Sermon: Isaiah 9-12: God's Salvation

Isaiah 9-12: God's Salvation

Today we wrap up our seven week series on Isaiah. I get the unenviable job of preaching on four chapters of Isaiah - 9, 10, 11 and 12 - to bring us to a close of the first section of this large and important Old Testament book. These first 12 chapters of Isaiah focus on the sins of God's people, at that time being Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, and the punishment they are facing for turning their backs on God as his people. The northern kingdom, called Israel, has already been chosen to be swept away by the armies of Assyria. Judah, the southern kingdom, think they will be safe, because they have treaties with Assyria. Plus, they are Jerusalem, the city of God, which contains the temple of God, and God wouldn't let a foreign army take his own city. Isaiah's message is that they are wrong. The northern kingdom won't be swept away because they are against Assyria, but because they are against God. Judah doesn't need protection from Assyria or Samaria or Damascus. Assyria itself will be swept away! What they need is protection from God's judgment on their sin. That is their impending doom. Their enemy is their own wickedness, their own rebellion against God.

Salvation has always been

God's plan for his people is not just to save them from the expansive armies of foreign empires. His plan has always been bigger than that - he is going to save his people from all injustice, oppression, evil, war, wickedness, foolishness, and destruction. And that, honestly, is why we still care about what Isaiah has to say. He's talking about God as a saving God, saving his people from all bad things, and giving them all good things. God doesn't just say to his people, “I'll save you from your enemies and their armies if you turn back to me from your sinful, idolatrous ways.” Instead, he reminds them, “I will save you from all your real enemies – injustice, foolishness and wickedness – even your own!” That's been God's promise all along. Isaiah is just one scene in the long story of God's promise. It's not a new story for us, it wasn't a new story back then, even when Isaiah gave it the first time. God saved his people from slavery in Egypt 800 years before. He would send his perfect saviour, Jesus, 700 years later. It's one big story that stretches back to the beginning of time, and will stretch forward, through today, into eternity. We are part of this story. This is important to us.

What will this grand salvation plan of God be like? Look at the way Isaiah paints his picture of God's salvation for his readers and listeners. Just from the readings we had today, we can see a few things to look out for. There will be joy. There will be freedom from oppression. There will be peace, no need to fight any more. Linked to peace is that lovely passage in chapter 11 describing wolves and lambs lying together, calves and lions and cows and bears and snakes and children all living together in harmony – there will be no death, or even danger.

In amongst all this, there is a person who will take charge of the world. This powerful figure is called God, and has the Spirit of God, the wisdom of God, the power of God, and his reign lasts forever. And this powerful figure brings judgment.

Importantly for us, this salvation comes not only to Judah and the Jews, but it comes to all nations – it is a worldwide thing.

So these are the things that make up salvation – salvation is a worldwide event where the people of God find joy, peace, freedom from oppression, freedom from their enemies, freedom from all death and danger. A powerful, righteous figure from God, who is God, is in charge, and brings justice for the poor, and judges and slays the wicked. And it lasts forever. That's salvation. Doesn't it sound wonderful? Don't you want that?

And if you weren't wondering where it is before, surely you are now! You might think, “Okay, that's great, but it sounds like this salvation isn't coming till the very end of time.” Or perhaps you're sitting here saying, “I'm a Christian, Jesus died for my sins, so I am saved. Hasn't salvation already come?” If God was talking about saving Israel back when they were slaves in Egypt, if he's talking about saving his people here in Isaiah hundreds of years after that, if Jesus comes and is still talking about salvation hundreds of years after that, and we're here still talking about salvation thousands of years after all that... well, the question is, when does God's salvation kick in? How long do we have to wait? Is it already here?

Salvation is coming

For anyone who lives in the world, though perhaps some more than others, it is clear that it hasn't come yet. There are still wars – Wikipedia says fighting continues in Syria, in Afghanistan, in Burma, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, India, Mexico, Sudan, Iraq and Mali – and that is only a list of conflicts where 1,000 or more people are dying every year. It doesn't even include attacks like the Boston marathon bombing. God's people still have enemies too: churches are still getting bombed, pastoral workers are being beaten, arrested, and buried alive, believers being persecuted, discriminated against, harassed, attacked. The enemies of God have not been judged. The wicked can still oppress the poor. People still die. There are still dangers. Go and stick your finger in a funnel-web spider's hole, and it might bite you, and you might die. Finally, people can still sin, and be wicked and foolish, and rebel against God ,and so attract his punishment.

Salvation is obviously still coming. Things are not much different today as they were in Isaiah's time, in that respect. They looked forward to salvation, and so do we.

Salvation has come

But there is a difference. As Christians, we read these chapters and we can point to a few key verses and say, “Look, that's Jesus in those verses. So salvation has already come!” After all, the people in darkness have seen a great light – Jesus is the light of the world. A child is born, a son is given, he is called Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Jesus was born as a human child into the world, we know him to be God incarnate. We understand him to be born in the line of David, a branch from the root of Jesse (King David's father). The Spirit of God is certainly upon him, in wisdom and understanding and counsel and might and knowledge and fear of God – all this we can see reflected in Jesus when we read about him in the gospels.

Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the promised one of God, who has been talked about ever since Genesis, when the descendant of Adam would strike down the serpent; ever since Moses and Egypt, when he spoke of a leader even greater than Moses; ever since King David, when he was told that one of his descendants would sit upon the throne forever. Ever since Isaiah spoke these words promising a saviour whom we could call God With Us. When Jesus was born 2000 years ago, he changed the way the clock runs on salvation. Salvation begins with Jesus. Jesus is that promised one. Jesus is our salvation, and so our salvation has come.

Salvation is here

But here's the thing. Back in Isaiah's time, God is calling on his people to respond to this news of salvation straightaway. He doesn't say, “Wait for Jesus to be born, then you can spring into action.” He wants action from his people because it's going to happen. Because when God makes a promise, it's as good as true. It's like when you take a cheque from the Reserve Bank to a normal bank, they don't have a waiting period, they just cash it, because it's guaranteed the Reserve Bank will have the money. God's promises are guaranteed to come true because it's God who makes the promise. God's people didn't need to wait for Jesus, they could act on God's salvation right then. We have Jesus, but we don't have the final promises of salvation – those come at the end. But God has promised them, so we can be sure they will come, which means we can act on them now.

Salvation is right now when you are with God. Look with me here at chapter 12. Chapter 12 is two songs that God's people should sing to God because of his salvation. The first one is a song of praise, starting at vs 1, “In that day you will say: 'I will praise you, Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. 2 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.'” And then it says in verse 3 “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”

We are saved by God from his own wrath, his punishment on us for our sin – and in that we can find comfort, right now. We might not have global peace, we might not have freedom from all oppression. Those are coming. But right now we can find a personal peace, we can be free from the fear of death, of the unknown future and what it might hold. We drink from the water of salvation with joy, a joy that can't be taken away from us by what happens in the world, because God's salvation is guaranteed. No wonder these words are in a song of praise – those truths are phenomenal. That's what salvation looks like right now.

The second song goes like this, starting at vs 4, “In that day you will say: 'Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. 5 Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world.'”

Whereas the first song we sing to God, thanking him for his salvation promise, this second song we sing to each other. We are saying to each other, “God is so great, you should go and tell everyone about him!” This song obviously needs to be sung before salvation is finished, because it is about proclaiming God's glory to the nations, all the great things he has done.

Often we focus on what we are doing to bring that message about God's glory to people. But in the light of this second song, singing to each other about God's greatness, think for a moment about what we do in life to encourage each other to glorify God and proclaim his name. Maybe we support people financially to go and proclaim God's greatness, like missionaries. Maybe we equip people with the training they need to share their testimony. Maybe we share with others stories of our own experiences in the faith, and what God has done in other people's lives through us. Maybe we organise a situation that allows others to meet with people who need to hear, befriend them and be a part of their lives. Maybe we see someone doing one of these things, and we offer to help, or even just take an interest, ask them how it's going, and pray for them.

There are lots of things we can do, but the foundation of them all will be the same: we expect salvation, both now and in the future, because it's guaranteed by God; we value salvation, because really, what is more valuable than an enduring peace and joy, an eternity without war, death and danger, and freedom from oppression; and because we let it seep into our lives now – we let it bring us comfort, let it bring us joy, let it bring us peace, let it free us from fear right now. Salvation isn't just something that happened back when Jesus died on a cross. Salvation isn't just something to look forward to at the end of time, whenever that will be. Salvation is here right now, it pays dividends in your life right now, the joy, the freedom from fear, and the peace and comfort of God. You should drink from God's salvation with joy; you should not be afraid of anything, because you trust God; you should treat God's future promises as guaranteed. If you expect it, and you value it, then you'll live it and proclaim it, and encourage others to do the same.

Sermon: Leviticus 16: Day of Atonement

Atonement: Lev 16:1-22

Sin is important to God. God goes through cycles of revealing to his people both his judgment and his mercy in relation to sin. In Genesis, he shows to Adam and Eve first his judgment (curses), then his mercy (clothing). To Israel at Mt Sinai, he showed judgment (slaughter and plague) then mercy (let his glory pass by Moses). Now, after the death of Aaron's sons (sin, judgment) he explains his institutional mercy in the Day of Atonement (mercy).

* Sin is serious stuff

- Sin is deadly: if you don't treat it seriously, it's like mishandling some deadly chemical.

- Sin separates us from God (hence the purification required before this sacrifice can even be made; hence the scapegoat being sent away). It has to be dealt with before we can approach him (hence the cycle of sin, judgment, mercy).

- You can't just deal with sin whenever you want. You have to do what God says.

* Sin has to be dealt with both in public and private

- Aaron's own sin and that of his family had to be atoned for, then a sacrifice was made for the tabernacle and the tent of meeting that were representative of God with the people.

- Then the other goat had hands laid on it, and was publicly sent away, representing sin being dealt with and removed.

- Sin is both public and private, personal and corporate.

* Atonement is needed

- Atonement means making reparations, doing what is necessary to restore things to how they were.

- But how can one goat atone for the sins of a whole nation?

- These sacrifices don't actually have any force to deal with sin. They are only as effective as God makes them. In this case, once a year. Just like God doesn't really live in the Most Holy Place, but he treats it as so to make the point that he lives with his people. The sacrifices are a metaphor for God's holiness, sin's seriousness and its need to be dealt with.

* So what?

- We don't live in a 'Christian nation', but we are still members of the one Church.

- We don't offer sacrifices of atonement for communities any more. God dealt with this once for all, so there is no reason to.

- This festival shows us that God takes sin seriously, and even though he deals with it himself, we still need to deal with it on our side, not just individually, but as a community. We may not be responsible for the country we live in, but we are responsible for our own spiritual community. Things like the child sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the church need to be dealt with seriously not just because they reflect on the church to others, not just because they reflect on God to the outside world, but because we need to take sin seriously because it's serious!

Sermon words

We don't tend to do much as a nation. We are more usually focused on our own individual activities. But once every three years or so, an event does occur that unites Australia, that involves almost every adult citizen, that brings us together as a people, for one day, to make a decision as to the future of our country. It is something that impacts everyone. It is something that crosses cultural, gender, and religious boundaries. And it's not a sport. And it is compulsory. That day is voting day.

And once every three or so years, when we have these elections, there is a little ceremony that takes place, whereby the Governor-General swears in the new prime minister and government ministers. It is a fairly simple oath that is taken, but without this ceremony, without this symbolic gesture, there cannot be a federal government. One small action has one very large result. After that oath, the prime minister and government is put in charge of over one trillion dollars, over 80,000 armed forces personnel, and over 160,000 Commonwealth public servants. After that oath, the wheels of government can start turning once more.

Well, in ancient Israel, the high priest officiated over a ceremony that was similarly a symbolic gesture, but that represented an even greater, more important result for the nation as a whole. Once a year, he would perform this Day of Atonement ritual, which represented God cleansing the sin of his people, so that they could remain in his presence.

Sin is serious stuff

Now, it's hard to really appreciate the depth of importance of this statement without having a proper appreciation of just how serious sin is. You see, sin is not just a matter of disobedience that requires punishment. It is something that prevents us from coming close to God. Sinfulness is the opposite to holiness, and God is holy. The Old Testament uses the language of cleanness and purity to describe holiness – God is perfectly clean and pure. When you're reading about this cleanness, and all the hard work God's people had to do to keep themselves ceremonially clean (we read a sample of that in verse 4), it's easy to mistakenly think that God is like clean, pure water, and sin is like poison, and you have to make sure that you're clean, and everything is clean, otherwise it might pollute God's perfect, clean water.

But that's not how it works. God's holiness is not like pure water that is in danger of being ruined by our sin. God's holiness is clean and pure the way disinfectant bleach is clean and pure, and our sin is like the germs of a disease. Do you think you wear thick rubber gloves and protective clothing to protect the bleach from getting contaminated by your skin? It's to protect us from getting burned! The problem with sin is that it's not just something we do – sin is part of who we are as human beings. The sickness of sin can't survive in God's holy presence... but neither can the people sick with sin. God's rules about ritual cleanness are not to protect him from the dirtiness of people's sin – they are to protect people infected with sin from his perfect, holy bleach.

Sin is serious stuff. Like any highly volatile and dangerous substance, you can't just deal with sin any way you want. You have to do it right. If you get bitten by a venomous snake, you can't decide, “Oh, I just want to get some bed rest and take some Panadol.” You can't decide, “It's not really convenient for me to get the anti-venom now, I'm going to wait until I've been to the shops and bought dinner.” But at the same time, you also can't decide, “You know, I don't like getting headaches. I'm just going to take enough painkillers now to last me the rest of my life.” Well, you can, but the rest of your life won't be very long. Earlier in Leviticus, the sons of Aaron, the high priest, decide they want to make sacrifices to God when they wanted, rather than when God had approved them. It was about them, not about God – and that is sin. The result was God burned them to death. You can read about that in chapter 10. It turns out you can't just approach God whenever and however you want. He is too holy, too pure for that. It's not God who gets burned by sin.

Sin, then, is serious stuff. It's not just bad, it's not just distasteful, it's not just ugly. Sin is not even just deadly. It prevents us from being able to come close to God – which is what he wants, since we're his people – so it has to be dealt with. Just think about that a moment... is that how you think about sin? Do you think about its consequences as being so severe, that it makes it impossible for people to come close to God? When you sin, are you thinking about what impact it will have on your relationship with God? And just to make this clear, I don't mean your eternal salvation. We know that as Christians, even if we sin, we are forgiven by God thanks to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We're free from eternal punishment. But sin still has consequences that aren't eternal. You still have a relationship with God to maintain.

Think of it this way: if a child swears at its mother and abuses her, does it stop being her child? No. You're always your mother's child, simply by virtue of being born to her. But that doesn't mean you can't ruin that relationship with your actions. That is what sin is like for us as Christians. God won't stop loving us, no. But it's like swearing at your mum. It still hurts the relationship. And it's hard knowing that in our relationship with God, the only person who ever does anything to screw it up is us. That's why it's so important to know that God wants us to be with him. That's why he goes to all this trouble to deal with sin, and to be seen to deal with sin. It is of supreme importance to God, and it should be of vital importance to us too.

If you want to see how far away our sin pushes us from God, then look at the ritual of the Day of Atonement. It really highlights God's holiness. The high priest has to take a bath. Only then can he put on the sacred garments to be worn for these special occasions. But that's not enough. Then he has to make a sacrifice to atone for the sins of himself and his own family. That's still not enough though. Then he has to sacrifice to cleanse the tabernacle, because that was the house of God amongst his people, and the people's sin made it unclean. Then he had to sacrifice for the most holy place inside that tabernacle, the place where God symbolically resides where the ark of the covenant sits. Then he has to make atonement for the altar, where the sacrifices are made to God.

It's like having to go through multiple security checkpoints that you see in the movies – you have to put in the right combination on the keypad, then you have to have a fingerprint scan, then a retinal scan, then a voice recognition scan, then you have to be X-rayed for weapons, then searched for bombs and chemicals, and then finally you are allowed into that most secure place where the most valuable people or possessions are kept. It is symbolic of how big a barrier sin is to our being with God.

Atonement, needed?

Finally, once all those steps have been taken, the high priest can lay his hands on the head of a goat, and he can confess all the sin and wickedness of God's people, and with that, all the sin of God's people is put onto that goat. And they don't kill that goat, surprisingly. Instead, they take that goat, with all the people's sins, out into the wilderness. And that symbolises the taking away of their sins, outside of the camp, outside of the people of God – and with their sins gone away, they can now remain in God's presence without fear.

I say it symbolises, and I think we have to be clear about this – the sacrifices in the Old Testament Levitical law do not deal with sin. They are only symbols. This is called the Day of Atonement, but really, it is not an atonement in the human sense of the word. 'Atone' means to be 'at one' with each other – that's not a silly saying to make it easier to remember, the word's provenance is actually from the saying 'at one'. It means you make reparations to bring a relationship that has become askew back into accord. But if the Day of Atonement really made atonement for the sin of the nation of Israel, then how much was sin of Israel's million or so people worth each year? How much did it cost? One goat. All the other animals are sacrifices to cleanse the tent and the altar and the high priest so he can come to this one, lone atonement goat. This goat is not a sacrifice – it is donated by all the people of Israel, so it represents essentially a zero loss on their part. And it doesn't even get killed – it gets released into the desert.

There is no part of the Day of Atonement symbolism that includes having to give sacrificially, or pay a cost. The Israelites are not paying reparations to God for their sin on this day. The Day of Atonement is entirely a work of God. Sound familiar? “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Yes, it may have been possible for some Israelites to mistakenly build for themselves a works based salvation – just like the church has done in the past. But God's attitude to sin has always been the same – it is something he despises, and something he deals with for us. People often think that God seems to change the rules between the Old Testament and the New, but really, this is the same God. When the Israelites see that goat being led off into the desert, they have to trust that God will deal with their sin. And he did so – at the cross of Christ. Is it any different for us, reading that Jesus takes away our sin? You can't see sin, after all. You can't feel it or measure it. God tells us that Jesus took it away, and we have to trust him – just like the people of Israel had to trust God would do what he was showing in this symbolic ritual.

God's People Saved

Which brings us back full circle to the beginning of my talk, about symbolic actions. The Day of Atonement is a national symbol, one that includes all of God's people, even if it is only the High Priest officiating. It takes away the sin of a whole nation, not just the High Priest. They are freed from their sin together, and that is what unifies them as a people before God. It's no coincidence that the scapegoat is taken out of the camp – it symbolises that the peoples' sin is carried outside the community now, outside of their camp.

We don't often focus on our sin as a community of God, although sometimes we're forced to. So we should remember that we are saved not just as individuals, but saved into the people of God. It is true that sin is a problem between you and God, but his solution is between us and God, together. We can spend a lot of our time focused on our own individual spiritual needs and standing before God, but we mustn't forget that God relates to us not just on our own, but as members of one body, which is his church.

In 1 Peter 2:9-10 it says, “[Y]ou are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

God's community is a vital part of the Christian spiritual life. It's not vital because we come and sing and hear sermons. It's about being a member of a larger community, whose focus is on God. We are linked not just with God, but with each other, and not just each other here, but with our brothers and sisters around the world. What links us is not our denominations, not our worship music, not our geography – it is our salvation, it is God's mercy. “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

If you are not a part of the church, by that I mean if you are not connected with God's people, then you are missing a huge part of how God interacts with you. I daresay that this is the biggest selling point any church should have. If weekly sermons and songs of praise are what attract people, then we should all be like Hillsong. Those things are good, but they are only a function of what church is really about – it's about us coming together as a community of believers united by God's mercy, and relating to God in that communal aspect. That's why our church's vision is “To see people engaging with God in community”. We don't just want people to meet God. We want them to meet God as a member of his people. We want to provide communities where you can come and see how salvation works as a people, not just as a person. We are thinking about this as a church, and that is encouraging – and we should keep thinking about it. God chooses a people for himself. He shows them mercy as a people. We should seek to serve him not just as a person, but as a people.