Please turn to Isaiah chapter 54. As you are turning there, I'll just point out that the psalm that we've been singing all month here from Psalm 113 does have a bearing on and does tie into the things that we've been seeing in the book of Isaiah. God's regard for the poor and the needy, for the for the shamed among us. From the dust he lifts the poor, makes the needy grieve no more. He the barren woman takes and a joyful mother makes. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord." And we will hear that very theme developed in Isaiah 54, verses 1-17, and that's on page 517 in the Pew Bible. Isaiah 54, listen closely to God's Word. "'Sing, O barren, you who have not born. Break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not labored with child. For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman,' says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings. Do not spare. Lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes. For you shall expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit the nations, and make the desolate cities inhabited. Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed, neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame, for you will forget the shame of your youth and will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore. For your Maker is your Husband, the Lord of hosts is His name, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. He is called the God of the whole earth. For the Lord has called you like a woman, forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused, says your God. For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer. For this is like the waters of Noah to me. For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you nor rebuke you. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord, who has mercy on you. O you afflicted one, tossed with tempest and not comforted! Behold, I will lay your stones with colorful gems, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of crystal, and all your walls of precious stones. All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness you shall be established. You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear, and from terror, for it shall not come near you. Indeed, they shall surely assemble, but not because of me. Whoever assembles against you shall fall for your sake. Behold, I have created the blacksmith who blows the coals in the fire, who brings forth an instrument for his work. and I have created the spoiler to destroy. No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me, says the Lord." Well, much like a movie with a really good soundtrack, a movie that's the soundtrack is so good that you don't really need to watch what's going on on the screen or hear the words to know when the scene has shifted and shifted abruptly. We see a great shift take place between Isaiah 53, as Christ suffers as He goes to the cross, the Lamb who was slain, And now the note that Isaiah 54 begins on, sing, O barren you who have not born. And we see this kind of abrupt shift at different points in the scripture. One of them is right in the middle of Psalm 22, as Christ cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? As he goes through the agonies. And then there is a turning point and you have heard My voice. And then the ends of the earth will turn to Him." We read another one of those turning points in the Gospel of Matthew this morning, didn't we? As we think about this Easter day, as we think about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, how the apostles lived in darkness and fear and dread for those three days. What is the future? What is going to happen to us? And all of a sudden, in an unexpected way, the grave was empty. and a new light had come on the world. The key shifted musically from a minor key to a major key, a theme of victory and joy. And in Isaiah 54, there's a note, isn't there, of joy, of hope, of optimism, of a new world that is different, because something has changed. And it's very important that we not divorce Isaiah 54 from Isaiah 53. What has changed? Well, the penalty has been paid, and the king is alive. And so God is calling us as his people to sing, to expand, to expect blessing, to not fear any longer. You will not be held captive any longer. We might go to passages of the New Testament. Sin will no longer have dominion over you. Praise God. These are the notes of victory that God's Word has for us, as people whose sin has been atoned for by Jesus Christ, and whose Savior is alive, sealing that victory to us. And so, Isaiah 54 is given to call you and me to recognize this new world, if you will, that we live in and the blessings of it. And it specifically calls us to sing. to sing, because sin's consequences have been replaced with corresponding blessings. You and I can sing, because God has taken away the consequences of our sins through the blood of Jesus Christ. And has replaced, not only has He taken those consequences away, but He in their place has filled us with blessings beyond measure. And we're going to specifically this morning see three consequences of sin outlined in this passage, and then the three corresponding blessings also in each of the three sections. So, from verses 1 through 5, we'll see the consequence of sin being shame, And now God transitions us to fruitfulness. In verses 6-10, we will see the consequence of sin being alienation from God, hostility toward God, and the corresponding blessing being a covenant of peace with God. And then in the last section, verses 11-17, we'll see that the threat or the consequence of sin is a terror that hangs over us, and then the safety and assurance that God gives us in its place. So, three sections. First of all, verses 1 through 5 call us to sing, because barren shame has been replaced with fruitfulness. sing that we should have joy and happiness and delight in our King, because our barren shame has been put away from us, and it has been replaced with fruitfulness." Specifically, in the first couple of verses here, addressed and called to sing are those who are barren, who have not labored with children. And whenever we come to the Scripture and interpret passages like this, we need to remember the context in which they are written. Sadly, and unfortunately, you and I live in an era and in a society where actually not having children is desirable to many men and many women, that that would be one of the worst things that could happen to us. We would not want to have children, or we would not want to bring children into this world. We would not want to disrupt our lives by having kids. But that's not the way that the Bible presents having children, and it's not the way that children have been viewed through most of world history, and even in the present day and age in most of the world, that those who have not labored with children are actually in a pitiable position, that actually it's beyond just a place of pity, that they find themselves being despised. Think Rachel. Think Hannah. And as Ralph Davis puts it in describing Hannah's position, there at the beginning of I Samuel, this barren woman is forced to put up with another wife who is the mouthy, fertile wife. And she is always putting Hannah down. It's a place where you are despised and looked down on. You're not able to perform the most important function, the most important blessing that's been given to you. And in world history, sadly, the blame has largely rested on the woman, if not entirely. Right? It's assumed that if there's a fertility problem, that it must be the wife's fault. And so, consequently, she is very much a second-class citizen, able to be put away and divorced in many societies on that fault alone. And that shame and that pain, as verse 4 tells us, can extend even into facing widowhood. without any offspring. Right? And you can think of Naomi in this regard. Right? Naomi who had had two sons, and yet both of her sons passed away without providing grandchildren. So now here she is, left as a widow, and also as a widow whose sons have died, and what will become of me? The shame of facing, and the difficulty, the pain of facing a widowhood without offspring. The same mindset continues today in places like South Sudan, right, where our single women missionaries have been confronted with the question. Women in their 20s have been asked, are you still a girl? Now, when they're asked that by people in the culture, the people are not wondering, are you a transgendered individual? What they're asking is, Is there a chance that here you are in your twenties and you haven't been through puberty yet, and therefore no man would actually want you? And that's why you're shipped off from America, you're shipped off from your homeland to be here. That's the only reason why we can think of why someone in their twenties would still be single. So it's a pitiable place. Even we could say, as the text puts it, a shameful place. to be in this position of barrenness. And we might say then it's a cruel God, or a very, very insensitive prophet, who would call out those who are barren and say, you take the lead in promoting joy and talking about how great things are. And that would indeed be cruel and insensitive if this call to sing were not framed within the grace and mercy of God. And in terms of God's taking that shame away, by pouring out blessings from His throne. All of us can reflect on areas of shame in our lives. And it's important for us to hear the call here to lead out in singing in light of our shame. God here is using one class of person who would have reason for shame, reason for pain in their life, in order to illustrate. Out of anyone who illustrates being a second-class citizen, right, it would be the barren woman in this culture. But all of us can say that we have areas of shame. Shame comes from places where I feel like I wasn't made right. I don't talk the way I wish I did. My eyes don't line up the way that I wish they did, I don't run, I don't look the way that I'd like to look. When I run I don't walk the way I'd like to walk. My hairline isn't what I wish it were, etc., etc. Who I am can lead us to a certain amount of shame. But, of course, as soon as we start thinking about shame we also add to that list what I have done. comments that I've made and insensitivity to dear, sweet people, people who have heard things that I've said that have gotten back to them, things I've taken from people who needed that item far more than I did, things I've done. Shame also comes from not only who I am and what I've done, but also from things I can't do. Right? Like barrenness. I wish I were more proficient. I wish I were more talented. And it embarrasses me that I don't have the skills that other people around me have. We can think of this in the light of the Garden of Eden, right, of the shame of nakedness, the shame of being known, of people knowing who I am, of God knowing who I am. And how can God call those who are ashamed to sing, to lead out in joy and gladness? Well, He can call for that He says, I'm going to give you offspring. In the places where you have been ashamed, I will fill up your cup with blessing. Prepare for household expansion, he says. And recognize here that as much as verse 2 has been taken to mean that God is promising that your 401K will triple in value very quickly, as much as it's been taken to say your family business will grow and grow and grow, that that's really not the primary context here at all, is it? It's really the primary context is God's saying, sing, O barren woman, and while you're at it, you better buy some bunk beds. While you're at it, you better design a way to add a third story of bedrooms, some sort of sleeping loft, some sleeping attic onto your house, because I'm going to fill your home with children. I'm going to allow you as a nation to, verse 3, inherit the nations and make the desolate cities inhabited. Remember, Israel is down to its last city, through much of the life of Isaiah. There's pretty much Jerusalem and then some fields around. And even those fields are in jeopardy right when the Assyrians come to town. There's not much left in the way of fortification. Who's going to take over these inhabited cities? Well, actually, it's been encouraging to me this week to think about, and maybe you've all recognized this for a long time, but when the Scripture talks in places like verse 3 and in the Psalms about the people of God inheriting nations, when it talks about Jesus Christ inheriting the nations, to inherit nations actually requires inheriting people as part of that, right? It's not just a promise that you'll inherit land, right? Oh, I inherited 640 acres, I inherited a full square mile here in Indiana of great farmland. To inherit a nation actually speaks of the fact that peoples will come to Him." That the promise here of children is that God, instead of having us ashamed of what we can't do, will actually make us so fruitful, v. 4, that we will not be ashamed nor disgraced. In fact, what's v. 4 say? You will forget. the shame of your youth and not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore. What a great and tremendous promise that is. Because the reality is we would like to forget the things we've done. We would like to be able to ignore and forget the things that we don't like about the way that we are. But as difficult and painful as some of those memories are, they're also memories that are deeply stamped into our hearts. I distinctly remember, in the first grade, a little girl in my class saying to the whole class, David has big ears. And it hurt. Now, I can actually tell you today that my ears, I don't think, actually make the top 100 of things that I'm ashamed of at all. I would trade another half inch or so on my ears if they'd stop growing hair. But there are these things that are deeply pressed into you and me, these things that we're ashamed of, that for God to say, you can sing because I'm going to bless you so deeply and fully, I'm going to so pour out blessing and honor on you, that you won't even remember the things that bring shame to you. What a glorious God, that the joys of salvation will remove from our memory the shame of our youth. And why should you and I believe that that's true? Why should we believe as people with shame, that God can overcome this. Why should we believe, as the barren woman, that God can make us fruitful? Because, verse 5, the maker of all things is your husband. Who can give you children? God can. The Lord of hosts is His name. It's reminding us God's power is not limited. The Lord God of armies, the God who commands the heavenly hosts, the thousands, the myriad and myriad of angelic hosts. He is your Redeemer. the Holy One of Israel. He is called the God of the whole earth. He can do anything. Why should we sing? Why? Because God has taken our shame, the shame of barrenness, and He replaces it with fruitfulness. He replaces it with fullness, fullness of joy, with honor. Secondly, verses 6-10, you and I are to sing, because alienation is replaced with a covenant of peace. I said earlier that shame has to do, if we think in the terms of Eden and of the initial results of sin entering the world, of Adam and Eve knowing that they were, just verses earlier, they had been naked and unashamed. Now they are ashamed, right? Not only are they ashamed and making clothes for themselves, but what else do they do? They hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And what's their response? Hid themselves. They hid themselves, right? Alienation from God resulted from sin entering the world. In v. 6 outlines this, and it might not be obvious because there's this theme of the woman, the barren woman. And then in v. 6, like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a youthful wife. Actually, a better translation here would be like a young wife or a youthful wife who should be spurned, who deserves to be abandoned based on her behavior. And God says, you have for a moment, in fact, been forsaken. For a moment, verse 8, I hid my face from you. And he's describing what we see throughout the Scripture, the theme of the adulterous wife, the theme of our idolatry, or as James puts it, our love of the world, actually being akin to being an adulterer or an adulteress against our loving heavenly husband that, no, no, as Hosea puts it right so vividly, no, no, I don't want to be your wife today. I would rather be out selling myself to the Baals. I think that they will pay better, that they will take better care of me than you will, God. And not only does our sin bring shame to us, but it brings alienation from God, a God who hides his face. But the encouragement here is the temporariness of that, right? I hid my face for a moment. For a mere moment, verse seven, I have forsaken you. And what is just a moment in time? And what is a, verse eight, a little wrath is replaced with great mercies, everlasting kindnesses from God. And you will be forsaken no longer because I will pour out kindness and peace and mercy. And I will allow you to see my face and my covenant of peace will never be removed from you ever, ever again. And how do we know that this is true? Well, it tells us that God, verse 6, calls out to us, that He comes to us. Right? You've experienced times of alienation, right, where you're at odds with someone else. You've done something and you're not sure that they can ever, ever forgive you. You're not sure that you can face them. And then you hear their footsteps coming down the hall. You hear the door open and you hear their voice saying, can we talk about this? I want you to know I love you, I care about you. And isn't it a great and glorious thing that the God of the universe, who you and I have been unfaithful to, would come walking down the hall, calling out, saying, I don't want to be alienated from you. I want to have peace with you. And I'm going to provide that peace eternally. It's going to be built on who I am. A covenant is promises from God, right? It's going to be built on my character, my consistency, and I will make a covenant of peace with you that will never, ever, ever be removed. I'm going to gather you up. I'm calling you and I'm gathering you to me, says the Lord. And he gives us this illustration, doesn't he? By Isaiah's time, the world had gone without a worldwide flood for a few thousand years. And God reminds him and says, remember, remember I said to Noah, I wasn't going to bring floodwaters all over the world ever again? Well, in the same way, my kindness will never depart from you because I have mercy on you. We sing because our shame has been replaced with fruitfulness, and we sing because our alienation has been replaced with a God who comes calling, who gathers us together to be in the covenant of peace to say, a God who comes to you and me and says, I want to have a relationship with you. I want you to be my friend. I want you to know me. I want you to know the joy of having a relationship with me. And God pursues people like you and me in our alienation. and gives us an everlasting and continual friendship with him. Thirdly, then in verses 11 through 17, you and I are called to sing because our terror is replaced with a beautified security. Terror, fear, is replaced with a beautified security. And I hope you're scratching your head a little bit about that, because usually when we're thinking about security, you know, our deacons actually are in the midst of talking about putting in a new camera system, right, around the property. And one of the questions that most of us don't spend a lot of time asking is, You know, will the color of the cameras, will the hue match the, you know, will it match the texture of the Indiana limestone on the exterior of the building? That's my primary concern in this project, right? The army, right, when they're setting up bases and fortifications in the Middle East, these outposts, they don't say, well, we really want this to look nice. Let's send in the landscaping Marines now. It's not the focal point. So what do we mean when we say that God replaces our terror with a beautified security? Well, once again, we can start with terror as a result of the fall, right? This fear and distance, this dread. And think of that angel who stood guard over Eden, right, with a flaming sword. Don't come this way. Sin and your sin has consequences. and the weight of that. And for Jerusalem as a city, described here as a city afflicted, tossed to and fro with tempest, verse 11. A city that's like a bobbing piece of cork out in the ocean, just beat this way and beat that way, depending on whoever's in power. Just left to the whims. Jerusalem. terrified behind closed doors. And God says, instead of terror, I'm actually going to, verse 14, establish you in righteousness. And again, in verse 17, their righteousness is from me. God says, I'm going to take this city that's been so tossed and such a draining existence, as every invader comes your way, oppressed and fearful. Verse 14, that terror coming near you, instead of that past, instead I will establish you in righteousness, and particularly in beauty, and insecurity. Now, we get hints in verses 11 and 12, right, as the stones, the colorful gemstones, the foundations with sapphires, pinnacles of rubies, gates of crystal, walls of precious stones, your mind should go to Revelation 21. in the heavenly city. But along with that we might say, well, what does having an exterior of a city that's filled with gemstones have to do with not being terrified as a city? In fact, if you live in the city of Jerusalem in this era, And I come along and say, hey, I've got pockets full. I've got truckloads full of rubies. I've got truckloads full of sapphires. We're going to build up your walls, and we're going to plaster all over these gemstones. Your response should be, if you're a rational person, should be what? No thank you. Right? No thank you. That's just one more reason for the Assyrians to want to come to town. This is one more reason for us to be on the priority hit list for the Egyptians. We don't want your sapphires and rubies on the outside of our walls. But doesn't that beautification then, if God does that, actually speak to how secure He will make the city? Some of you have lived in neighborhoods where you would never leave anything outside that's not locked down or bolted to the ground somehow, and even then it might not last. You know, even here at the church I've actually been intrigued by and amazed, actually. I wasn't sure that the cone that we put out here to keep the parking spot next to our Mother Goose vacant, you know, we've had a cone sitting out here, I wasn't sure that with all the traffic going out by on Meridian that our cone would last all week. It did. It did. And that cone's relatively Worthless, cheap item, right? If our cone goes missing, it's not exactly a gemstone. But the fact that God says the exterior even of your city, I'm going to beautify it, speaks to the fact that it will be treasured and that it's kept secure and kept out of harm's way. And he goes on to talk about other levels of security. The enemy won't come near you, right? You'll be far from oppression. You won't fear. Terror won't come near you. Now, what's verse 15 saying? Indeed, they shall surely assemble, but not because of me. Whoever assembles against you shall fall for your sake. God is saying in verse 15, When enemies come against you, it won't be because I am sending them. It won't be because, unlike previously, where I'm frustrated with you, right? I can't get your attention, you're walking in sin, and so I'm going to, for a little while, have wrath against you. God says, now, under this covenant of peace, you'll dwell And when enemies come against you, it won't be on my behalf, but actually it'll be, verse 15, it'll be only so I can demonstrate the surety of my promises. It'll happen for your sake so that you can see my faithfulness to you. And no weapon, verse 17, will be formed against you that will prosper against you. And so God is describing here how He will clothe His people, how He will clothe His city, the people of Zion, in righteousness, how He will defend us, and how He will protect us. So that, then, verse 17, when it says, No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from me." What he's describing here is what we hear echoes of in Romans 8, when Paul says, who will bring a charge against God's elect? It's God who justifies. It's God who has said His people are righteous. And that wall of righteousness, that protection of righteousness, is secure. That wall will not fall down, though the enemy may come against us. Though the enemy may accuse, no charge will stand against the elect of God. Why should we sing? Why should we sing? Because the people who had no wall of defense against the accuser now have a wall of righteousness that has been built through the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ, so that for you and me, the terror of judgment has been replaced And it's replaced as we have become, actually, and catch this significant thing in verse 17. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. For the last several chapters of Isaiah, in fact, throughout his preaching up until this point, He's talked about a servant, the servant, the Lord Jesus Christ. But now he talks about servants of the Lord, right? Those who, through the work of the servant, have now been made servants of God as well. And so God here is calling you and me, to sing, because our shame, because our insecurity and terror, and because our alienation from God has all been put away. And it's all been put away how? Because of Isaiah 53, right? Because of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Because the Lord Jesus Christ, on your and my behalf, took the shame that I deserve and that you deserve, and took the alienation that I deserve and you deserve. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? took the terror that we deserve, your terrors, your wrath has rolled over me like breakers, like waves pouring over me," Jesus could say. He's taken the shame, the alienation, and the terror from us. And in the resurrection, He has given to us the gifts of His victory, the gifts of honor and offspring, the gift of close friendship with the Lord, a relationship with God, and the gift of eternal security through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And brothers and sisters, if we grasp that truth, If we grasp just how deep and horrendous our shame and alienation and the terror of being chased around by guilty consciences is, and if we grasp the height of the privileges that we have through Jesus Christ our Lord, what will be our response? We'll be a singing people, won't we? We will be a people of optimism, a people of praise, a people of hope, as we embrace and believe these things. And so may God, this Lord's Day, this day in which we remember and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, fill your tongues with joy as an expression of hearts that are full of gladness, because of what Christ has paid for you, because of the weight of sin, the consequences of sin, that He has removed from you and replaced those things with these corresponding blessings. Amen. Our great God and loving Heavenly Father, we are so very thankful for your grace and your mercy to fallen people like us. We know that we do not deserve these things. We know that shame is ours, that we deserve shame, that we deserve alienation, and that we deserve the terror of facing the consequences of our sin. we are so thankful that in Christ that you have a much, much better plan for us, and that through Christ that we can enjoy the blessings of the covenant of peace, that we have peace with God through the sacrifice of Christ, and that through Christ's shame that we receive honor, And Lord, we know we are undeserving of these things, but we thank you for the riches of the glories of your grace you've given to us. Fill our hearts with joy, and we pray that it would be so much joy that we would find ourselves singing and praising You, that we would truly be a thankful people whose hearts would overflow with the gladness of being Your people. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Well, we'll sing together now Psalm 30, selection A.