse 3, The former things I declared of old,

they went out from my mouth and I announced them.

Then suddenly I did them and they came to pass.

Because I know that you are obstinate and your neck is an

iron sinew and your forehead brass.

I declared them to you from of old before they came to pass.

I announced them to you, lest you should say my idol did them.

My carved image and my metal image commanded them.

You have heard. Now see all this, and will you

not declare it? Despite the many ways they've

seen God's miraculous deliverance in their nation's

history and been told and had been told of His mighty acts in

fulfillment of prophecy, they still went astray in their

hearts after worthless idols. One of the former things that

Isaiah is Speaking of was God's promise to Abram in Genesis 15,

when he said, no for certain that your offspring will be

sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants

there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years.

But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and

afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

Now this was of course fulfilled in the exodus from Egypt.

And yet, what did the people of Israel do when Moses left them

alone at the foot of Mount Sinai after Aaron full fashioned a

golden calf which was made out of the great possessions they

had plundered from the Egyptians?

They said these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out

of the land of Egypt. This pattern of lapses into

idolatry had persisted for centuries by the time of

Isaiah's ministry. Over the 450 years since the

Exodus, the people of Israel and Judah had lost sight of God's

mighty hand in deliverance. They'd even sought an alliance

with Egypt to fight their enemies instead of trusting the

God who had delivered them from Egypt.

And so now, through Isaiah, for the last several chapters and

culminating here, God was declaring new things, picking up

in the last half of verse 6. From this time forth I announced

to you new things, hidden things that you have not known.

They are created now, not long ago, before today.

You've never heard of them, lest you should say, behold, I knew

them. You've never heard, you've never

known from of old your ear has not been opened.

For I knew that you would surely deal treacherous, treacherously,

and that from before birth you were called a rebel.

Knowing that they were stiff necked people, the Lord held

back, revealing these things until just before they happened.

So it will be clear that He, and not their idols had done them.

They would be taken into captivity, into Babylon, but not

utterly wiped out so that His name would not be tarnished.

Begin up in verse 9. For my name's sake, I defer my

anger. For the sake of my praise, I

restrained for you that I may not cut you off.

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver.

I've tried you in the furnace of affliction for my own sake.

For my own sake I do it. For how should my name be

profaned? My glory I will not give to

another. They were to be tried in the

furnace of affliction as they had been in Egypt.

They were not to be refined as silver, which ChatGPT tells me

is heated at 1800 to 2200°F until only the dross remains.

One of the commentators said this was a good thing because

dross was all they had. God would not cut them off

because the glory of His name was at stake.

If He forsook His people and failed to deliver them, the

nations would say He's no better than Bell or Nebo or one of the

other idols fashioned by human hands.

Those idols were powerless. But Israel's God is omnipotent,

as we see in the next verses which begin the second major

section of the chapter, the redemption of Israel.

Listen to me, O Jacob and Israel, whom I called.

I am He, I am the 1st and I am the last.

My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand

spread out the heavens. When I call to them, they stand

forth together. Who is this all powerful God?

It's Yahweh, the I am the capitalized Lord in our English

Bibles. And here, without mentioning him

by name, he again affirms his never before seen plan for the

Persian king Cyrus. We first met in chapter 45 and

it was still several decades from being born.

This Cyrus would overflow overthrow Babylon in a single

day beginning verse 14. Assemble all of you and listen.

Who among them has declared these things?

The Lord loves him. He shall perform his purpose on

Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.

I even I have spoken and called him.

I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.

Cyrus is an instrument in the Lord's hand.

He's not a robot or an automaton.

He uses his own skill and intellect to freely and

willingly accomplish the work for which the Lord has called

him. The Lord loves him.

He is a servant of the Lord. Harmon says, and the other

commentators agree that the next verse, verse 16, is an

interjection from not a servant, but the servant of the Lord

who's going to take center stage in the next chapter.

Draw near to me. Hear this from the beginning.

I have not spoken in secret. From the time it came to be, I

have been there and now the Lord God has sent me and His Spirit.

Harmon notes that the previous chapters have only designated

one person as spirit in doubt and that is the servant of the

Lord. See chapter 42 verse one and the

name for God used in this passage here.

Adonai Yahweh is the same one used in the third servant song

in Isaiah 50. So if we put these together, the

last phrase there becomes a description of the of a

conspiracy of the Trinity. The Lord God and his Spirit have

sent the servant. In verses 17 to 19, we hear

God's heart as he mourns over Israel's regrettable resistance,

the failure of his people to love, trust and obey him.

Thus says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of

Israel. I am the Lord your God, who

teaches you to prophet, who leads you in the way you should

go. Oh, that you had paid attention

to my commandments. Then your peace would have been

like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of

the sea. Your offspring would have been

like the sand, and your descendants like its grains.

Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.

This is echoed in Jesus lament over Jerusalem in the days

before his crucifixion and also in Psalm 81.

And so I'd like to invite you to turn with me to Psalm 81, Psalm

81, and I'm going to begin at verse 10.

I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land

of Egypt. Open wide your mouth, and I will

fill it. But my people did not listen to

me, who did not listen to my voice.

Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their

stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels.

Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in

my ways. I would soon subdue their

enemies and turn my hand against their foes.

But the good news for those in captivity was that despite their

sin and unbelief, despite their failure to love and trust their

Redeemer, He would steal out of sheer grace and for the sake of

His name, deliver them yet again.

And there would be the second Exodus.

This was the new thing, and not now, only now prophesied and

soon to be fulfilled. And so, as He promises the

second Exodus, God reminds them of His faithfulness in the first

Exodus when He led them through the desert and provided the food

and water they needed, even making water flow from the rock,

picking up again in Isaiah 48 and verse 20.

Go out from Babylon, free from Chaldea.

Declare this with a shout of joy.

Proclaim it. Send it out to the end of the

earth. Say the Lord has redeemed His

servant Jacob. They did not thirst when He led

them through the deserts. He made water flow for them from

the rock, He split the rock, and the water gushed out.

When they were to be freed from Babylon, they would not be

sneaking out in the middle of the night.

They'd be walking out boldly because of the conquering,

because the conquering King Cyrus was the Lord's chosen

instrument, would set them free. Whoever heard of such a thing?

When one nation conquers another, they ordinarily would

keep the slaves, right? They're part of the property,

the part of the plunder. Why would Cyrus have it in his

heart to send the people back to Jerusalem and even pay for the

rebuilding of its walls and the temple?

Because, as Proverbs 21 one tells us, the King's heart is a

stream of water in the hand of the Lord.

He turns up wherever he will. This is something only the

omnipotent King of the universe could do, and something only the

God of all grace would do. The chapter concludes with a

sobering warning. There is no peace, says the

Lord, for the wicked. The promise that the nation

would be liberated by Cyrus was sure, but individuals must not

become complacent as to their own standing.

As Paul writes in Romans 9, not all who are descended from

Israel belong to Israel. Salvation of the nation doesn't

translate to every individual. As Harmon puts it, the promised

blessings only apply to those within Israel who seek the Lord

in truth and righteousness. Pastor Harper usually concludes

his sermons with So what to apply Scripture to our context.

But to finish off my alliteration of rebuke and

refining and redemption, I'm going to close with

ramifications for God's people today.

The first is one that we haven't called out specifically, but

it's all through the text. Listen, listen to God when God

speaks. Listen the comment, the

commentator say the Hebrew word for listener here is sprinkled

through this chapter 10 times. So let's walk through and see

some of them in verse one. Hear this, O House of Jacob,

verse 6, you have heard. Now see this, Now see all this

and will you not declare it? Verse 12 listen to me, O Jacob.

Verse 14, assemble all of you and listen.

Verse 16, draw near to me. Hear this.

When the omnipotent Lord speaks, Our Calling is to listen.

The second ramification is that when we listen, the way we show

we've heard is to trust the message and to obey it.

Obedience is the evidence that we've really heard.

We don't want to hear Jesus say on the Judgment Day that we have

been calling ourselves Christians, but not in truth or

right. Jesus Christ is the same

yesterday, today, and forever. He teaches us to profit.

He leads us in the way we should go.

Today we have the fullness of His revelation, first through

the prophet, but finally in his incarnation as well, and as his

victorious resurrection that vindicated Him and justified

those who are in Him. Our hearing and obeying doesn't

merit our salvation, which comes only from the finished work of

Christ on our behalf, but it is the fruit of faith in Him.

As He said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments, and

it will be good for us. It will be profitable.

Our prophet may not be temporal or financial, but we know that

when we lay up treasures in heaven, they are eternal,

undefiled, unfading, and not subject to Moss, rust, or

thieves. And where our treasure is, there

will our heart be also. The final ramification of this

passage is a call to repent. There are other ramifications.

This is the last one I got. It's implied in the final verse.

There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked, if you've

been calling yourself after the name of Christ, but, as Isaiah

would say, not in truth or right, or if you've never

professed faith in Christ. The right response to this is

found later in this book in Isaiah 55 verses 6:00 and 7:00.

Seek the Lord while he may be found.

Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his ways,

and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

Let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him

and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

There is no peace for the wicked, but yet God graciously

calls us to repentance and trust in Him.

And then finally, I'd like you to take a little turn over to

the right in your Bibles, a little bit to Ezekiel, because

the prophet Ezekiel brought a very similar message in chapter

18. And I'm going to begin at verse

23, Ezekiel 1823. Have I any pleasure in the death

of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he

should turn from his way and live, And then skipping down to

the last half of verse 30 and through the end, repent and turn

away from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be

your ruin, castaway from you all the transgressions you have

committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

Why will you die, O House of Israel?

For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the

Lord God. So turn and live.

The first of Martin Luther's 95 theses nailed to the church door

in Wittenberg in October 1517 was this.

Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.

In saying repent, ye intended that the whole life of His

believers on earth should be a constant penance.

Repentance isn't a one time act. Like the people of Israel, we

are all prone to wander. That's why we confess our sins

corporately and individually each week in the service, and

why as we come to the Lord's Table, we remember his sacrifice

to deliver us from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin,

and one day from the presence of sin until that day.

God calls us to this cycle, to this pattern.

First, to listen, to trust and obey, to repent when we fail,

and to repent even when we think we're succeeding, may grant that

we all would bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Let's pray. Father, we confess that we are

prone to listen to the clamor of Babylon instead of Your still

small voice in our weakness, help us to listen to You, to

trust You, and to obey You, and to not be LED astray by the

deceitfulness of sin. Give us eyes to see Your

majestic power and glory, ears to hear Your voice of our Good

Shepherd, Your only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and by Your

Holy Spirit's indwelling presence, give us increasing

love for You and for our neighbors, and especially for

those of the household of faith. We humbly ask this, not because

of any merit in ourselves, but because of who You have revealed

yourself to be through Your Word, Who became flesh and gave

Himself to redeem us from all lawlessness, and to purify and

to purify for himself a people for his own possession, where

zealous for good works. We ask it in His name.

Amen.