Ransomed by Grace: Isaiah's Promise of Deliverance

Good morning, and welcome to the broadcast service of Dillingham Moravian Church.

My name is Pastor Simon, and we're thankful that God has led you to study the

Bible with us this morning.

According to the Business Insider, on January 10, 2003, then-Sears CEO Eddie

Lampert was seized by four men in the garage of his Connecticut office.

His four kidnappers handcuffed him and held him in a day's inn.

During Lampert's captivity, his abductors reportedly spun a bizarre story that

they were working at the behest of AutoZone executives.

Lampert had previously taken a major stake in the auto parts company and even

pushed for a director position.

After negotiating a $5 million ransom, Lampert somehow convinced his abductors

to free him, promising them to get the money.

The top Sears executive then walked into the nearest police station.

The four kidnappers were promptly arrested.

Now, this is not the classic way of paying ransom for someone who has been kidnapped and enslaved.

When a person is kidnapped, a ransom demand is made by the kidnappers and is

paid for by the family and friends of the victim.

God through Isaiah was teaching Israel that they could trust God to ransom and

deliver them from their kidnappers and from their bondage. Let's pray.

Oh, Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning and we praise you and thank

you for the great love that you have shown us in Jesus Christ,

that you have bought us from the kingdom of Satan and you have translated,

you have transferred us to the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Father.

Lord, as we go to your word this morning, teach us, guide us,

show us your love, and show us how we can follow you in return.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

Like you turn with me this morning to Isaiah 51.

1-2, where God spoke through Isaiah,

saying, Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, 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 your father, and to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain.

When he was but one, I called him. Then I blessed him and multiplied him.

The first principle we can learn from this passage is that we are to trust God

in His deliverance and in His ransom of us.

God, through Isaiah, began in this passage by commanding His people,

Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, who seek the Lord.

When God says, Listen to me, it's something extremely important that God is communicating to us.

And thus, you and I, we are to listen and obey.

Now, first of all, who is God addressing? God was speaking to those who were

seeking God, those who were actively trying to find the Lord.

The big question is, what was the truth that God was sharing with those who sought after Him?

In order to understand what God was saying in Isaiah 51, verse 1-2,

Isaiah 51:1–2

we need to look at the context in which these verses were written.

In Isaiah 50, Isaiah contrasts the future servant, meaning the Christ,

with a disobedient Israel.

God was prophetically speaking to the Jews who were in captivity in Babylon

about their mother or about former Israel, the bride of the Lord.

That due to Israel's infidelity against him, God wrote a certificate of divorce.

And sent Israel away from him.

Not only would God divorce Israel in relationship to him, but God would sell

Israel into captivity for their iniquities or their sins against God. Thank you.

In chapter 50, God was communicating to the next generation of Israel who were

in captivity that they were not to follow in their mother's footsteps.

God wanted to deliver and ransom His people. He wanted to forgive them,

but no one answered God when He came.

Thus God responded to Israel by saying, in Isaiah 50, verse 2,

Isaiah 50:2

Is my hand so short that I cannot ransom, or I have no power to deliver?

Behold, I dry up the sea with my rebuke, and I made the rivers of wilderness.

Their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heaven with

blackness and make sackcloth their covering.

God was pleading for His people to come back to Him so that He would ransom

or buy them back and deliver His people from the slavery and kidnappers that took them.

Even though God reminded His people of His power over the earth and the universe,

they still did not believe Him except a believing few.

And thus God gave His people into captivity an example of obedience to God and

the foretold servant or Messiah.

The servant then declared to Israel what it meant to live in righteousness before God.

Let's look at Isaiah 50, verse 10.

Isaiah 50:10

Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys His voice of His servant,

that walks in darkness and has no light?

Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God.

The servant was calling to those who were walking in the darkness of the world,

who were seeking the Lord but couldn't spiritually see or be freed from the darkness of their sin.

What was the servant's instruction? Please listen to this and never, ever forget it.

Trust in the name of the Lord and rely on your God.

This is the heart of life and the heart of the Bible right here, folks.

Let's go back to Isaiah 51, verse 1 through 2. The picture presented was of a huge.

Isaiah 51:1–2

Blocks of stone that were cut out of a rock, mountain, or hill.

Those stones then were constructed into castles and homes.

This huge rock that the smaller building blocks were cored from was an image

that represented Abraham and Sarah as founders of Israel.

God wanted His people to know that although Abraham and Sarah were the human

stone quarry in which the nation of Israel was cut out of.

God is the one who created that mountain quarry.

God is the one cutting out the stones, and God is the one who built the nation of Israel.

Abraham and the whole history and future of Israel was there because God took

one man, Abraham, out of the pit of sin, who worshipped false gods, and God called him.

God blessed Abraham, and God multiplied Abraham's offerings.

Into a nation. Abraham didn't have righteousness of his own.

He was a man who sinned horribly, who twice lied about his wife Sarai being

his sister and basically prostituted

his wife to Pharaoh and Abimelech for profit and fear of his own life.

It was all God's work on Abraham's behalf.

But, and here's what Abraham did that set him apart, Abraham believed God,

that God was going to take him, a 100-year-old man and his 90-year-old wife,

as impossible as it seemed,

to make a nation from his son that they biologically could not have.

Even though Canaan belonged to ruthless nations, Abraham also believed God's

promise that all of Canaan would belong to his descendants.

Because Abraham believed God, it was counted to Abraham as righteousness.

And here is what God was saying to Israel in captivity, to those who were seeking God.

If God could take a horrible sinner like Abraham and a barren and very old woman like Sarah,

and make them founders of God's nation, righteous before God,

then God can forgive Israel and He can deliver and ransom them from Babylon.

To those who sought after God, they were not to stop trusting the Lord and in what He is able to do.

So what does this mean for us as Christians in today's world?

We are not yet physically kidnapped from our homes and lands and subject to cruel slavery.

Yet humanity and Adam and Eve, who had a close relationship with God,

were kidnapped by Satan through lies and deception and subjected to the slavery

of sin of which we could not get ourselves out of.

And at just the right time, Christ died for us, who were ungodly.

With His blood, Christ paid the blood debt that we, you and I,

and all human beings owed.

Christ ransomed and bought us back from our slave master, and He set us free.

Paul in Romans 8, verses 1-4 announced, Therefore there is now no condemnation

Romans 8:1–4

for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law could not do, weak as it was to the flesh, God did,

sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

And as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement

the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh,

but according to the Spirit.

Christ has ransomed us from Satan's prison, and Christ has set us free from sin's power.

You may be here today or listening, and you may think that God can't set you free from your sin.

But God's point was that if He could take people like Abraham and Sarah and

make from them a chosen nation and make Abraham right before God,

God can free you from your slavery to sin.

But the only way to receive and live in the freedom that Christ died to give

you is by trusting in the name of the Lord and relying on Him.

As Paul and Silas told the Philippian jailer and his household,

Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.

If we have put our faith and trust in Christ, then we are saved from the wrath of God.

We are ransomed from Satan, our kidnapper, and set free from the power and control of sin.

Not only are we as Christians to trust in the name of the Lord and to rely upon

our God, but we are to realize that joy and thanksgiving come as we wait on

the future of the comfort of the Lord.

Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places.

And her wilderness He will make like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord.

Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of melody.

For almost 16 years that Abigail and I have lived here in Dillingham,

we have seen a lot of death and loss of family members, friends, community members.

God designed human beings so that when we lose someone we love,

we grieve, we mourn over the ones we've lost.

And this grieving process is healthy and important as long as it doesn't lead

to unhealthy habits and thinking.

God also designed us to be comforted in our grief.

I have to say that people here at this church and in Dillingham do a wonderful

job of comforting and consoling those who are grieving over a great loss.

For those in this church and for those who are actively giving comfort to grieving

families with singing and prayer,

give cards and words of encouragement from Scripture, or bring food to grieving

households, or who just go and be with them in their grief. Thank you.

Your ministry is important and valuable, and it brings joy and thanksgiving

to those who have lost loved ones.

To those Christians elsewhere who are comforting people who are grieving,

thank you, and please do not stop.

Your ministry is essential for loving the body of Christ and spreading the witness

of Jesus Christ to a dying world.

And this concept of going and consoling and comforting someone in great grief

was what the Lord through Isaiah was foretelling.

Judah and all of Israel had experienced horrendous loss.

Due to Israel's continued cheating against God, God brought in the Babylonians

who crushed the armies of Judah and literally destroyed the city of Jerusalem.

The walls, the houses, the palaces, the temples were all gone. They were smashed.

Then the Babylonians took a large portion of Jerusalem into captivity to Babylon

along with the king and his family.

And for those captives in Babylon, they were placed into hard and cruel bondage.

They were very far away from family and friends, not even knowing if their loved

ones were still alive at all.

More than all that, hardship. The Jews had an overwhelming sense of grief and

loss over those who had been slaughtered and kidnapped, over the loss of their beloved city.

What we see in Isaiah 51, verse 3, was that God was promising to comfort His people in their greed.

Isaiah 51:3

The word used for comfort meant to alleviate sorrow or distress,

to give emotional strength to.

This comfort was the result of God's compassion.

God promised that He would transform Israel's wastelands and deserts into a

paradise like the Garden of Eden.

I want you to notice that the result of God's compassionate comfort,

the people of Israel will be filled with joy and gladness. Their voices will

sing with songs of thanksgiving.

Now this comfort that Israel, or sorry, that Isaiah prophesied about was partly

fulfilled in that much of Israel was restored, Jerusalem rebuilt,

and prosperity came once again to the land.

However, Israel sinned against God over and over and over again.

They lost favor with God again and were occupied by yet another country.

The ultimate fulfillment of what Isaiah's prophecy was looking forward to is

when Christ returns and rules from Jerusalem.

The reference to Eden makes Bible scholars believe that Isaiah was referring

to when the curse of sin is broken.

Isaiah, in Isaiah 52, verses 7-9, proclaimed,

Isaiah 52:7–9

How lovely in the mountains are the feet of him who bring good news,

who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation

and says to Zion, Your God reigns.

Listen, your watchmen lift up their voices.

They shout joyfully together, for they will see with their own eyes when the Lord restores Zion.

Break forth, shout joyfully together, you waste places of Jerusalem,

for the Lord has comforted His people.

He has redeemed Jerusalem.

How do we apply this to us today?

Maybe you are here or listening today and you are a believer in Christ and you

are grieving over the loss of a loved one.

The ultimate source of death was sin and now in Christ, sin and death has been

conquered. Death is no longer the end.

And when we die in Christ, and our loved ones die in Christ,

we will live forever with Christ along with our loved ones who have died before us.

Maybe you are struggling financially due to lack of work or because the stock

market has been going up and down lately.

The truth is that if you are actively living by faith in Christ because of Christ's

ransom of you, God will provide for you.

And one day you will receive riches and glory in the next life,

beyond anything you can imagine now.

As Peter exclaimed in 1 Peter 5, verse 4, And when the chief shepherd appears,

1 Peter 5:4

you will receive an unfading crown of glory.

Whatever trial you are in, whatever you have lost, know that this life is only

temporary, and that we can have joy and sing to God with thanksgiving,

because we know that our God is returning, and He will make all things new.

Revelation 21.2-5.

Proclaimed, And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven

from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God

is among men, and he will dwell among them, and they shall be his people,

and God himself will be among them.

And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no longer

any death, no longer any mourning or crying or pain, the first things have passed away.

And he who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.

So what is God teaching us today? The first truth we have learned was that since

God was able to take Abraham,

and Sarah and make from them a chosen nation and make Abraham right before God,

God could ransom and free Israel from Babylon.

Christ Jesus, the servant Messiah, ultimately ransomed and freed from all their

sins, all who trust in the name of the Lord.

In order to live free, we, you and I are to continue relying on our God all of our lives.

The second truth that we were taught is that God comforts his people with the

promise that one day he will return and completely restore Israel.

There will be no more sin, no more pain, no more suffering, and no more death.

And as we go through trials and suffering now, the hope of Christ's second coming

and the glory that awaits us when Christ returns is a source of great comfort to us.

The more we focus on these comforting truths, the more our joy will grow,

and we will thank God with song as we go through all circumstances with Him. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you.

Thank you for your love. Thank you for ransoming us from Satan's darkness and

his evil kingdom and bringing us into your light, to the light of your Son's kingdom, Jesus Christ.

Thank you for making us new in you, that we now have the opportunity to live and dwell with you.

But we're also, in so many ways, tired of this world.

And we look forward to your coming kingdom. Thank you, Father.

And if whoever is listening, and if they are Christians, Lord,

I pray that they will go out and share the gospel, that they will share the

good news of Christ and what He's done on the cross, and that He will return.

But for those who are listening, and maybe they have not put their faith and

trust in You, may You bring them to know You, draw them to You,

save them by faith, or by your grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

You are their God. Please show them that and use us all to love you and to serve you.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, we pray.

Amen. I'll leave you with this blessing from Psalm 67.

May God be gracious to us and bless us and cause His face to shine upon us.

Let your way be known on the earth and your salvation amongst all the nations. Amen.

Have a wonderful Sunday. May the Lord bless you all.