Isaiah 66:7-14
In our reading from Isaiah 7, you’ll see a picture of the people of God, people from every tribe, but also every tongue and every nation. And tonight in Isaiah 66, we’ll see the church grow overnight, so to speak, much like Pentecost. So here God’s word, Revelation 7, John, The old and aged apostle says, after this, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun with the seal of the living God. And he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the earth and sea saying, Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.
And I heard the number of the sealed 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. 12,000 were from the tribe of Judah, sealed. 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben. 12,000 from the tribe of Gad. 12,000 from the tribe of Asher. 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar, 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, and 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.
After this, I looked and behold, a great multitude that no one could number. from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.
And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. And they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever, amen.
Then one of the elders addressed me saying, who are these clothed in white robes? And from where have they come? I said to him, sir, you know, And he said to me, these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore. The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water. and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And now from Isaiah 66, we’ll look at verses seven through 14. Maybe in Revelation 7, you caught where that song we sang this morning came from. Who are these like stars appearing? Right out of Revelation 7. Okay, Isaiah 66, seven through 14.
Before she was in labor, she gave birth. Before her pain came upon her, she delivered a son. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth, says the Lord. Shall I who cause to bring forth shut the womb, says your God. Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her. Rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her.
That you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast. That you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance. For thus says the Lord, behold, I will extend peace to her like a river and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream. And you shall nurse and you shall be carried upon her hip and bounced upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. You shall be comforted in Jerusalem. You shall see and your heart shall rejoice. Your bones shall flourish like the grass. and the hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants, and he shall show his indignation against his enemies. Amen. This is God’s wonderful and gracious word. So remember Zion or Jerusalem, or maybe we could say the church’s state in this period of time, this would be exile, the church’s current state is one of shame and reproach. And this is both physically and spiritually.
You’ll remember when Ezra and Nehemiah and those different bands of people over a little over a hundred years returned from Babylon at Cyrus decree. They go back and the state of Jerusalem is it’s in disrepair. It still bears the marks of Jeremiah’s lamentation. They have laid bare the city, they have laid waste its gates, and they have burned everything with fire. And so Judah, the surrounding city and towns and fields, is also in disrepair. So Zion’s current state is one of great shame and reproach.
And remember, this is God’s reputation. What did the surrounding nations say? See, their God could save them from Egypt, but he couldn’t save them from the Babylonians. But of course we know this was just judgment for their idolatry, their unrighteousness and their wicked ways that they through many centuries of prophets would not heed. And so God did what he promised and he carried them off in exile.
The glory left the city of Jerusalem, the temple and the city was laid bare. But it’s also a spiritual state of affairs. The people are not walking in a godly way. In fact, remember way back in the early chapters of Isaiah, the people are walking in darkness, but with the coming Messiah, there’s a promise they will see a great light. And so, uh, there is not only a physical decline of the city destruction.
Uh, there is a spiritual decline of the church that had been going on for centuries. the height of Israel, perhaps under David and under his son, Solomon. than a kingdom split. And then you read all those passages. You’re thumbing through your Bible through the year and you get into Kings and Chronicles and you’re getting worn out with this one did evil and this one did evil. And there’s really no bright spots. And they did things that displeased the Lord. And so there was a spiritual decline.
There was a lot of syncretism, perhaps what we find in much of the church in America today. We’ve mixed a little prosperity in there. We’ve mixed a little, uh, what would we call it, jingoism, a little America’s prosperity in there as well. We’ve mixed, I don’t know, a little Roman Catholicism. I hope I’m good enough to get in heaven.
All that sort of business. And of course, they had mixed in worse things like child sacrifice, marrying foreign women, all the rest. So this is their current state of affairs. And if you understand that as a believer in this time, or perhaps you feel this way as a Christian in today’s world, you might say in your mind, you might feel in your heart, can this be fixed?
Maybe you’re praying for a revival, a reformation, that sort of thing. And we come to a passage like this and it gives us great hope. It basically tells us God can fill up his church overnight. God can raise up a people for himself overnight. We know he can do what we see in the valley of dry bones. Can these bones live? Of course, Lord, they can. He can put sinews and skin on the bones and breathe life into them and take away the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
We know that Jesus says that if the children don’t praise him, the rocks will cry out. God will always have a people for his praise and for his glory. It may be small, it may be a remnant, and it may be but a few, like in Elijah’s time or perhaps in our day, but God is able to fill his church. You know how it is on a Sunday. We get visitors and we get excited, right, visitors? We’ve got a couple visitors tonight, just know we’re excited. What’s the comment everybody makes? Oh, we had visitors day.
Isn’t that great. The church is growing in that greater or whatever. This is like Pentecostal growth here. This is the Lord added big numbers to his church. And perhaps this leaves Pentecost, which was in the thousands behind. And this is something new in the hundreds of thousands. What do we understand about the number around the throne of God? It’s a countless multitude. night and day giving praise to God.
And so we come to verse seven, before she was in labor, she gave birth. Before her pain came upon her, she delivered a son. You’ll notice all the way through this passage, verses seven through 14, there’s a whole bunch of she’s, a whole bunch of hers. There’s a Zion, there’s a Jerusalem. And there’s the the term mother and so this whole passage these verses are speaking of Judah or not. I’m sorry not Judah Jerusalem or Zion the city of God the church as as a Mother caring for his people so before she was in labor. She gave birth before her pain came upon her she delivered a son Now here’s here’s something that will sell and You know, what is evangelism?
You don’t want to go to hell now, do you? Right? Isn’t that what we’ve reduced it to? So we’ve reduced it to a change of address. You don’t want to go to hell. You want to go to heaven. So pray the prayer. Here’s your card. Stick it in your pocket. Chariot swings low. Here’s my ticket. Jump on board. There you go. That’s it. Okay. That’s tongue in cheek, right? What if you told people there will be a day when it won’t hurt to have babies? Right?
We talked about that this morning when we looked at glorifying God in our bodies and part of the fall is the curse. Thorns and thistles. We bust our knuckles working. There’s pain in childbirth. There’s strife in relationships. Here is what redemption, new heavens, new earth will look like before pain comes delivery. And then what comes? Lots of children. The church of God is full. And so there’s four questions that pop up in verse eight. Who has heard of such a thing? Nobody. Who has seen such things? Nobody. Shall a land be born in one day? Yes. Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? Yes. For as soon as Zion was in labor, she brought forth children.
And so here is a wonderful picture of the blessing that we will see when God makes all things new. We will see the church full. Now think back to Adam and Eve. What was their job? Their job was to work the garden, to keep the garden, to have dominion over the face of the earth, and to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with godly offspring. then the whole earth at some point would have been covered with the glory of God. And of course, that is the goal of the Great Commission as well. And that is what will happen in the new heavens and the new earth. There will be a church full of people, a world full of people who love God. Now, there are times when life in the church looks dim. We have what in church history we call the dark ages. A thousand years of really no word of God. A thousand years of corrupt clergy. A thousand years of things like the great schism of 1064. And all of that in God’s providence lasted till Wycliffe read his Bible. Hus read his Bible. Luther read his Bible. Calvin read his Bible. All the reformers over a couple hundred years read their Bibles and said, it’s better than this. It’s more glorious than this.
And so there are stretches and periods in history where we see God’s church formed. And we see it flourish, but then we see a deformation because the word of God, uh, is, is taken away. It’s not revered and honored. And then we see periods of reformation where, uh, the word comes back. You think of all those stretches in the Bible where this King did what was evil, this King did what it was evil.
And then an eight year old comes like Josiah. And what, what happens? The priest find the Bible. And what does the King do? He tears his clothes. And the king says, read it. And they read it. And they sit and listen to it. And he says, let’s quit all the bad stuff and do the stuff we’re supposed to be doing.
And so there’s a little period of reformation. But we go through these cycles of formation and deformation and reformation. And I don’t know what era we are in. I think we’re in a pretty good time for the church. We have the word of God plenty. We have, at least in my little world of Bible study and Theological study we have really good scholarship these days in fact we have in the last 50 75 years we have wonderful grand insights into the scripture that perhaps haven’t been seen before because we we can run the bible through a computer system we can study words and morphology and we can see patterns and study biblical theology and all the rest so perhaps we’re in a good time maybe people aren’t listening but uh it’s it’s a wonderful time but certainly we could always use a little revival we could always use a period of blessing and this gives us hope what does it take to give birth to the church? Does it take a minister with good hair?
No, I don’t think so. Does it take video clips? That doesn’t work. Does it take children’s programs? Does it take, you know, a climbing wall for the youth? Does it take all the stuff that in my generation we have tried and tried and tried? Now, what did Luther say about the Reformation?
He says, I drank good German Wittenberg beer and the word did the rest. He drank and he studied, right? That’s what they did then. He drank and he studied and he preached. And who did the work? God did. Now we leave the beer part out, but it’s black coffee for me. But we expect divine power to birth the church. We expect divine power to add the blessing. And so God’s power can do such a thing. God’s power can let us experience or see such things.
Remember Sarah, when she was told in her old age, I love what Hebrew says, he was as good as dead and the way of women had ceased with her. That’s just euphemistically beautiful, right? And Sarah, when the angels of the Lord were on the way to, you know, whoop up on Sodom and Gomorrah, they stopped by Abraham. We got to tell him because, you know, he’s a righteous guy. He’s God’s man. Let’s tell him what’s going on. And they had the haggling over, can we save a few people that are righteous out of Sodom and Gomorrah?
And the angels tell Abraham, oh, by the way, next next year, we’re going to swing through. And your wife, Sarah, is going to have a baby and she’s in the tent eavesdropping and she belly laughs, right? But what happens a year later? She has a baby and names him Isaac. And what does Isaac mean? Laughter.
And I think sometimes As believers, we need to expect God will do something unexpected and we will just laugh. We said that about the sanctuary, didn’t we? We had the problem with the roof and the ventilation and some of the issues and we didn’t quite have the funds to do it. We didn’t want to borrow money, all that. And we just said, you know what, we’re going to trust the Lord and we’re going to laugh. We’re not laughing now because it’s taken too long, but. When we get in there, we’ll have a little laughter, I suppose.
But we understand that in a twinkling of an eye, God can raise up every dead person and make them whole. In the twinkling of an eye, he can do all kinds of almighty things. And so who has heard of such a thing? God’s people. Who has seen such things? God’s people.
Shall a land be born in one day? Yes, by faith, we should expect it. Can a nation be brought forth in a moment? Absolutely. That is God’s promise. We’ve seen it in Pentecost. We’ve seen it in revivals. We’ve seen it in our own lives. We’ve read it in history with periods of blessings.
Now, verse nine brings up a question. Shall I, God, bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth? Shall he miscarry? That’s the thing. God’s kindness, God’s steadfast love, should we call it into question? Shall I who cause to bring forth shut the womb, says your God. I think this is a faith question. What does Jesus say?
We need faith that can move mountains. And the faith is not in the mountains moving, it’s in the one who does the moving. It’s the one who made them. He spoke them and they exist. It’s the one who flooded and destroyed them. It’s in the one who will remake them one day.
We have a God who finishes what he starts. And so to ask the question is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it? Will God bring to the point of birth and say, ha, tricked you? That’s what we do as kids, right? We’re mean. We hold out a cookie and say, oh, it’s mine. And we breathe on it real quick. So nobody will want it or we spit on it. Uh, we, that, that’s not God. Shall I, who caused to bring forth shut the womb.
And then we come to verses 10 and 11, the people who have been mourning over the spiritual and physical condition. of Jerusalem have something to rejoice in, something to have joy over. What does the Sermon on the Mount say? Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.
And here we have it on display. Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her. Rejoice with Jerusalem, all you who love her. Rejoice with Jerusalem, rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her. So people are mourning over her physical and her spiritual condition.
And why will they rejoice? Why will they be glad? Because you will come back into the city, you will come back into the sheepfold of God’s house, God’s people, and there’s three things. You’ll be satisfied, you’ll be consoled, and you will have delight. It speaks of Jerusalem, the mother, that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast, that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.
Last night we had the installation service for James Norris, who’s the new pastor at Covenant of Grace, our sister church in Winston. We’ve been praying for them. And interestingly, it was a year last night, I was sitting with a couple of the elders and deacons, 913 of 24 was when most of the leadership all called each other and said, something’s wrong, our church is under attack. And last night, the installation service at six o’clock, the little celebration after, I think it was like 840, one of them realized that it was a year ago tonight, we called each other and said, there’s a fire and we need to pull the alarm. That’s when they called Presbyterian said, Come, come and help us. And so last night was a pretty big celebration.
But one of the men who came to help install the pastor was a man who wrote a book that some of you have read called The Arc of Safety. And it’s about the church. And this author takes, I think it’s St. Cyprian’s quote, you cannot have God as your father without the church as your Mother, we can’t have a churchless Christianity. And I was chatting with the guy about the book and I told him that that was Bill’s favorite book. And he said, yeah, it’s interesting in Pentecost it says, and the Lord added a number to the church. It didn’t just get people to walk the aisle and pray the prayer and raise their hand, it added to the church. And so we were chatting about this whole quote. It’s kind of an interesting conversation. And why is the church important? Why is Jerusalem? Why is Zion? Why is the city of God or Covenant Presbyterian important? Because it’s where we are satisfied. It’s where we are consoled. And it’s where we find delight.
Now, some of you have grandkids. Some of us have had children. Some of you are moms. You know the delight of a child who finally has found mom, right? Cuddled in her arms, happy, the tears gone, the crying gone, and they can fall asleep, right? It’s a beautiful picture. And it’s a wonderful picture. Satisfied, consoled. as well as a delight.
And so Jerusalem or the church is our nurse. That’s how God feeds us. That’s how God consoles us in the arms of the church. From time to time, we make a statement around here. Don’t ever underestimate what it took for someone to leave their house and to get to their seat in church. And don’t assume that everybody’s just happy, happy to be here and ready to be chatty Cathy, right? Sometimes we sit in church in silence or in tears because so much has troubled us, but we know we come to be nourished and satisfied. We know we come to be held and consoled. We know that we come for abundance. and for delight. And that’s the picture that God gives here. As we get to the end of Isaiah, the blessings seem to get bigger and bigger.
And so not going to church, not going to be satisfied, not going to be consoled, not going to have anything to delight in, no abundance. You come to church, those things come. I think I told you of One of my teachers back in divinity school who said his counseling program was this, you know, couple comes to him after church as preacher and need your help. Uh, and he says, what’s wrong? And hadn’t seen you much in church lately. How about you come to church six straight weeks, come to morning church, evening church to preaching and prayer and see if your problem doesn’t go away.
And if it hasn’t gone away, we’ll talk about it. and generally the word and spirit do the work. Now, there can be acute cases or bigger situations that need help, but we ought to just be simply satisfied with word and sacrament and prayer and fellowship and even the work that God does in our sufferings.
Well, the last little section, verses 12 through 14, is sort of a messianic picture. Maybe we’ve been thinking here of going back to real Judah, real Jerusalem, real Zion, real rebuilt temple, but this is a bit more messianic here. And we have this picture of peace being extended like a river. You know, we saying, I got peace like a river, peace like a river, peace like a river, and my soul comes right from this line, but we haven’t forgotten, I hope, that wrath had flowed like a river. that the enemies of God had flowed like a river. And now God is speaking in a messianic, kingly, kind of salvation sort of way. There will be peace that flows like a river.
Now, we’ve got the TVA, Tennessee Valley Authority. We’ve got the Army Corps of Engineers. And it takes a flood like back in July. is historic flood, a hundred year flood, or that one I think was a thousand year flood. It takes a lot for us to have river problems because we got it under control. We’ve had dominion, but back in these days, uh, every spring, at least the rivers would overflow at their banks. And remember that’s when Israel crossed into Jordan, not, not when it was a little bitty teeny Jordan, but when it was probably a mile or so wide.
And so what does God say about his peace? It will come, it will flow. It will be like a river, like an overflowing stream. This is sort of the messianic shalom where God comes, makes all things new. God comes and wipes away tears. God comes, takes away the pain, the hurt, the sorrow, all the curses that got doled out in Genesis three. We read those this morning. God makes them.
He makes the world whole again. Remember, is it Lucy? Says to Thomas and the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, will it always be winter and never Christmas? But Aslan comes and makes it Christmas. And this is the messianic picture. And then it goes back to the mother theme. What are the blessings of Yahweh like?
You get nursed. You get carried on the hip, right? We got, you know, you get the picture, you put a kid on your hip, and bounced on the knees. Everybody has bounced a kid on the knees, right? How fun it is. So we’re fed, we’re supported, and we are played with.
As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. You shall be comforted in Jerusalem. The picture here is somebody who’s been away from home and they just fall in the door. Somebody who’s been away from Zion and they just fall in their pew. Somebody who’s been away from God and like the prodigal son, they return because they know they will find comfort. They know they will find food and they know they will find peace.
Over the weekend, my dad spent a couple days in the hospital with an infection and so we had family. come in and come up. And so we’re sitting around in the hospital. And the other night, we were talking about church. Now, I grew up in a church that was like the Star Wars bar room scene. It was the island of misfit toys. And we were kind of chatting about some of the people.
And there was this lady, we remember, who just was pitiful, homeless. Stray cat, might say. And every time she would wander off from the church, she would come back with a new baby. No husband. Who knows who the father was? And my sister was talking about how she would bring this baby to church and the baby would be so matted and dirty. My sister was telling, I didn’t know this, but about 14 years old, she and one of her friends bathed the baby in the bathroom sink at church.
But isn’t that what church ought to be like in some sense? I mean, hopefully most of you will come clean and in your right mind, but what if someone doesn’t? You’ll be warm and fed elsewhere. That might be our tendency because church we think has to be so neat, but church is a place for recovery. And verse 14 says, you shall see your heart shall rejoice. Your bones shall flourish like the grass and the hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants, but he shall show his indignation against his enemies. You know, it’s one thing for us as believers to see the blessings and the benefits of God, to know of them because we know our Bibles, to have assurance of them because our faith in Jesus and the promised Holy Spirit helps us with that. But there are so many in the world who will face that last line. They will receive the indignation of God. They are his enemies. The arrow is fitted to the bow. A quiver is full of arrows of plenty for God’s enemies.
And so I encourage you, it’s an interesting time in our nation. It’s safe to have a conversation for a week or so, I think. You know, nowadays, if we want to have a conversation with a neighbor, there needs to be a tragedy like we’ve had, or somebody’s tree needs to fall on top of their house or car, and you get to go stand out there while the fire department or the tree people are there. But other than that, we roll in our garage, the door shuts, and we have our nine foot fences. So let me encourage you while there is a moment, and there are certainly people we know who are enemies of God, to take the opportunity to speak of the things that we hold dear and the gospel that we love.
Let’s give our prayers to God now. Father, we pray that all these images of the Mother Church would be a blessing to us, an encouragement to us, and even a motivation for us. to be in your house with your people on your day and the other times when we are able to come find comfort and joy and provision. We thank you for it. It’s undeserved but richly given and we make our prayer in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen.