It is just after midnight on
Friday evening and Day Two of my sermon preparation for this Sunday’s message
on Isaiah Chapter 2. In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that by the end of Day
One, I had a rough outline and had also made a recording of myself reading the
passage out loud. Before leaving for work this morning, I loaded up the
recording on my iPod, but also managed to take a snapshot of my outline.
On the bus journey to the office,
I kept listening to the passage again and again on my iPod, while scribbling thoughts and questions on the outline. I
did the same on the journey back home after work. Here is a photo of the same piece of paper at
about 6pm when I got home.
Before dinner, I got a chance to
get started on the introduction. Some people leave their introductions for
last, but I try to write the full message from start to finish, to maintain the flow of thought. Spent an hour trying to think up an illustration but ended
up just reviewing where we left off in last week’s message in a couple of
sentences (You can see what I wrote below).
It’s Friday night, so I take it
easy: dinner followed by rented movie (“We bought a zoo,” starring Matt Damon
and that actress from Avengers). Then another hour, picking up where I left off
from the introduction, moving on to expand on the first point. It’s not
polished. It will definitely be changed (if not scrapped completely), but for
now, it’s time to call it a night. I then write this blog post and get ready to
read my devotions (Don Carson’s “For the Love of God”) and pray for the evening
(maybe sneak in a few pages from “The Horse and His Boy”).
Anyways, here is what I have
written so far:
==================================================================
[DRAFT: ISAIAH 2 - THE MOUNTAIN
OF THE LORD (10 AUGUST 2012)]
The city on a hill
This month we are thinking about
what it means for us to be a church in the city. What impact does God want us
to have on our community? What distinguishes us as Christians within our
Chinese culture? Last week, we saw that God wanted his people to so reflect his
righteousness that their city would be called the City of Righteousness; to so
reflect his faithfulness that their city would be called the Faithful City
(Isaiah 1:26). The opening verses of Chapter 2 remind us that God is addressing
a specific city at a particular time in history - the city of Jerusalem during
the reign of the kings of Judah.
This is
what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
In the last
days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as chief among the
mountains;
it will be
raised above the hills,
and all
nations will stream to it.
Isaiah
2:1-2
Jerusalem was a city built on a
hill, which meant that it was strategically strong and easily defensible from
any attack from its enemies. (Think Minas Tirith if you are a Tolkien fan; or
if you are into Star Wars, think Obi-wan Kenobi defeating Anakin simply because
he is standing in an elevated position!) King David established his kingdom in
Jerusalem as his headquarters and the capital city very early on in his career
(2 Samuel 5), and Solomon, his son, went on to build God’s temple in Jerusalem.
Hence, when Isaiah describes his vision of the “mountain of the LORD’s temple,”
it was obvious to everyone around him that he was talking about Jerusalem, the
city built on Mount Zion (verse 3).
Having said that, Isaiah’s vision
is not of the present but the future, and the focus of his vision is not the
city, but the mountain on which the city was built. This mountain, says Isaiah,
will be established as chief among all other mountains; it will be raised above
all other hills. What Isaiah was doing - in describing God’s mountain as the
highest of all mountains - was speaking evangelistically to non-Christians. You
see, in Isaiah’s day, the surrounding nations worshipped their gods by going up
mountains and hiking up the hills because these were seen as the closest points
of contact between heaven and earth. Isaiah was saying to the pagan
worshippers, “One day, God’s mountain will be the highest of mountains.” There
is only one God and there is only one way to God; one day, all nations will
come and worship God on this holy mountain.
1. God’s mountain filled
with all nations
Many
peoples will come and say,
“Come, let
us go up to the mountain of the LORD
to the
house of the God of Jacob.
He will
teach us his ways,
so that we
may walk in his paths.”
The law
will go out from Zion,
the word of
the LORD from Jerusalem.
Isaiah 2:3
“Hey!” they were saying to one
another, “That’s God’s mountain. That’s where we need to be!” Amazingly, they
even dragged their friends along with them, “Come, let us go up to the mountain
of the LORD.” Do you hear their eagerness? Their excitement? For the past
couple of weeks, everyone I know has been trying to get tickets to the
Olympics. Even those of us who did get a chance to attend a football match or a
badminton final, were trying to find more opportunities to be part of the
action. Why? It was a chance to be a part of history. This was the experience
of a lifetime! That’s what the guys in this passage were doing. They weren’t
complaining about having to miss yet another tennis final in order to be in
church on a Sunday afternoon. These guys were eager and excited about going up
the mountain of the LORD. More than that, they wanted all their friends to come
along, “Come on, let’s go together!”
Now notice who these guys were -
these people in Isaiah’s vision who were saying to one another, “You gotta
check this out!” They were the outsiders. They didn’t live in Jerusalem.
They weren’t part of Israel, that is, they weren’t a part of God’s people.
Isaiah calls them the nations, outsiders, who were so eager to meet with
God, so excited to have heard about this God. But more than anything else, they
were looking forward to hearing God’s word. That’s the reason why they made the
trip in the first place. “He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his
paths.”
I want you to notice how the
words that Isaiah uses have motion.There is movement. The nations
stream up a mountain - they are like a river that’s flowing backwards.
“Come on, let’s go, go, go!” And even when they hear God’s word, it is in order
that they might “walk in his paths,” meaning, they want to know how to live the
way God wants them to live. All the nations are coming to God. All the
nations are living for God. That’s motion. That’s a movement. And
friends, I dare say that that’s the bible’s definition of a Christian - someone
who is actively turning to God, listening to God, constantly living for God.
Christianity is a movement! I wonder: Does that describe your life and my life
as believers in Christ. Are we actively seeking after God? Are we calling our
friends and family to turn to him?
Some of us are hesitant to do
this. I know that it can be a scary thing to tell someone to trust in Jesus; to
entrust their lives to Jesus. We ought to do this patiently, lovingly, clearly.
But perhaps what might help is the confidence in knowing that when we do speak
the gospel, God is using us to speak his word to the nations. At the end of
verse 4, it is God’s law which goes out from Zion; his word, which goes out
from Jerusalem. When the nations respond, when you or I respond, it is to God
himself as our God and our King. That is the picture in verse 5 onwards, of God
ruling the nations as king and judge.
He will
judge between the nations
and will
settle disputes for many peoples.
They will
beat their swords into ploughshares
and their
spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will
not take up sword against nation,
nor will
they train for war anymore.
Isaiah 2:4
God’s kingdom is marked by peace.
No more wars. No more weapons, even. God judges (or rules) the nations and he
settles all disputes between the nations. I had to look up what ploughshares
and pruning hooks were - these are farming tools, the first is used to dig into
the ground, the other is a tool used for trimming small trees. What Isaiah is
saying is all the guns will be melted down for iPods. All the tanks will be
retrofitted as school buses (which would be awesome!) The entire nation’s
defence budget, some billions and billions of pounds, reinvested into producing
jobs, planting crops and winning more gold medals at the next Olympics. Why?
Because it will be end of all wars. God will be in charge.
This sounds... well, unreal. It’s
OK to talk about world peace as a concept. It’s OK for a Miss Universe
contestant to talk about world peace as her ultimate desire for all mankind. It
is even admirable for the United Nations to have Isaiah Chapter 2, verse 4, inscribed
on display in a courtyard in its headquarters. But today, in our world, in real
life? Come on! Get real!
Well, it is worth reminding
ourselves that Isaiah is describing a vision of the future - “In the latter
days,” he says in verse 2. Jesus did tell his disciples, “Nation will rise up
against nation. and kingdom against kingdom.” “Don’t be alarmed,” Jesus said,
“Such things must happen,” he told his friends. Jesus didn’t want them to be
surprised. He wanted them to be prepared.
What Isaiah was describing in his
vision for the future was a radically new kingdom filled with radically new
people. The nations would submit themselves to God as their ruler and judge.
This reminds us that the description of world peace under God’s rule in verse 4
is not independent of the nations’ submission to God’s word in verse 3, but
rather is a result of that same submission. Submission to God’s word is the
turning point of the vision in verse 5, because here, Isaiah turns from
speaking about the outsiders to directly addressing the insiders; from speaking
about the nations to addressing his own nation, the descendants of Jacob. He
says to them, “Therefore, how much more should we walk in submission to God’s
word.”
Come, O
house of Jacob,
let us walk
in the light of the LORD.
Isaiah 2:5
Sadly, when we look at the people
of God in Isaiah’s day, they had rejected God’s word in their lives. And as a
result, God had rejected them in judgement. That is the second part of Isaiah’s
vision on the house of Jacob, on the day of the LORD.
2. God’s people filled with
idolatry
You have
abandoned your people,
the house
of Jacob.
They are
full of superstitions from the East;
they
practice divination like the Philistines
and clasp
hands with the pagans.
Their land
is full of silver and gold;
there is no
end to their treasures.
Their land
is full of horses;
there is no
end to their chariots.
Their land
is full of idols;
they bow
down to the work of their hands,
to what
their fingers have made.
So man will
be brought low
and mankind
humbled -
do not
forgive them.
Isaiah
2:6-9
3. God’s judgement filled
with his splendour
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