Our passage today, we'll be taking a break from our New Testament series of John to go back to the Old Testament. So we're going to be looking at the book of Isaiah, chapter 62. And while you're turning there, I will pray. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, you are the one who has redeemed us. You took your people out of exile. You took us out of the exile of sin, out of the house of bondage, and have redeemed us and cleansed us. So let us glory in that truth today. Pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. All right, let's hear together the word of the Lord in Isaiah 62. For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent. And for Jerusalem's sake, I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed desolate. But you shall be called, my delight is in her, and your land married. For the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen all the day and all the night. They shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance take no rest and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm, I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have labored. But those who garner it shall eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary. Go through, go through the gates. Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway. Clear it of stones. Lift up a signal over the peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth. Say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your salvation comes. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him. And they shall be called the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. And you shall be called sought out, a city not forsaken. So we can look all around us and see that there's a tension in the world. There's a tension in our everyday lives, but it doesn't take much to see that tension, right? The world is in the middle of war, experiencing economic hardship here at home. We see rampant ungodliness. and diseases, and for a lot of people it might be a little bleak, but what is wonderful about the Christian life is that Jesus wins in the end. You know, if you take the Bible and you flip to the back of the book, we find the glorious picture of redemption and restoration, right? We read it today in Revelation 21. It's where God makes all things new, but the nagging question that is at the back of my mind, and I'm sure some of you, is that since Jesus has already won, Since he's already defeated death, he lived a life we couldn't, paid a penalty we could never bear. We read that great passage in Isaiah 53 verses 4 through 5. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed." And not only that, he was resurrected from the dead and 40 days later ascended to the right hand of his father. And he says that he is coming back. We see the glorious redemption that was accomplished by Jesus and applied to us by faith now. And we know that the final redemption of our bodies and our souls is coming. So all that being true, what in the world do we do in the meantime? It's a difficult question to answer, especially in the light of the wild popularity of certain views of the end times that speculate that Jesus is coming sooner rather than later. And now with the bombing of the nation of Israel at the hands of Iran, it seems as though things are about to pop off. As a matter of fact, I'm reminded of the picture of the person that kind of has a grimace look on their face and says, looking out the window to see what chapter of Revelation we're living in today. But regardless of your eschatology, the point is for we believers that there is a redemption and a restoration that has already taken place in Christ. A redemption and restoration that will take place when he returns and then there's the meantime where we live. Theologians call this the already and the not yet. We experience redemption now although veiled, right? God is with us in the tabernacles of our flesh by the Holy Spirit. But we know that he's coming again and again I ask what do we do in the meantime? I believe that it's a question our text answers today because, like us, the people of God in Isaiah's time were, as my professor Ian Duguid says, living in the gap between promise and reality, or as I have said, living in the already and the not yet. Before we unpack the text, I'd like to offer a roadmap, so to speak, of where we're headed. The text, I think, breaks up logically into three sections. The first section is redemption now, that's verses 1 through 5. The second section is the coming redemption, that's verses 6 through 9, and then the meantime imperative in verses 10 through 12. And so since we have not been in Isaiah very much, I think a bit of context is in order. Isaiah was a prophet during the period of the divided kingdoms in the 8th century BC, who prophesied to the southern kingdom of Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem. And he prophesied for about 40 years. And a main theme of Isaiah's prophecy is the judgment of the current kingdom of Judah and the coming of a future glorious kingdom. And he was called to preach to a people who would not even listen to his message. Imagine having Isaiah's job, right? Imagine there's a burning building and people are sleeping in it and you run inside and say, hey, the building's on fire, let's get out. And they stay fast asleep in their beds. One of the things Isaiah warns God's people about is the impending exile at the hands of the Babylonian empire. They're going to be taken captive, but there is hope in Isaiah's message. As a matter of fact, there's a clear split almost down the middle of Isaiah's subject matter. The first 39 chapters, 1 through 39, deal largely with the judgment. of Judah and the captivity that awaits them. And chapters 40 through 66 have to do with God's comfort of his people and promise of restoration from exile and the ultimate final restoration that is to come. A great number of commentators who have written about Isaiah, their commentaries come in two volumes. They split it, one through 39 and 40 through 66. As a matter of fact, many critical scholars of Isaiah who view scripture as though it was solely authored by humans and not inspired by God, note that because of the perceived differences in language between chapters one through 39 and 40 through 66, that the first 39 chapters were actually written by Isaiah before the exile and 40 through 66 was written by some other prophet or a scribe. after the exile period and attributed to Isaiah. Now, I'm not going to spend any more time on Old Testament criticism because that's not the point of the sermon, but I will say that traditionally speaking, the prophecy of Isaiah inspired by the Holy Spirit was given by Isaiah himself in its entirety before God's people went into exile. which I believe has implications for our text because our text today, God has promised a glorious future redemption for his people who are about to be taken captive. So they too are living again in the already and the not yet. So without further ado, let's get to our text. Beginning with the first point, we have redemption now. Verse one in Isaiah 62, it reads, for Zion's sake, I will not keep silent. And for Jerusalem's sake, I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a burning torch. And so keeping in mind that this part of Isaiah is providing comfort to a people in exile, we see a summary of God's plan right off the bat. Now, there is debate as to whether Isaiah is speaking from God's perspective or his own, but regardless, what is in view here is an unrelenting push toward the end goal of not only Judah's redemption, but the spread of that redemption to the ends of the earth for God's glory. Isaiah here uses the imagery of brightness and even makes it concrete by comparing her salvation to a burning torch. And what is the point of this imagery? Well, what do torches do? They give light. And so the salvation of God's people is not something that can easily be hidden, right? Jesus says this very thing in Matthew 5, 14 through 16. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Continuing on, Isaiah specifies the extent of Judah's salvation and redemption. In verse two, the nations shall see your righteousness, and the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. Notice here that the glory and righteousness is not going to remain in Jerusalem. It is going out to all nations and all kings. Ironically, all kings then includes the captors, the Babylonians. As we see at the end of verse 2, there is a shift in identity. God's people will no longer be identified by one thing, but will instead be given a new name, and we will see that in a moment. But verses 3 and 4, they say, you shall be a crown of beauty in the hands of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed desolate. But you shall be called, my delight is in her, and your land married. For the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. We see this new identity on full display. They will no longer be hidden in obscurity. They will be a shining crown, a crown of glory for their king, the Lord. And we see this name change. What I think is interesting is that the words Isaiah uses here are not merely things that are happening to God's people, right? They were certainly forsaken, but they were identified with their forsakenness. They were in desolation, but they were identified here by their desolation. And sure, the Lord delights in them, but they are called my delight. And again, the land is not only married to God, but is called, identified with that relationship. And so they were at once named forsaken. They were at once named desolate. How many of you here at one point or maybe still are identified with your sin? He's a drunk. She's a gossip. They're lazy. We even utilize handy labels like alcoholic or drug abuser to identify people in the midst of their addiction. We can even begin to assume those labels because the world tells us that we will always be that way. But what does God say? You shall no more be termed forsaken and your land shall no more be termed desolate. So we go from the negative, you will no longer be called this, to the positive, but you shall be called, my delight is in her, and your land married, for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. And God is declaring then that Judah will put off the old identity that they have and put on a new name that is given to them by the Lord. This is equally true for us. In Paul's epistles, especially in Romans and Corinthians, there is this idea of the putting off of the new man and the identity of being the new man, right? We see in 2 Corinthians 5.21, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. A couple verses later in verse, or before in verse 17, you know, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Right? It's this idea of a new identity. Right? And just to remind you, Jesus for us on the cross took upon himself an identity that was foreign to him. Right? Jesus who knew no sin became sin on our behalf. What we were identified with, Jesus identified with when he was crucified. So a major theme of the Old Testament is the Lord as a faithful husband and Israel as the unfaithful wife. But now the unfaithful wife bears a new identity. which Isaiah continues in verse five. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. And so now the unfaithful wife who has been redeemed by the Lord will be the delight of the bridegroom. We read this earlier in Revelation 21 too, and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And so this parallel of desolate and married also carries with it the notion of fruitfulness, right? Marriage. in most cases, brings fruitfulness. In many ways, it can be children, it can be mutual sanctification and holiness. And the point is, the land will no longer be barren for Judah. The redemption will give life. And this is true for us. Right? Whatever fruitfulness we had in sin was a fruitfulness of selfishness. But now that we have been redeemed, our lives can be fruitful to God's glory. And that fruit comes out again of that redemption. And this is the redemption that we have now. But there is also a coming redemption. We read in verses six and seven, On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen. All the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance take no rest and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. God has appointed for Jerusalem prophets to declare the word of the Lord, but also to cry out on behalf of the people to God, reminding him of the promise that he made of their redemption. They spent all their time petitioning him, crying out day and night, Lord, remember the word that you spoke to us. Remember you promised. Remember what you said that's going to bring about our deliverance. but it's much broader than prophets or preachers in our context. He says, you who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest. And so there's an exhortation. Do not stop petitioning the Lord. Do not stop praying to him, crying out for deliverance and redemption. And Jesus talks about this again in Luke 18, the parable of the persistent widow, right? He's talking in the context of not losing heart when you pray. And he says in verse seven, and will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? Right, that's a rhetorical question. I've often said to people, that if the Lord one morning woke you up and said, I am going to bring about the salvation of your unbelieving brother or your unbelieving family member or a coworker, and I'm going to do so through your prayer, what do you think would happen? Oh, you'd be on your knees day and night, praying, petitioning the Lord. Remember what you said. Remember that you said you were going to bring about their redemption. Right? Unfortunately, we don't have that list. But what we do have is God's Word that says in 1 Thessalonians 5.17, pray without ceasing. And again, in James 5.16, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. And so for God's people, what He is calling them to and what He is calling us to today is to stay vigilant and pray continually for their deliverance. Pray continually that God would bring about his purposes. And it's not just the prophets or the preachers that do that, but everyone who brings the Lord into remembrance, and that is all of us today. He says in verses 8 and 9, the Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm, I will no longer, not again, give your grain to be food for your enemies. And foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have labored. But those who garner it shall eat it and praise the Lord. And those who gather it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary. And so this is a very important message for a people in exile. The kingdom of Judah who once waxed fat gorging herself on food and drink would be enslaved by a foreign entity and made to work the land. Only their produce would be given to another. The Babylonians would take from them and give them meager portions and they would toil and sweat under that oppressive thumb and have nothing to show for it. What is striking here is God's declaration of his own sovereignty in this situation. Who is it that gave Judah over to the Babylonians? It was the Lord. Who gave Judah's food away? The same one that swears by his own name that it will not happen again. The labors of God's people will once again be for their own sustenance, but it would have a renewed purpose. It will be done for God's glory in his presence. One of the reasons exile was so bad is that God's people were effectively removed from the presence of God. Up until that point, their generations had had the tabernacle where God would dwell with them and God walked with them through the wilderness. And then once they were established as a nation, God gave them a temple in which he would dwell with them. But once they were removed from the land, once they were forced into exile, they were no longer in God's presence. And so to hear that there would be a time come where they would be in the Lord's presence would be cause for much rejoicing. There would be celebration. They could worship God again and be in fellowship with him as a people. This is what we have to look forward to. All our labors, all our strivings are repurposed in Christ for the glory of God. And we now have a glorious future where we will be together in God's holy sanctuary at the last day. So we have the already, and then we have the not yet. So allow me to now raise the question again. We have the redemption now. We have a glorious redemption then ahead of us. What is there to do then in the meantime? Well, Isaiah offers a few imperatives for the meantime. In verses 10 through 12, go through, go through the gates, prepare the way for the people, build up, build up the highway, clear it of stones, lift up a signal over the peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth Say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your salvation comes. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him. And they shall be called the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord. And you shall be called sought out, a city not forsaken. So with our first imperative in verse 10, we have a twofold redemption of go through and build up. What we have here is the command to herald the good news. God's people are to prepare the way for the people, the nations, and then to prepare themselves for the coming redemption. They're not to stay insulated and isolated. They are to go out, right? We see that. Go through, go through the gates. They're to go out where the people are. Here we have an obvious allusion, right? And prepare the way for the Lord in Isaiah 40 verse 3, right? Which John the Baptist in John chapter 1 points toward. Or it points toward John the Baptist in John chapter 1, I should say. But like earlier in our passage, it's much broader than just one or two people. It's a popular point of view these days that pastors are the ones who do the preparation. And clearly, again, what has been said, and I'll say it again, what is in view is that the people themselves are to do the work. And Isaiah is not saying, I'm going to do the work of preparation. No, he is calling the people to do that preparation. So how then is the way to be prepared? Oh, by removing the stones and lifting a banner. What do the stones look like? Now, if I may speak allegorically, the stones are what I believe hindrances to the gospel. If we're using the illustration of a highway in ancient Palestine, animals and carts and even people would be tripped up and in some cases incapacitated by rocks, right? Stumbling stones. God is telling us that we have to remove these stones of stumbling. And so what do these stumbling stones look like? Well, the first one that comes to mind is a lack of personal holiness. Right, if we have a message of redemption, we have a message of restoration of the gospel, taking off the old man and putting on the new one, what does it look like if we're living like the old man? Another one I think is heresy. And what I mean by heresy, well, it's false doctrine. Right? There's a point in which we must understand that we have to say and do what the Bible tells us to do. Now, that seems to be kind of a given. But many people often do not know, will go their entire lives without knowing what the Bible says and knowing what to believe in it. And so if we are to give a gospel of restoration and change, it must be then the right gospel. And another one is majoring in the minors, right? We have points throughout history that the church has held to universally. And that's the doctrine of the Trinity and the person and work of Jesus. And I think that that is the error in those regards is the springboard for all heresy. And so aside from that and a few others, There are certain pet doctrines that I know for myself that I've held to and I have hammered much to my dismay because sometimes when you have doctrines that you want to hold on to, and again, I think that we need to major in the majors, the major doctrines. But things like, well, baptism, for example. Things like reformed theology, Calvinism. And again, I'm not saying that those things aren't important, but I know for myself, I have done so to the point where it was probably better for me to be locked in a cage for a while instead of unleashing on people. But there is one stumbling stone that I think we must not remove. And that may seem antithetical, but there's a stumbling stone to non-believers which is called the gospel. It is a stumbling stone to those who do not believe. It is a stone of stumbling because it is offensive to them. And so while you're in the process of thinking through how we can remove the stones of stumbling, let us always remember that we cannot remove that one, right? We cannot remove every stone of stumbling so that the way is wide. We cannot preach a Christless gospel. We cannot have a church without the gospel. And so we must hold to the gospel that is by itself a stumbling stone. So if there's anything, if anything you do causes people to stumble, let it be your preaching of the gospel. Let it be a stone of stumbling to them that catches their hearts up and makes them deal with the reality that they're facing, that the Lord is calling them. So verses 11 and 12 of our passage bring the Christ-centeredness to the forefront. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth, say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your salvation comes. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him. Right? Our salvation. is to be found not in getting out of a bad situation, but in a person. It's in Jesus. It says, behold, his reward is with him, right? And we, as his bride, are with him. His recompense, again, is before him. That is what we always must keep in our minds as the focus, is that our Redeemer is Jesus. We, like Judah, were brought out of bondage and out of exile by this Redeemer. And it says, they shall be called the holy people. They're redeemed of the Lord. and you shall be called sought out, a city not forsaken. That's us today. We are not called dirty, rotten sinners. We are not identified again with our sin. We are called the holy people. We are called the redeemed of the Lord. Right? We're called sought out, a city not forsaken. That is the identity that we have in Christ. And I beg you, if that is not your identity today, that you would call upon the name of the Lord and be taken out of the exile into the redemption of the Lord. And so the imperatives. again, are to remove the stone of stumbling, but also to herald the gospel, right? And that's what we've said this entire sermon. We are to take the redemption. We are to take the glory of the redemption of Christ through his gospel, through his death and resurrection to everyone. That is our imperative, so we are not to sit in our churches on Sunday morning and then the rest of the time go out and live our lives as though we weren't redeemed. That's what we're called to. We are called out of this exile into this redemption. And again, while we have this glorious redemption that is to come when Christ returns and carries us to be with him in the new Jerusalem that we read about this morning in the book of Revelation, our imperative then is to not sit Idly. But to go out and herald the Gospel. To remove the stones of stumbling. Right? To search our hearts. To ask the Holy Spirit. To petition to the Holy Spirit. To search our hearts and show us those points that are stumbling blocks. Not only to us, but to other people. And Jesus says this. In Matthew 28, 19, he says, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them everything that I have commanded you. And so since we believe here that it's not just the New Testament that Jesus has commanded, but the Old Testament too, this is our imperative as we are living in holy anticipation of the Lord to come. And so just to recap, we have the redemption now, right? We have been redeemed in Christ. Rest in that truth. Rest in the truth that you have been redeemed in Christ. And again, if you have not been redeemed in Christ today, let today be the day of your salvation. And we have the coming glorious redemption where God will wipe all of our tears away where there'll be no more pain, no more sickness, no more death. And so while that is still in our future, we have work to do. We have the meantime imperative of heralding the gospel, sharing the gospel to the world, letting our identities not be in our sin, but in the glorious redemption of Jesus. So let us rest in the truth of the gospel and get to work. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are the one who has redeemed us in Christ. You are the one who orchestrated not only the exile of your people, but their redemption. So Lord, let us understand that you have sovereignly ordained us to be your stewards and your heralds. Let us not take that truth to be something where we can sit and let other people do it, but let us be stirred up to search our own hearts, to remove the stumbling blocks that of unholiness and pride and bitterness and unforgiveness and whatever sins that we are struggling with, let us remove them by the Holy Spirit. Let us be stirred on as we go to bed tonight and wake up tomorrow morning. Let us not leave the truth here in the sanctuary, but go out on Monday morning with a renewed zeal to share Your Word, to preach Your Gospel, But let us always remember that as much as we do the work, you are the one who brings about salvation through your Holy Spirit. So even if all of our strivings are like Isaiah's, where they do not hear our voice, let us continually, day and night, cry out to the Lord to bring about the redemption of the world. Let us not lose heart. Let us not be discouraged. And let us, again, remember the glorious truth of your gospel. as we come together with one voice, saying the prayer that you taught us to pray, saying, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our deaths as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.