Series: Isaiah
Title: For Your Sakes
Text: Isaiah 43: 14-21
Date: October 30, 2011
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
Isaiah 43: 14: Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.
Note who is speaking.
1. Thus saith the LORD
2. Your redeemer
3. The Holy One of Israel
Note the LORD says that he is bringing down—bringing to nothing—their enemies.
1. I have sent to Babylon
2. And have brought down their nobles
3. And the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.
Note why the LORD says he did this.
Title: For your sake
Everything the LORD does in this earth is for the sake of his elect children. Are the trials great? Is the enemy fierce and strong? For his children, God says “I do this for your sake.”
We will look at four reasons—for things God does—in allowing us to be taken captive then delivering us from the captivity.
I. FOR YOUR SAKE—TO REMIND US WHO HE IS
Isaiah 43: 15: I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.
Before sinful depraved men ever chose another sinner and made him to be their king—God’s people had a King: King Jesus—King of Righteousness and Peace. But let’s hear what the LORD says fallen man’s problem is:
1 Samuel 8: 6: But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. 7: And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. 8: According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.
Israel had a king far better than any of the nations around Israel—their king was God—they have rejected ME, that I should not REIGN over them. Before there was an earth--before there was a people in the earth called Israel--before there was an earthly Jerusalem--before there was an earthly king in earthly Jerusalem--there was the LORD, the Holy One, the Creator of Israel, Our King. He was seated upon his throne in the heavens, the Holy One, the Creator of Israel, our King—King of Salem, King of Righteousness.
Before any of his children fell into sin and needed a righteous King to save us by his righteousness, there was the LORD, the Holy One, the Creator of Israel, our King
Hebrews 7: 1: For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; 2: To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace; 3: Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.
In eternity, before the world began the LORD, the HOLY One, created his holy nation Israel—made up of those he chose in Christ Jesus our King. Our King allowed Satan to enter the garden, allowed Adam to fall and plunge the whole human race into sin—for the sake of his people that he might make his name and his power known.
Rom 9--Our King raised up the nation Israel for the same reason he raised up Egypt. God cut down Egypt for the same reason he cut down Israel—to make his name known, his power known, his wrath known on the vessels of wrath fit for destruction and the riches of his grace toward the vessels he afore prepared unto glory—even us—Israel-who he has called Jew and Gentile.
It was the LORD who allowed the Babylonians to capture his people—Babylon the harlot of all falsehood. It is the LORD who brings down Babylon—to continually make his name and power known to his elect remnant—the LORD, the Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.
Application: How prone every believer is to look to the hosts instead of to the LORD of hosts. How prone we are to look to some imagined holiness in our flesh rather than to the HOLY One. How prone we are to look to our hands, to the things we imagine we have made and created rather than the Creator of Israel. How prone we are to try to reign instead of submitting to Christ our King.
Nevertheless, FOR YOUR SAKE, to bring us into remembrance of his name--he is LORD of hosts, he is the Holy One, that we are the work of his hands (he is the Creator of Israel), our King of Peace and Righteousness reigns.
II. FOR YOUR SAKE—TO REMIND US THE VICTORY WAS WON BY OUR LORD BEFORE AS YET THE ENEMY CAME FORTH
Isaiah 43: 16: Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; 17: Which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow.
The LORD who makes the way in the sea and the path in the mighty waters, is the Lord which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power. We see that at the Red Sea.
But the LORD declares to his people beforehand: they shall lie down together, they shall not rise, they ARE extinct, they ARE quenched as tow.
Illustration: Like water on a campfire
A wick snuffed out
Application: The Victory is our Lord’s. It has been before as yet he brought forth the enemy. What peace! To know the moment the trial begins—the moment the enemy points, accuses, rages against us—the victory is already won by our LORD. And the accuser has come up against us to remind us of this very glorious truth.
III. FOR YOUR SAKE—TO TURN US FROM THE PAST TO EXPECT OUR LORD’S FUTURE WORK OF GRACE FOR US
Isaiah 43: 18: Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. 19: Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. 20: The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.
In the past the Lord made a way in the water, now he says in the wilderness I will make a way. Before he stopped the water and the rivers for his people—Now he says, “I will make rivers in the desert.”
The wilderness, the desert, the beast of the field, the dragons, the owls may speak to his elect among the Gentiles but let’s keep this word personal. Keep the focus on God’s work for each of his elect individually. We are so prone to look in the wrong direction.
Isaiah 43: 18: Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. 19: Behold, I will do a new thing;
Jeremiah 31: 22: How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.
Isaiah 7: 14: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Before we can behold Christ—that New Thing. All the so-called “new things” that we love to hear and to tell—have to be made old.
V18:…now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?
The LORD put the ax to the root of the tree Israel—out of it sprang a branch—Christ our Vine
Isa 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Isaiah 61: For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
Before we behold and rejoice in Christ springing forth a root out of dry ground—we have to be made to behold the bitter root of our sinful flesh, that all our so-called righteousnesses are filthy rags
V18:…I will even make a way in the wilderness,
John 14: 6: Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
· Christ Jesus is the Way—from Babylon into heavens Jerusalem
· The Way-God can be just and Justify his people
· The Way –his holy law can be satisfied and God show mercy to his sinful people
· The Way—Ps 85:10 Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Before we rejoice in Christ the Way to God we have to be made to see that our flesh is a waste howling wilderness
Romans 7: 18: For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
V18: [I will make] and rivers in the desert.
In this desert of our flesh…the GodMan Christ Jesus is as “rivers of water in a dry place.”
Isaiah 32: 1: Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. 2 And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
John 7: 37: In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
llustration: Hoover Dam—water to northern California
Isaiah 43: 20: The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls:
The Spirit of God makes us to behold ourselves as mere beasts of the field, dragons, owls—unclean—wild--that we cease honoring ourselves and honor him
What is the cause for God doing all this? The cause is free grace…
V20:…because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.
1 John 5: 11: And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
John 15: 16: Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
Here is the last thing: this is the whole purpose and the certain accomplishment of this work of grace ordained, purposed, purchased and perfected by our God:
IV. TO BRING EACH OF HIS PEOPLE TO PRAISE ONLY HIM
Isaiah 43: 21: This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.
Amen!