A Glimpse Of Redemption
Isaiah 30:18-26
November 5, 2023
We started this chapter LAST SUNDAY MORNING
Where we talked about the reality that many in Jerusalem
Were being considered by God as “false sons”.
Isaiah 30:9-11 “For this is a rebellious people, false sons, Sons who refuse to listen To the instruction of the LORD; Who say to the seers, “You must not see visions”; And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy to us what is right, Speak to us pleasant words, Prophesy illusions. “Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
To put it plainly they were a people
Who had no interest in hearing any direction from God.
Jesus Himself taught us:
Luke 8: 21 “But He answered and said to them, “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.”
But here we have just the opposite.
People who claim to be the people of God
But who have no interest in anything God would have to say.
• They prefer “pleasant words”
• They prefer “illusions”
• But they are done with the messages about “the Holy One of Israel”.
This animosity toward God had most recently shown itself
In their refusal to seek Him in the midst of the Assyrian crisis.
God had raised up Assyria to discipline His people.
The plan was to use Assyria to drive Israel back to God in repentance.
But, when Assyria attacked, instead of running to God, they ran to Egypt.
• God called it (1) “a plan, but not Mine”
• He called it (1) “an alliance, but not of My Spirit”
They were sinning in this decision and they would certainly regret it.
THEY WERE ACTING AS “FALSE SONS”.
And we discussed some of the attitudes of what a false son looks like.
1) They want shelter without submission.
2) They want happiness without holiness.
3) They want refuge without repentance.
4) They want salvation without seeking
In short, they want all the benefits that God can offer
Without having to submit to or seek or trust God at all.
That is a false son and God is certainly RIGHTFULLY ANGRY about it.
However, after God outlined His displeasure for their rebellion
We then came across verse 18
Which we would like to revisit to begin our study this morning.
(18) “Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him.”
Hopefully you remember that verse from last week.
• In spite of Israel’s rebellion.
• In spite of Israel’s obstinance.
• God still “longs to be gracious”.
That is His ultimate desire.
• He takes “no pleasure in the death of the wicked”.
• We heard previously as Isaiah referred to judgment as God’s “unusual task.”
God is a gracious and merciful Savior
And He “longs to be gracious to you”.
HOWEVER, even though grace is the preferred response of God
We also read in that verse that “He waits on high to have compassion on you.”
We see that God desires compassion,
But Isaiah also noted that God is not currently showing it.
GOD IS WAITING to demonstrate His compassion and grace.
WHY?
“For the LORD is a God of justice”
• He does delight in grace.
• He does desire to show compassion.
• But He will not do it apart from repentance.
“justice” is also very important to Him.
He does not, and He cannot simply overlook sin.
Justice forbids that.
So God waits for repentance before He shows compassion.
We finished by looking at the parable of the prodigal son in Luke’s gospel
• This boy who was also a false son.
• This one who wanted the inheritance from the father but who had no interest in loving or serving or seeking the father at all.
• And once the father gave him the inheritance he immediately departed and squandered it.
The boy found himself in hard times, just as Israel currently did with Assyria.
But like Israel, instead of immediately seeking his father
This boy tried to FIX THE PROBLEM HIMSELF and he hired himself out.
That was a bad decision and like seeking Egypt, it led only to shame.
He found himself feeding pigs and starving to death.
And this is when he came to his senses.
• He knew that returning to his father would require leaving his sin, repenting, and submitting himself to his father,
• But that is what he did.
• He left his sin, he sought his father, he repented, and he humbled himself.
And we saw that the Father responded just as Isaiah said.
• He was immediately gracious.
• He was immediately compassionate.
Leaving his sin, confessing his failure, and returning to his father
Was the smartest decision he ever made.
ISAIAH WOULD SAY THE SAME THING.
In fact, in verses 19-26 we have a wonderful passage of Scripture.
You could almost read it:
• Like a letter from the father to that prodigal son in the distant land.
• As though the father was reaching out to that lost boy and seeking to assure
him that if he would just leave his sin and come home it would certainly be
worth it.
For these verses outline for Israel
The effect that repentance would have on their lives.
IT IS IN FACT GOD SHOWING HIS HAND.
If they would repent and return to Him, they could be absolutely sure of how God would respond.
• They can come home with no confusion.
• They can come home with no doubt.
• If they will just repent and return God has already said what they can expect.
In fact God describes that day by 2 OVERARCHING REALITIES.
And these are important to see.
(25) “On every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams of running water ON THE DAY of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.”
(26) “The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, ON THE DAY the LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.”
So you have this day of reconciliation described by two major realities.
“on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.”
• When Israel repents and returns like that prodigal did to his father it will be a “day of great slaughter”.
• It will be the day when God will turn His anger away from Israel and turn it toward their enemies.
We also read:
“on the day the LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.”
• When Israel repents and returns like that prodigal did to his father it will be a day when “the LORD binds up the fracture…and heals the bruise He has inflicted.”
• It will also be a day of healing for Israel.
So at the very least, on the day Israel returns to God
It will be a day in which God heals them and judges their enemies.
Certainly that is true for their current dilemma with Assyria.
That is a promise for their present day.
But there are also millennial realities in play here as well
For the future when Israel turns to God after having crucified the Messiah.
Peter said that:
Acts 3:17-21 “And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. “But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.”
Peter told them the same thing.
If you will repent and return then Christ will return to you and usher in that time of great refreshing.
Now the reason I show you that
Is not just so we get a better understanding of the end times.
I show you that because I want you to understand that
God has not changed, nor has His plan for redemption.
• Isaiah preached this message about 2700 years ago.
• Peter preached his message about 2000 years ago.
• And that message is still true today.
If prodigals (false sons) will repent of their sin
And return to the Father and submit themselves to Him
Then He had already revealed how He will respond to them.
If you repent and return to God we already know how He will respond.
It hasn’t changed in 2700 years and it won’t change until Christ returns.
And this is what we want to look at this morning.
We want to get a glimpse of this promise of redemption.
We want to see what sort of things
God has promised to false sons if they will repent and return to Him.
And in our text this morning we see 3 realities that God will fulfill.
#1 GUARANTEED GRACE
Isaiah 30:19-22
Those 4 verses contain several wonderful promises that we will examine,
BUT AT THE HEART of them all is the statement in
verse 19, “He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry;”
That’s the real question isn’t it?
• If I have offended God.
• If I have been a false son.
• If I have taken all the blessings He has given me and thus far spent them on my own selfish pursuits.
• If I am now reaping the just benefits of my decisions and actions.
Can I really expect to get anything but an “I told you so” from God?
Can I really expect that God would give me the time of day?
WE STRUGGLE THERE BECAUSE WE KNOW OURSELVES.
Let’s just reverse the roles for a second.
Have you ever encountered someone who needed your help?
• And then they needed it again.
• And again.
• And again.
Then you find out
• That they make terrible life decisions
• And helping them is not a good financial investment.
Then you find out
• That they ignore all the advice you give them.
Then you find out
• That they don’t even like you they just use you to keep bailing them out.
And eventually you tell them, “No more help.”
But after a few months they find themselves in a terrible condition
And decide to humble themselves and return to you again.
How do you feel about it?
Do you think they expect to get help again?
I just point that out because I want you to understand
How costly it is to extend grace to someone.
Grace is easy when we measure someone to be deserving.
But when the person is absolutely and totally unworthy
We have a very difficult time offering it.
(and that is why we doubt God’s grace toward us when we return)
FORTUNATELY GOD IS NOT LIKE US.
• Even though they wanted nothing to do with His word.
• Even though they thought Egypt to be a better savior than Him.
• Even though they crucified His Son and blasphemed His name.
• Even though they reject to this day His messengers who preach the gospel.
EVEN THEN, when they cry out to Him He says, “He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry;”
That is a phenomenal promise!
• He won’t ignore you.
• He won’t reject you.
• He won’t flog you.
• “He will surely be gracious to you”
Let’s take a look at what THE SPECIFICS of this grace are.
What exactly does it mean that He will be gracious?
(19) “O people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer.”
We are certainly familiar with the promises associated with our being with Christ, namely that He will wipe our tears from our eyes.
But this is NOT about when
The redeemed are released from their suffering.
This passage IS when the guilty are granted pardon for their sin.
• This is the man on death row about to be executed.
• He fears for his life and he faces the gallows.
• And he breaks into tears over the coming punishment.
But when he cries for deliverance, pardon is granted
And his reason for weeping is no more.
The fugitive has been forgiven.
The death sentence has been lifted.
It is the full reality of forgiveness.
For “He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry;”
Beyond that we read, “when He hears it, He will answer you.”
This is also remarkable!
In that story of the prodigal,
• We see that boy broken and returning to his father.
• Jesus told us that the father spotted him when he was still a long way off.
Would anyone have been surprised if the father had gone and hidden himself and instructed a servant to run that boy off his property?
That certainly would have been just.
That is certainly what the older brother would have done.
IT WAS A MIRACLE OF GRACE
That the father was even willing to hear the boy let alone answer him.
But do you understand that God so delights in being gracious
That His ear is always open to the penitent cry of his children?
• You DON’T have to make an appointment to cry out to God.
• You DON’T have to get level 3 security clearance to ask Him a question.
• You DON’T have to be the 9th caller on the radio to get to speak to Him.
If you come poor in spirit and with a broken heart and you cry out to God He will hear and “He will answer”.
(20) “Although the Lord has given you bread of privation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher.”
While it is true that in your sin God determined to afflict you.
He is also quite ready to reconcile with you upon your repentance.
We think of Jesus’ offer:
Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.”
We hear the promise:
Romans 10:13 “for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.”
And that is the promise here.
• He’ll hear you.
• He’ll see you.
• He’ll answer you.
• He’ll be gracious to you.
(21) “Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever your turn to the right or to the left.”
In short, He’ll guide you.
• When we come to God in humility and repentance,
• We come with the understanding that I will now submit to God’s will in my life.
• And when we come, we DON’T find a bitter God who has now decided to withhold His wisdom.
No, He takes us instantly as one of His sheep, and just as He has always done, “He guides us in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”
• When He sees us misstep, He corrects.
• When He knows the better way, He guides.
• He keeps us from straying and holds us on the way.
He is committed to never again allowing us to accidentally wonder
Into that foreign land that nearly killed us the last time.
“Oh to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let Thy grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.”
AND HE DOES!
All of that is but a picture of this grace that He promises.
In short, the grace of God here can be explained with this phrase.
WHEN WE CRY OUT TO GOD FOR SALVATION,
THEN HE WILL BE A SAVIOR TO US.
• Not only will He forgive.
• Not only will He accept.
• But He will guide and lead and protect.
• He will deliver and care for us.
HE SAVES US!
And I can promise you this, if you are NOT HIS CHILD,
You’ve NEVER EXPERIENCED A SALVATION LIKE THIS anywhere else.
And THAT IS WHY we see the reality of verse 22.
(22) “And you will defile your graven images overlaid with silver, and your molten images plated with gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing, and say to them, “Be gone!”
At that moment you realize
Just what awful saviors your old idols actually were.
• It is Jews now telling Egypt, “No thanks! I have a real savior now.”
• It is Muslims telling Muhammad to “Beat it!”
• It is Hindus telling all their gods, “Be gone!”
• It is Americans throwing off their unsatisfying sins.
THOSE THINGS BECOME SO USELESS AND SO UNFULFILLING.
They couldn’t save.
They couldn’t satisfy.
When you get one taste of a true Savior
You’ll never again feel the need to return to them.
HIS GRACE IS THAT SUFFICIENT!
This is what God has already promised to those who repent and return.
• You don’t have to wonder how God will respond to you.
• There is no need for anxiety.
• God has already guaranteed to be gracious to any and every sinner who repents of their sin and returns to Him.
• It is “grace greater than all our sin”
• It is “marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt”
It is as Paul said:
Romans 5:20 “… where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,”
It is those famous “But God…” verses of Scripture.
We once were dead in sin and desired only the lusts of the flesh.
Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),”
Romans 5:7-8 “For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
It is God doing what we do not deserve.
Titus 3:3-7 “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
It is just the marvelous grace of God.
And He has guaranteed to give it
To any sinner who will repent and return.
• He promised to Jerusalem through Isaiah as Assyria attacked.
• He promised to Jerusalem through Peter even after they had killed Jesus.
• He promises it to us if we will repent of our sin and call on His name.
GUARANTEED GRACE
#2 PROMISED PROVISION
Isaiah 30:23-25
It’s almost like Isaiah looks at the congregation and says,
“But wait, there’s more!”
This is one of the remarkable realities of grace.
When you receive grace
Then something else is guaranteed to come with it.
When Paul spoke of our justification he used Abraham as an example.
• Abraham was justified by faith.
And the reason God chose to justify Abraham by faith
Is so that God could save him by grace.
(If Abraham is justified by works then grace cannot be used)
And the reason God wanted to save Abraham by grace
Is because only when we are saved by grace
Can there be any guarantee of the promises.
Romans 4:16 “For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,”
WHEN GRACE IS INVOLVED
You never have to worry about losing the promise.
(If it wasn’t achieved by merit then it’s not maintained by merit.)
AND THAT IS WHAT WE SEE HERE.
God’s guaranteed grace spills over into guaranteed promises.
Verses 19-22 spoke almost exclusively about the pardon of past sins and a return to favor from where we have fallen.
But God’s grace goes beyond just forgiving us in the past,
It also extends into our present.
(23-25) “Then He will give you rain for the seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plenteous; on that day your livestock will graze in a roomy pasture. Also the oxen and the donkeys which work the ground will eat salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. On every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.”
Here we see God’s goodness expressed in the most obvious of ways – RAIN!
• Everyone here, especially those in the agricultural industry understand the necessity of rain and that is only God who can give it.
• Often times when God wanted to express His displeasure with Israel one of the first ways He did that was with drought.
RAIN WAS A PICTURE OF BLESSING.
• You’ve read Deuteronomy 28 and the outline of the blessings and the curses which God promises to bring upon His people depending on how well they obey the covenant.
Part of the blessing is found here:
Deuteronomy 28:11-12 “The LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. “The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.”
Just as drought is a picture of the curse so rain is a picture of blessing.
So now, not only is God acting merciful to the repentant sinner,
But He is going far above and beyond by promising to bless him.
• Rain which leads to crops which leads to bread.
• Rain for livestock to graze.
• So much rain and so many crops that you’ll actually feed “salted fodder” to your oxen and donkeys.
God will bless you.
We must also point out that this blessing is NOT UNIVERSAL,
But that it is ONLY FOR those whom God has redeemed.
For as we noted at the beginning.
(25) “On every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.”
• When Israel returns to God He will destroy their enemies.
• He will do it to Assyria in Isaiah’s day.
• He has promised it again in the future when Isaiah repents and returns.
God is not just going to bless the world indiscriminately,
But He will bless those who repent and return to Him.
These promises are for those prodigals who come home.
The prodigals who stay away will suffer only wrath and judgment.
BUT HOW WE LOVE THE ONGOING GRACE OF GOD!
Paul stated it plainly in Ephesians 1:
Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,”
• Paul said, “every spiritual blessing”
• There is nothing that God has withheld from His people.
AND THEN PAUL ELABORATES.
Let’s talk about PAST blessings.
Ephesians 1:4-6 “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
• It speaks of God foreknowing us.
• It speaks of God choosing us.
• It speaks of God predestining us.
• It speaks of God sending Christ for us.
Tremendous blessings of grace that our ours.
Let’s talk about PRESENT blessing that we enjoy today.
Ephesians 1:7-10 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.”
• Current blessings like redemption
• Blessings like forgiveness
• Blessings like wisdom and insight
• God didn’t just forgive us and leave us, He blesses us today.
And then let’s talk about FUTURE blessings.
Ephesians 1:11-14 “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”
• Here we learn about the blessing of an inheritance.
• We see the blessing of security.
• We see the blessing of future glory.
The simple point is that God promises blessing for those whom He saves.
And again we think about that prodigal.
He humbled himself and repented and returned to his father.
• His father received him
• His father listened to him
• His father answered him
• His father forgave him
But his father also clothed him in garments of sonship
And threw a great banquet to celebrate the presence of his son.
That is what God does for those who repent and return to Him.
Guaranteed Grace Promised Provision
#3 HOPE AND HEALING
Isaiah 30:26
We know that when Christ returns there will be no need of the sun or the moon as Christ Himself will illumine the world.
In youth we like to sing that song, “On that day, we will see You, shining brighter than the sun…”
But here the announcement is NOT
About how Christ will outshine the sun.
Rather Isaiah speaks of a moon which shines like the sun
And a sun that shines 7 times brighter.
“like the light of seven days”
And we wonder what the point of that could be?
And I think the simple explanation is
A total eradication of darkness.
Ephesians 5:8 “for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light”
1 Thessalonians 5:5 “for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;”
1 Peter 2:9 “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;”
We are talking about the darkness of deception and hopelessness
BEING TOTALLY ERADICATED FOREVER.
When God saves His children He saves them into a life of hope.
You might say
• It is a hope seven times greater than anything the world has.
• It is a hope so strong that even the dark times are filled with it.
It is after all the day in which “the LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.”
• It is the day when God takes away our darkness.
• It is the day when God takes away our sin.
• It is the day when God mends our brokenness.
• It is the day when God heals our wicked souls.
It is a day of hope for the future.
• Jeremiah called it “a future and a hope”
• Matthew saw Jesus and called Him “A Great Light” to those sitting in darkness.
And it is promised by God to all who will repent and return to Him.
It is an invitation extended to sinners
• Who have grown weary of trusting in faulty shepherds.
• Who are tired of slopping the pigs in their life of bad choices.
• Who feel the disdain of their heavenly Father and want to be reconciled.
• Who suffer the curses of drought in their life.
• Who dwell in the darkness of hopelessness and long for something better.
Our God, in effect, sends out a letter to prodigals
And tells them to come home
And He will forgive them and bless them and give them hope.
IN FACT HE PROMISES TO DO IT.
AND THAT BRINGS US HERE TODAY.
• Are you tired of rebellion?
• Are you tired of the effects of not listening to God?
• Are you tired of trying to fix it all on your own?
Then you need to come to your senses as the prodigal did.
• You need to see that it is your sin that has landed you in this mess.
• You need to see that God gave you life and breathe and talent and abilities and income and many other things and thus far you have used them only for yourself and your fleshly enjoyment.
• You need to return to God and ask Him to forgive you for such sin.
• You need to submit to Him and tell Him that from now on you’ll listen.
• You need to trust Him to be your savior and your guide.
In the New Testament this is further clarified
Because now we know that it is Jesus that we must come to.
Jesus is actually the father in that prodigal story.
It is Jesus who accepted those tax collectors and sinners.
• If you will trust that Jesus is God made flesh, the only Savior.
• If you will trust that He lived the righteous life God demands for you.
• If you will trust that He died the atoning death God demands for you.
• If you will submit to Him and trust in His work.
Then this same promise of grace and provision and hope
Will be yours as well.
And take it from those in this room who have already done that.
Everyone will tell you it is so much better
Than the sinful life they once pursued.
Grace is greater than sin every day of the week.
So if you’ve never surrendered your life to Christ
I’m asking you to do that this morning.
Acts 3:19 “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;”
