Mountain of Joy – Isaiah 25 — A Christian Growth Message

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Transcript

We are walking our way slowly but surely through the book of Isaiah. Isaiah, as you may know, was the prophet with the bad news – good news message. The bad news message from Isaiah was to the people of God: well you’re moving away from God in your hearts and so soon you’re going to be moving out of the promised land. The good news message from Isaiah went like this: God is able to bring you to your senses, and he’s going to bring you back to the promised land. And eventually, of course, to your home.

Back in the 1950s, apparently there was a comedian, and a strong man called Sid Caesar. I don’t really know him at all, but one of his friends was walking with him in the streets one evening and a taxi driver called out something offensive to Sid Caesar.

And so Sid Caesar walked over to the taxi driver sitting in his car with the window down, and he said to the taxi driver, do you remember your birth? Think back. You were entering the world. What was going on through your mind? Because we’re going to reenact it.

And he reached into the window and grabbed the guy by the collar and started to drag him through the window of the taxi. And he was only stopped in doing this by his friend who bit him on the arm.

Why am I telling you this strange story, because God was going to raise up a strong man, the city of Babylon, the country of Babylon, and Babylon was going to take hold of God’s people and drag them all the way into exile because of their unfaithfulness.

And the book of Isaiah has roughly 39 chapters at the beginning of warning. And the warning was, as I mentioned, something like this, you need to take God seriously or he’s going to take you out of the promised land.

And then there are 27 chapters that follow, and the 27 chapters are mostly promise. God’s gonna bring you to your senses, and he’s going to restore you back into the promised land. Not all the 1st 39 chapters are gloom, there are little moments of hope dotted through the 39 chapters, and not all the last 27 chapters are promise. There are also bits of warning.

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But they’re basically, 1st 39 chapters, much warning. Now we’ve seen a little bit of the hope already in the book of Isaiah, back in chapter 11 and 12, some of you may have been here that morning, and we noticed that God was going to raise up a servant who would be from the tribe of Jesse, that’s the tribe of David, and that he would have the spirit of God on him.

And he would lead the people into a kind of a paradise, and you may remember the paradise was described as a place where the wolf and the lamb would get on together, and the calf and the lion would get on together, in other words, there would be great harmony.

So this servant of God, who God would raise up, and he’s talking of course about Jesus, would eventually lead a brand new exodus, and it would be followed by a brand new song of praise. And so we saw that in chapter 11 and 12, there’s going to be a road to be walked, a difficult road, but it will end up in a very wonderful conclusion.

Now today we’re seeing a bit of hope again, you may have noticed it as the passage was read for us this morning from Isaiah 25 and 26. This time the hope is not there’s going to be a difficult road leading to a happy conclusion. This time the hope is there’s going to be a victory.

There’s going to be a victory over the secular city of the world.

And there’s going to be the establishing of the city of God.

If you remember nothing else from this morning, let me tell you that what we’re looking at in Isaiah 25 and 26 is a tale of two cities. One city, the secular city to be brought down and one city, the city of God, to be raised up. And I simply for a few minutes, want to show you some of the beauty in these chapters, we’re taking a bit of a slab of Isaiah, not just a verse, but a slab, and I hope that you’ll have a look at some of the beauty, in this particular section of God’s word.

I myself believe that if Shakespeare, or the greatest writer that you love, could see or did see the beauty of these verses in Isaiah, he or she would say something like this, I could not possibly come up with this beautiful text.

So it’s on page 1054 if you’ve got your Bible in front of you. We’re going to think of Isaiah 24 for a couple of minutes under the heading, The Story of destruction.

Our friends, does it appeal to you that evil might one day be removed? I hope it does.

We’re going to think about Isaiah 25 under the heading The Song of Deliverance, and my friends, does it appeal to you that there might be perfect plans put in place one day by God, I hope it does. And then we’re gonna think of Isaiah 26 very briefly under the Song of division, because in the end, people are gonna go one of two directions.

OK, so first of all, the story of destruction.

Isaiah chapter 24. You may remember that Isaiah, if you know anything about Isaiah, had been calling out to the nations of the world in chapters 13 to 23, picking on various nations and telling them that they too must do business with God.

And you can imagine the Israelites at that point saying, yes, we love this, please tell Egypt to wake up to itself, please tell the Philistines to wake up to themselves, yes, we love this.

And all of this comes to a head in chapter 24, where Isaiah now speaks to the whole world and says you need to turn back to God.

This message of Isaiah to the world to take God seriously is not a joke. I hope you know that the God who made the world has given to every single person in the world a God consciousness. Everybody who’s walking the streets of this city today. Having their coffee, jogging past the church, has been given, in God’s kindness, a God consciousness, as much as a self-consciousness. This is what Paul tells us in Romans chapter one.

God, we read, has made plain his power and his deity.

He hasn’t been unfair to the human race, he’s not hiding, he’s made himself plain, the problem in the human race is that we suppress the truth, we stamp it down, we beat it down. If there was a godly response to the maker, the godly response would cause a seeking. And then of course there would be a finding of the maker.

But unfortunately, the rejection continues, the suppressing and the stamping down, and that’s why Isaiah chapter 24 is such a sober chapter, because if you keep rejecting God, you end up with Isaiah 24, which is the destruction of the secular world. If there is a rejection of God, there will eventually be a rejection by God.

When Isaiah talks about the world, he’s not talking about the trees and the flowers, he’s not talking about the birds and the bees, he’s talking about the opposition to God, the hostility of the human race. And so if you look at Isaiah chapter 24, verses 1 to 3, you’ll see that there’s gonna come a time where God will defeat his enemies and it will be a very just defeat. It’s something that is honourable and necessary.

And then we see in verses 4 to 13, that the party, the celebration, the fun that the world is enjoying, which is a gift from God, will have to come to an end. Because it’s become godless, and there’ll be no song and there’ll be no joy and there’ll be no wine anymore.

And then we see in verses 14 to 16 that at that time, as the secular world is defeated, God will be properly honoured, recognised, thanked, praised. And then we see in verses 17 to 23, the fall of the world is going to be very stark, into the pit, says Isaiah, into the dungeon, and at that point, the, the glory of God will be so great and so bright, he says in verse 23, even the moon will be ashamed and the sun will be ashamed because God’s glory will be so tremendous.

Now I find this quite a challenging chapter to read, not just because it is so bleak for the opposition. But because the world seems to me to be so stable, in the sense that there are parties going on, and there are feasts, and there are celebrations, and there are festivals, I mean, you look out on the Glastonbury Festival and you just see thousands of people celebrating and enjoying the music and the time together.

And it looks as though we, we lack nothing. We certainly don’t lack power to keep celebrating. And yet Isaiah says that if this continues, turning its back on God, eventually all those gifts will be taken away. And the person who has pinned their hopes on these things will find that they have nothing left.

The chapter Isaiah 24 is a very stark chapter about what happens to the world when it walks away from God and expects everything to go well forever. And Isaiah says it’s impossible, it’s the story of destruction, because in the end, you cannot walk away from God forever and expect everything to go well.

Now the second chapter is the song of deliverance.

And this is a happy chapter, a beautiful chapter, Isaiah 25:1-9. If in chapter 24 there’s no song anymore, as the city is brought low, in chapter 25, the people are raised up who have trusted God, and they have a wonderful song to sing.

And you’ll see in Isaiah 25, if you look at the first three verses, the prophet looks ahead to the victory of God, which is going to be bringing down ungodliness, but he’s also going to be recognising how God is to be praised. In fact, we’re told in verse 3, everybody will start honouring God.

These verses remind me of Philippians in the New Testament where the apostle Paul said that every knee should bow to Christ and every tongue should confess Christ, and there will come a day where every knee will bow to Christ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, because he’s been placed on the throne. The throne of heaven.

I find again this is incredible, I can’t picture Putin bowing to Christ, I can’t picture Richard Dawkins bowing to Christ, I can’t picture some of the very cynical people on the television bowing to Christ, but every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

And of course some people will do that very gladly, they’ll say this is wonderful, we’ve recognised this by faith and now we’re seeing it in person, and there’ll be others of course who will bow to Christ very grudgingly.

But out of the victory, if you look at chapter 25, verses 4 and 5, not only will God be bringing down the opposition, but he’ll be protecting his people. And these are very beautiful verses. God, as he defeats the opposition, at the same time we read from verse 4, will be protecting the people who’ve trusted him. He will have been a refuge for them, a shelter and a shade.

And we read in verse 5 that all the heat that could have come to God’s people, and we deserve it, will be protected by God. As a cloud protects us from the heat of the sun.

I remember many years ago being taken to the cricket. I don’t often go to the cricket, but a friend took me to the cricket, to the SCG. I remember two things about sitting there, we were packed like sardines into this, grandstand, and my friend kept asking me Christian questions at the top of his lungs, which was quite challenging for me. And the second thing was that it was about I think 38 or 40 degrees and we were in the sun all day. Facing the sun.

And people were drinking bottles of water to just cope with the heat, but at a certain point in the afternoon, one cloud came across the sky, about the size of a 20 cent piece, and it just covered the sun for about 5 seconds, and the whole crowd stood and applauded this little cloud for blocking the heat of the sun, just giving relief for those few seconds. And God says that he will act as that barrier to the heat. To be our protector and our safeguard, and then in verses 6 to 9 we get an Old Testament picture of what the glory to come, will look like. It’s described in verses 6 to 9 as a mountain, a great high safe place, there will be a feast.

Of course Jesus picks this up in the New Testament where he talks about heaven as a feast, there’ll be the removal of death and there’ll be the removal of tears. This is exactly what it says in the text.

Verses 6 and through to 9, it says on this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine, the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he’ll destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations, he’ll swallow up death forever. The Lord, sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces, he’ll remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth, the Lord has spoken. In that day they will say, surely this is our God, we trusted in him and he saved us, this is our Lord, we trusted in him, let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.

Now I’ll just mention two things before we move on friends this morning. One is we naturally read these verses as a picture of heaven. But we need to remember that they were spoken by Isaiah in about 800 BC. And that Isaiah had something very real to say in the short term. And in the medium term. And in the long-term. So, preachers and theologians have often said that these prophets stood as if they had three mountain ranges in front of them. One is close by, one is a little further away, and one is much further away again.

And as Isaiah talks about this mountain and this joy, he’s saying to his people, there’s gonna come a time not too far down the track where you, having been dragged into Babylon, will come back to the mount, the Mount Jerusalem, and there will be feasting again and your new life will begin again. That’s the first mountain range. The second mountain range, of course we might say, is Mount Calvary, where Jesus defeats the death and brings the new life, the new eternal life, and of course Isaiah is predicting that as well, but then further down is the mountain of heaven. Where there will be this feast and the removal of death and of tears, so remember that Isaiah was a person who was anchored in history, and he had hope for God’s people in the short-term and the mid-term and the long-term. The second thing to say is that you’ll notice that this is very God-centered…

The reason they’re going to go to Babylon and get back again is because of God. The power of God. God was going to raise up a leader called Cyrus, the king of Persia, he would come into Babylon and conquer, and he would release all the Jews to go back to their homeland. I noticed there was a story about Cyrus in the latest National Geographic in the newsagents. The people are going to escape from their prison of Babylon by the power of God.

And then the reason that today we sit in church and sing hymns of thanks, especially for the cross and the resurrection, is because of the mercy of God, having his Son Jesus pay our debt. And the reason that heaven is going to be perfect is because of the presence of God.

The Lord you see is gonna prepare the feast, yes he will, he’ll destroy the shroud, that’s the funeral clothes, yes he will. He’ll destroy death itself, yes he will, and he’ll wipe tears away and he’ll wipe away the disgrace which we have experienced sometimes for being a Christian. This is a very God-centered plan.

Charles Coulson, who some of you remember was one of President Nixon’s legal advisors, was converted in his late 40s, and Charles Coulson wrote a number of very clever essays exposing the secular world, and he said toward the end of his life that he noticed that heaven was being described in purely therapeutic terms by the world.

And even by the church, in other words, we begin to think that heaven is going to be all about us, it’s gonna be us with our friends and it’s gonna be us with our fun, and it’s gonna be us with our future and all that sort of thing, but actually the centre of heaven will be Christ, gathered around the throne.

Ernest Hemingway, who was a famous author, said that his idea of heaven looked like this, a bull ring, he loved bullfighting, and a trout stream, he loved fishing, those were his hobbies. And then he said he would like to have two houses in heaven, one for his wife and his children, and one for his mistresses. And then he would like to have a church somewhere between so that he could have confession as he moved from one house to the next.

Now there’s a man being about as honest of his oddities as you can be.

Most people don’t go into detail like that, they just know I’ll be there and it’ll be great.

And everybody who I know and love must be there.

And if you ever attend a secular funeral, you’ll notice that people talk about how the person who’s died, no faith at all, will be fine, and all the friends will be there, yes, they will, they say. There’s no need for Jesus to pave the way, there’s no need for Jesus to even be there.

And so the people who are talking so passionately and positively about this great future which they have invented, have moved away from the solid hope which Christ holds out and have just invented a sort of a sad hope.

A small hope.

And a fiction.

And an invention.

By removing Christ.

Sadly they remove themselves, but God says this future is going to be God-centered.

And it will be a feast for his people. It will be on his mountain, but it’s offered to all peoples. That’s what it says in Isaiah 25:6-8, his mountain, yes, with his son, yes, offered to everybody. And the shroud will be gone because funeral clothes will be no more.

Have you ever thought there would be a lot of occupations missing in heaven?

There’ll be no funeral directors of course, there’ll be no doctors, there’ll be no lawyers, there’ll be no police. No armed forces, no prison officers, and probably you’ll be pleased to know no clergy. So many positions missing in the future, not needed.

And death, death will be swallowed. Paul quotes this as we heard in 1 Corinthians 15, the victory of Christ swallows death. And this incredible God, this great, great God is going to wipe away the tears and the disgrace of his people.

And you’ll see in verse 9 the believer will wake up on the other side. Can you imagine yourself, you’re laying yourself down at the very end of your life and you’re saying something like this as you die, into your hands I commit my spirit. And you wake up on the other side and this is what you say, Isaiah 25:9, this is our God. We trusted him, he saved us, this is the Lord, we trusted in him, let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation, so the song of deliverance, as God raises up his people by grace through Christ.

Now very quickly, the third chapter, or the third point this morning is the song of division.

We’ve had the story of destruction in chapter 24, the bringing down of the secular city. We’ve had the song of deliverance in chapter 25, the raising up of God’s people and plans, and then finally there is a song of division from chapter 25, verse 10.

I mentioned before A Tale of Two Cities, which Charles Dickens wrote in the 1850s, long before him, Augustine wrote a book called The City of God, opposed to the City of man. In about 400 AD before both of them came the Bible. And the Bible is really a story of two cities, one of them is called Babylon, it goes from Babel in Genesis right through to Babylon, the prostitute in Revelation, and that city will disappear.

And then you’ve got this other city which is called Zion or Jerusalem that runs right through the Bible and that city will be established forever, but there is a division, isn’t there? Because people will choose their city.

And we see in verse 10 that God’s hand, his good hand, his shepherdly hand is on his people, but we see also in verse 10 that his foot is on his enemies, there’ll be a division.

We see in chapter 26 verse 1, that the city that God establishes will be strong, But we see in verse 5 the secular city is going to be laid low, because there’s a division. And Jesus spoke like this, didn’t he? Jesus said there’ll be 2 roads and there’ll be 2 trees and there’ll be 2 houses. You’ll see in verse 14, the idols are going to die to the dust, but you’ll see in verse 19 the believers are going to rise from the dust.

And so God you see is presenting to us a preview of how he’s able to restore, restore his people back to to Jerusalem, restore his son up from the grave and restore his people up from the grave as well.

Well, I know that two greatly loved verses are there in chapter 26, verses 3 and 4.

These are the verses that give the secret if you want to enter into God’s city and if you wanna make progress in the Christian life, and they are that you are to keep on trusting. God will keep in perfect peace, those who trust Chapter 26 verse 4, so trust in the Lord, for here’s the rock.

Well, as I close this morning, things have got a little darker at the front here, but the text is still bright. Two quick take-home lessons from our chapter this morning, here’s the negative – the negative is that we need to beware of being people who keep seizing things for our own strength.

We need to become trustors, not Caesars. Have you noticed in the Bible there’s a lot of people who seize things? Adam seizes the fruit. Moses seizes the rock, David seizes the woman, Peter seizes his sword, and they don’t achieve much at all, except trouble.

But there’s other people in the Bible who trust. Abraham trusts God that there will be a city to come. Moses trusts God that there will be a reward in the future. The apostle Paul trusts God that to die is gain. And supremely, Jesus trusts God and humbles himself even to death on a cross, and is exalted.

We need dear friends, to learn not to be seizing so often but trusting him.

We need to learn not to keep panicking and taking things into our own hands.

But to learn to trust him.

That’s what Isaiah tells us, and then secondly and lastly, let’s remind ourselves this morning and through the week that we are great receivers if we believe in Christ. If we believe in Christ and we belong to Christ, we have actually moved from the temporary city to the eternal city.

It’s a very, very serious thing to be one of God’s people and to live in a world that is going to be soon gone.

The temporary city that we live in. Because we’ve been moved by grace, by Christ into the eternal family of God.

And we need to remind ourselves, firstly, how blessed we are that we have been brought by grace from a city that will perish into a city that will never perish.

And we need to ask him to help us as we live in his world to not only be thankful for that deliverance, but also to play a small part in helping other people move from the city that will perish to the city that will never perish.

Let’s bow heads.

Our gracious God, we thank you for reminding us that there will be a day where you will bring down what is evil and hostile and that you will establish what is by grace, and what is your family.

We thank you for the song that is sung in the book of Isaiah and the day that will come where all your people will sing to your praise.

And we pray that in the present as we live for you, you would help us to live in this city, thankful that you have brought us to an eternal city asking that you would help us to be a signpost for others as well, we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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