Good morning, my brothers and sisters. If you would please turn with me to the book of Isaiah, the very last chapter, chapter 66. We're going to be looking at verses 18 to 24 this morning, but primarily 18 to 22, our emphasis on 18 to 22. Let's begin with me reading the verse, our passage. For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations in tongues. and they shall come and shall see my glory. And I will set a sign among them, and from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pole, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and on mules, and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord. Just as the Israelites bring their grain offerings in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord, And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord. For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord. And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me, for their worms shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." So we're concluding our series this morning on the three priorities of the church, using this Old Testament prophecy that ties all three together in a tightly packed message. We're going to see how the call to love God and one another are a sign that is to be brought before the unbelieving world. We're going to see how God is building a holy community offered to God as the first fruits of His harvest. And we will see how some are sent out into a world to bring in the harvest of God, and that they may see His glory and enter into God's worshiping community of people. Christ is the true vine and his body has been growing and spreading to the four corners of the globe for 2000 plus years. Our passage this morning is about how that happened and how we can be a part of this great commission. Perhaps, as you heard the passage, you're wondering about how certain elements of this text could be referring to the Great Commission Christ gave to His Church. Well, there is no doubt that biblical prophecy is demanding upon the interpreter, and there are many passages that can be read metaphorically or literally. Some are explicitly described as metaphors, but others require the interpreter to make a decision. One helpful guide is for us to note how the New Testament Authors use certain Old Testament texts. The book of Isaiah happens to be the second most quoted book in the New Testament. And it is used almost exclusively by the New Testament writers to support their beliefs about the first century events surrounding the birth of the church and the Messiah. It stands to reason that this final and concluding text in Isaiah is likely describing events in the same period. Another helpful observation is that many of the elements described are not new to the book and have much longer preceding passages and are merely referenced here. So what are the themes in Isaiah that we find or that find their culmination in this chapter? The first theme finds its genesis in the Mosaic Covenant itself, where curses for national disobedience include dispersion among the nations and a return to bondage to foreign kings. Jeremiah says that God gave faithless Israel a certificate of divorce and sent her away, essentially taking action according to the prenuptial agreement found in Deuteronomy 28. There is, however, a glimmer of hope found throughout the prophets, beginning with Deuteronomy 30, where God promises to show compassion on those who have been banished to distant lands. He says he will bring them back and circumcise their hearts so that they may love God with all their heart and soul and experience life. In Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many other places in the Old Testament, the believing community that are left after God's judgment upon Israel is referred to as the survivors or the remnant. I'm belaboring this point to drive home the significance of who the subjects are in the passage this morning. They're not simply survivors of some unknown catastrophe, but rather subjects Isaiah has been prophesying about all along. They are the people described in Isaiah 10, verse 20, where it says, In that day the remnant of Israel The survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer rely on him who struck them down, but will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. The Apostle James uses the term remnant to describe both Gentiles and Jews who are taking part In this restoration in Acts 15, Paul also uses the term a couple times in the book of Romans to describe believers at that present time. There's little doubt that the first century Israel was but a shadow of its former glory under foreign domination and a political backwater on the world stage. There's a second theme that involves the grafting in and inclusion of Gentiles in the worshiping community of Israel. Isaiah chapter 2 describes the Gentile nations flowing uphill to Jerusalem to engage in temple worship. and learning the ways and laws of Israel's God in the last days. Isaiah 11 describes Christ as the root of Jesse, who will stand as a banner for the Gentiles, and the nations will rally to him. In that day, God will reach out a second time and enact a new exodus of the remnant of his people from the four corners of the world. A great highway will be there as God dries up the very waters of the gulf, reminiscent of the exodus under Moses. The early church, in fact, adopted its name from this passage and was simply known as The Way. Isaiah 55 says that God will make Messiah an everlasting covenant according to the sure mercies of David. And he will be a witness to the Gentiles and a leader and commander of the peoples. God will summon nations that don't know him. And we could go on. It is sufficient to point out, however, that the engrafting of the Gentile branch into the natural tree of Israel is a major theme in Isaiah and in other scriptures as well. So let's turn now to our passage. Take a look at verse 18. It says, For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. Verse 18 begins with a reference to the phrase works and thoughts that are condemned in verse two and three in chapter 65. This translation is a difficult one, but it suggests that the judgment God brings upon the wicked idolaters in Isaiah 65 precedes the time for the ingathering of the nations described in the next phrase. Writing in the 8th century before Christ, Isaiah describes a time of action for Israel's God that would be like no other in its worldwide scope. The nation of Israel was composed largely of a single ethnic family with laws and regulations suited for a tribal society within a small geographical region. Yes, they were Gentile converts who joined with Israel, tribesmen like the Rechabites who worshiped the one true God within the bounds of the Mosaic law. They were foreigners like Naaman, the Syrian, who came to know God through miraculous means. Additionally, the nation of Israel was called to be a light to the world, but there was no worldwide effort to bring peoples from every tribe and nation into one worshiping community. Gentiles believed that people groups were governed by their own national deity. And that possession of the land where they lived was proof enough that whatever god they were worshiping was, in fact, the right god. The Moabites had their god. The Assyrians had their god. The Philistines once declared that Israel's god was a god of the mountains and could be defeated upon the plains. Isaiah's vision obliterates this false worldview. Israel's God is the creator of the heavens and earth, and he sits exalted upon his throne, passing judgment on all peoples. The world is his footstool, and he has his sights set on redeeming a remnant from every tribe and every nation. Verse 18 continues, and they shall see my glory." This end of the verse is the result of and the reason for the gathering of the nations. It says that it is to see the glory of God. Verse 19 tells us that these people had not seen God's glory nor heard of His fame. On the surface, it sounds as if the nations are scheduled for some sort of divine light show, but nothing could be farther from the truth. God's plan to gather all nations is not for the purpose of providing some otherworldly entertainment. The best way to understand what does it mean for the nations to see the glory of God is to see how this phrase is used in the Old Testament. Somewhat surprisingly, The Hebrews are not described as seeing the glory of God, but one other time preceding the book of Isaiah. This is in Exodus 16, verse 7, where Moses tells the Israelites that they will see the glory of God and receive bread from heaven. The next morning they looked up to see God's glory in the pillar of cloud, and they went out to gather the manna from heaven. The glory of God in the cloud by day was God's very presence with them. God's presence did not follow Moses where Moses wanted to go or tag along with the Israelites in some sort of Mideast tour. No, when the cloud lifted, the Israelites followed. When the cloud remained, the Israelites remained. Isaiah builds upon this theme in the New Exodus passage in chapter 40, where it says, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. This New Exodus begins with one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, and includes all mankind looking upon the revealed glory of God. Verse 18 of our current passage fits nicely into Isaiah's vision for the future of God's people. Seeing the glory of God in this biblical context is about divine leadership. It is about the presence of God leading His people through the wilderness and sustaining them with the true manna from heaven. Isaiah foresaw a future where the Gentiles would see and experience the wonders and blessings of God's presence with them. God would, Emmanuel, be with us. Verse 19 refines this vision further. It reads, And I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Poole, and Ludd, who draw the boat, to Tuvalu and Javan, to the coastlands far off that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. Those who are being sent for are primarily Gentiles, for they are people who've never heard of God's fame nor seen his glory. The emphasis is on this new category of people referred to in Isaiah as the nations or the Gentiles or simply the peoples. We learn here that there will be a commissioning, a sending of some of those who are left after the curses promised in the law of Moses have been meted out. When we examine the intertestamental period, however, we don't find any references to God sending his people out on a Gentile mission. There was, however, a missionary movement that grew up in this period, a group of people who reached out to Gentiles on a wide scale. They built Gentile congregations of God-fearers who, though attached to the local synagogue, were not full converts. These missionary-minded people were the Pharisees, whom Jesus leveled some of his most stinging criticism. In Matthew 23, Jesus curses the Pharisees, not for their missionary zeal, but for the rotten fruit they produced in the life of their converts. We, too, should take this warning to heart. Possessing missionary zeal in and of itself was worthless for the Pharisees. For Jesus says, they made their converts twice the sons of hell as they were. In fact, it is quite possible for a Christian to be committed to the word go in the Great Commission and have no idea what to do when they have arrived wherever they went. Our passage this morning goes a long way for putting the Great Commission in context, which helps us answer this question, what does it mean, practically, to make disciples of all nations? Let's now step back in verse 19 to the beginning. It says that God would set a sign among his missionaries. The best interpretation is to understand this as the sign of Jonah, which is no doubt the sign of the Church of God. A number of years ago, I was giving my boss a tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the old city of Jerusalem. I showed him the pillars first built for Constantine's mother, some crusader graffiti that's still on the walls there, the split rock of Golgotha, and finally, an empty first century tomb cut out of the rock. After some moments of reflection, he turned to me and said, So, Tony, where are the bones? I said, do you mean Jesus' bones? He said, well, yes, certainly someone found them. I could barely keep myself from laughing. I said, no, you don't understand, that is the whole point. There are many, many tombs of prophets all over the Middle East, but there is only one that is empty. There is only one whose sign of authority stems from conquering death itself, our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. But there's more to the sign of our risen Lord than simply proclaiming the words of the good news. When his people obey his commands, they demonstrate to the world the reality of the gospel. Therefore, love for God and love for one another are evidence for the risen Lord in the midst of the church." Continuing in verse 19, we learn that God will send his missionaries to a wide variety of locations, as well as some very remote places. Today, I stand in a remote prairie far removed in space and time from Isaiah's writing desk, where these oracles were first penned. We are a testimony to this historical fact and churches continue to be planted around the globe and will continue to sprout up like Isaiah said, for as the earth brings forth its sprouts and as a garden causes what it spawn in it to sprout up. So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all nations. Amen. Verse 19 ends by describing the declarations missionaries are to bring with them. Notice there's no verbal formula to the declaration, no prescribed words to say, but rather a declaration of God's glory manifested in the midst of his people. The Gentiles are not simply hearing the message, but are described as seeing it, This is because the nature of a sign is always about the proof. Declarations are worthless if they're not rooted in truth. God is either with us or He is not. The Apostle John certainly had this in mind when he began his gospel with Isaiah's New Exodus imagery, declaring that we have seen His glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The church's faith has never been rooted in mere logic, but rather in the person of Christ, the living son of God, full of grace and truth. Moving on to verse 20, it reads, and they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. Verse 20 continues with an emphasis on the great scope of the mission at hand. Many different forms of transportation are mentioned, which focuses our attention on the wide array of nations involved. Perhaps some of the believers will be brought in Chevys, some in Fords, maybe even some Peugeots, Toyotas, Mercedes, perhaps even a Nissan Z car, perhaps. But no one is described as walking, but rather all are assisted in some form of transportation. It is, in fact, the task of the missionary to bring these new disciples as the disciple is not expected to know where to go. The Great Commission is, in fact, a two-way trip. The church is called to go out to the highways and byways and bring disciples into the worshiping community of God. Those who are brought in are called your brothers, indicating that these Gentiles are now part of the family of God. One reason we know that they're not ethnically or primarily ethnic Jews of the dispersion is that this event is also described in Isaiah chapter two, concerning the Gentiles and talks of them streaming up to the mountain of the Lord. Here too, the destination is the holy mountain Jerusalem, which here represents the true worship of Israel's God. The destination is holy because it has been set apart by God and sanctified for worship. It is a mountain because it is a seat of power and has authority. The destination is Jerusalem because that is where the temple resides, representing the center of worship. The use of the temple structure as a metaphor for the church is in fact pretty common in the New Testament and is probably the best understanding here. We simply don't have a requirement for pilgrimage to any physical location in the New Covenant. The missionaries are described as bringing the Gentiles to Jerusalem like they bring their grain offerings in jars. Turns out that there's actually only one offering in the Law of Moses that has a requirement to be brought to the temple in jars. And this happens to be the first fruits offering, offered up at that feast 50 days after Passover. This metaphor equates the Gentile converts with the firstfruits offering. The use of the firstfruits is significant for two reasons. First, it implies that there is a harvest to follow. The mission of the church is ongoing until the whole harvest is brought in. Second, it teaches us that those brought in belong fully to God. They're not part-time worshipers, but rather their lives are offered up as living sacrifices to their God. There are several places in the New Testament where Christians are described as firstfruits of God, and Jesus famously equated his ministry in terms of a harvest that is plentiful, but the workers few. The most significant firstfruits offering in the New Testament, however, occurred at the Feast of Firstfruits, 50 days after Christ's death and resurrection. This event is more commonly referred to as Pentecost, or the birth of the church. At that time, tongues of flame appeared over the heads of the believers present, who, in speaking in many languages, represented a worldwide Firstfruits offering to God. The great ingathering of the nations, prophesied by Isaiah eight centuries prior, had finally begun. The nature of the mission of the church described here explains why love for and worship of God must come first and must exist prior to any mission to the lost world. Imagine going out to the byways and highways to invite all peoples in to a great banquet where the food is rotten or the plates are empty. In the same way, we cannot go to a lost world only to bring them in to an organization that is itself lost its first love and no longer knows how to worship God in spirit and truth. The vessels are described in verse 20 as clean, which in context is not referring to dirt, but to the nature of the offering itself. The Gentiles being offered up are clean in God's sight. There's only one way for a person to be considered clean before God. This is pictured in the Old Testament as a sprinkling of a blood sacrifice applied for cleansing. The writer of Hebrews draws from this truth when he exhorts us to draw near with a true heart and in full assurance of faith. Our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. the object of our faith being Christ, the final sacrifice, whose blood cleanses us once and for all. In verse 21, it says, and some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord. This must have been a shocking prophecy for Isaiah's audience, for it's something that is impossible under the first covenant. The implication is that a new covenant must be in store that allows for the ministers of God to hail from any tribe or any language. The passage today is presented in terms of the first covenant, but it is clear that the fulfillment will happen under a different covenant. In verse 22, it says, for as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, So shall your offspring and your name remain." This verse is a statement concerning the permanence of God's work described in the previous verses. It isn't saying exactly when God will make the new heavens and new earth, but only that the Gentile mission and its resulting community of worshiping people will stretch through the end of time. Similarly, in verse 23, it reads, from new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh will come to worship before me, declares the Lord. Israel's calendar is used here once again to emphasize the enduring nature of the worship that all peoples will offer to God. The church will have a global reach, worshiping God permanently throughout history. There have been many attempts to destroy the church in the past and in this present day. Some attempts have been more successful than others, but no one, no ideology, no person, no government, no army, has stopped the church from branching out and spreading to fill the world. In many cases, in fact, persecution has resulted and further spreading of the church far and wide, and purifying it through sufferings not unlike those suffered by our Lord. Jesus said he would build his church upon a rock, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. He describes the kingdom of God as a mustard seed that grows into a great tree, and these promises are a comfort to us. For it is God the Almighty who guarantees the enduring success and growth of the church. The book of Isaiah ends here in verse 24. It says, and they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worms shall not die. Their fire shall not be quenched. and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." This last verse stands in stark contrast with the preceding verses. Here we see the fate of those who are referred to simply as the rebels. These are people who have set their face against God and therefore are rebellious in their beliefs and actions. Isaiah uses this term in chapter 30. In this way, he says, For they are rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord, who say to the seers, do not see, and to the prophets, do not prophesy to us what is right. Speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path. Let us hear no more of the Holy One of Israel. We learn In verse 24, that there is going to be an awareness, a vista of sorts, that God's people will have on the judgment afforded all enemies of God. There is a permanence to this judgment, illustrated by a worm that never gets its fill of flesh, and a fire that burns but never ceases. Anyone who contemplates this fate will certainly find it abhorrent. So in summary, Isaiah 66 leads us to a particular conclusion, that obedience to what Christ called the great commandments, to love God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to love one another, is central to the mission of the church. It is the reality of our risen Christ made known through our love for God and for one another that is the sign that is in our midst. God has made us witnesses and commissioned his church to go out and to bring into his holy worshiping community people from every nation and tongue. The word of the Lord has spoken and his zeal will most certainly accomplish it. I hope you're encouraged and emboldened this morning. Your place in history can fit into the ancient plan of God for his people. It is a glorious plan, a plan anticipated by the prophets, commissioned by the Son of God himself, and empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The success of the church is secured in the heavenlies, and the gates of hell have not and will not prevail against it. Yes, there will be suffering, oppression, martyrdom, ebbs and flows throughout history, but we can face all with a quiet confidence that our Lord is the Lord of history and has the final say. For the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. Perhaps God is calling you to rethink how you were involved in the Great Commission. When the unbelieving world looks into our midst, do they see any sign or evidence for the one true God? Do they see the glory of God reflected in our faces as we look to God for our daily bread? Does the watching world see the fruit of brotherly love between us? When our skeptical world says to us, can anything good come out of the church? Can we quote with confidence the Apostle Philip and say, come and see? Amen and amen. Let us pray. O Lord God, I confess that we often do not love you as we should, and nor do we love one another as we should. We know that you said the world would know we are your disciples when we love one another. It is our desire to be known as your disciples. It is our desire to be used by you in the great commission, the great ingathering and calling of the people, of your people, into your one holy worshiping community. I ask that you would bless us and grant us gifts of faith to not only believe, but courage to act in that belief. I pray that you'd continue to use us to further the work of your kingdom, both near and far. We know that if your presence does not go with us, then we certainly would be left adrift and run aground. So we pray, Father, that you would grant us that blessing, that we may be known as a people who are walking according to your ways, a people who desire first and foremost to be pleasing to you, and a people that lives out your new command to us, to love one another. And you might take those realities and make us a blessing to this earth. that many might come to know you through our lives and through our ministries. We pray this in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, and for his name's sake. Amen.