Well, I wonder if any of you woke up your children this
morning. Maybe give me a nod or even
raise your hand. Did you wake up your children
with the words rise and shine, that anybody sing?
Arise and shine and give God your glory?
Usually these are accompanied by a throwing off of the sheets,
throwing open the curtains, the turning on the light, letting
the light shine that song. Rise and shine and give God your
glory. I learned this week came from
the 1800s. It was an African American
spiritual and it was recorded for the first time in 1825.
It's the first time it was written down in a song that was
called We are Climbing Jacob's Ladder.
And the final stanza read rise, shine, give God glory.
Rise, shine, give God glory. Rise, shine, give God glory,
rise, shine, give God glory. Not children of the Lord, but
soldiers of the Cross. It means wake up is what the
song is calling you to do. Wake up spiritually is how they
meant it. And think about heavenly things
and quit thinking about all the earthly things that are so
natural to us and shine, which means allow the Spirit to
visibly transform you and so manifest God's nature and power
to the world. Rise and shine.
And then the song reminds you you're a soldier of the cross.
Think back to Isaiah 59 as we go into chapter 60.
This was the theme. Jesus is portrayed as a soldier,
as a warrior, and he puts on the breastplate of righteousness and
he puts on the helmet of salvation.
And even as we've gone through Isaiah everything post Isaiah
53, Jesus Christ was the servant and now servant singular turns
into servants, plural. We are the servants.
And if our, the Christ, our captain like we just sang, if he
put on the breastplate of righteousness, he says now you
are soldiers of the cross, you put on breastplates of
righteousness. Ephesians 6 Paul says, fasten
the belt of truth, put on the breastplate of righteousness,
put on readiness as shoes, take the shield of faith, take the
helmet of salvation, take the sword of the Spirit, which is
the word of God. This is like Jesus.
It says he wrapped himself like like zeal with a cloak.
He put on a cloak of zeal. Zeal just being, meaning having
a lot of energy, ready to do something good and exciting,
being excited about it and hearing that eagerness is
required of us. You just put on readiness like
shoes every morning, whether you're preaching the gospel or
demonstrating God's character through serving vulnerable
people, rise, shine, give God glory, you soldiers of the
cross. And that's that phrase came to
be used by 1850 of in the Army, where rise and shine meant
literally rise out of your bed and shine your gun and your
boots and get ready for inspection.
And at that same time it was transforming from an African
American spiritual into a children's camp song where they
would sing at camp Jesus died that you might have it soldiers
of the. Cross we will rise and shine and
give God the glory, glory, soldiers of the cross.
And then it comes to us in our own day, our own expression.
We just sang the Getty song. O church, arise and put your
armor on. Hear the call of Christ the
Captain. And they added the.
Chorus, arise. Shine for your light has come.
Arise. Shine for the risen sun.
Lift your eyes. We are his radiant bride.
Arise, O Church, arise. So.
Many contexts children at camp, enslaved African Americans,
military men preparing for war, a corporate worship song for
local churches, and you singing your own children out of bed.
What do all these contexts have in common?
They all quote Isaiah 60 verse one.
If you'll turn there. It's all a reference to Isaiah
60. And I hope my prayer is that
every time you you hear the words rise and shine, every time
you speak them, every time you sing that earworm to your kids,
you will think of Isaiah 60 because those two words arise
and shine are the 1st 2 words of Isaiah 60 verse one.
And they are the application of the entire chapter, all 22
verses. If you can remember those two
words, they sum up the requirement of understanding the
passage in its context. 2 words repeat after me, Kumi and the
second or E rise and shine, rise and shine.
Why? Because your light has come and
the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
Let's read Isaiah 60 together. The prophet begins this way.
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord
has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover
the earth, and thick darkness the peoples.
But the Lord will arise upon you, His glory will be seen upon
you, and nation shall come to your light, and kings to the
brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around,
and see they all gather together.
They come to you. Your sons shall come from afar,
and your daughter shall be carried on the hip.
Then you shall see and be radiant.
Your heart shall thrill or tremble and exalt, because the
abundance of the sea shall be turned to you.
The wealth of nations shall come to you.
A multitude of camels shall cover you.
The young camels of Midian and Apha and those from Sheba shall
come. They shall bring gold and
frankincense and shall bring good news, the praises of the
Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall be
gathered to you. The Rams of Nabias shall
minister to you. They shall come up with
acceptance on my altar, and I will beautify my beautiful
house. Who are these that fly like a
cloud and like doves to their windows?
For the coastline shall hope for me the ships of Tarshish.
First to bring your children from afar, their silver and gold
with them. For the name of the Lord your
God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because He has made You
Beautiful. Foreigners shall build up your
walls, and their king shall minister to you.
For in my wrath I struck you, but in My favor I have had mercy
on you. Your gate shall be opened
continually, night and day. They shall not be shut, that
people may bring to you the wealth of the nations with their
kings LED in procession. For the nation and Kingdom that
will not serve you shall perish. Those nations shall be utterly
laid waste. The glory of Lebanon shall come
to you, the Cypress, the plain, and the pine to beautify the
place of the My sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet
glorious. The sons of those who afflicted
you shall come bending low to you, and all who despise you
shall bow at your feet. You shall call.
They shall call you the city of the Lord, the Zion, and the Holy
One of Israel. Whereas you have been forsaken
and hated with no one passing through.
I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age.
You shall suck the milk of nations.
You shall nurse at the breast of kings.
You shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your
Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.
Instead of bronze, I will bring gold.
Instead of iron, I will bring silver.
Instead of wood, bronze, Instead of stones, iron.
I will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters
righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard
in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders.
You shall call your walls salvation.
In your gates praise. The sun shall no more be your
light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light,
but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God
will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down,
or your moon withdraw itself, for the Lord will be your
everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.
Your people shall all be righteous.
They shall possess the land forever.
The branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might
be glorified. The least one shall become a
clan, when the smallest one a mighty nation.
I am the Lord, and it's time I will hasten it.
Remember chapter 59 last week at the tone of the message was not
particularly joyful. It's said that this world is
darkness, emblematic of sin and ignorance.
And we realize that the world is darkness because we made it that
way. Thinking of Isaiah who
continually points the finger, saying woe is this world for
their greediness, for their lack of worship of God, for their
material gain and their desire for these things.
And then he says, and you know what?
He points the finger at himself, and he says, woe is me, for I
too am darkness. And you contrast that to chapter
60 where he says there will be light like that of the rising
sun. And with this light, all of the
light of this chapter comes several themes.
God's radiant presence is 1. The gathering of the nations is
another, this pilgrimage of all the elect from every nation
coming into Jerusalem, the rebuilding and the exaltation of
Zion, God's fortress and everlasting light and peace.
And extremely important to know and to understand for this
message in this passage is that this whole poem, this whole
chapter is directed at a city. It's a poem about a city.
It's addressed to Zion, the future heavenly city of God.
And so you're reading poetry about a city.
All these phrases arise and shine is addressed at Jerusalem.
And nation shall come to your light as talking about
Jerusalem. I will make you a majestic.
I will make you majestic forever.
A joy from age to age is about a city.
And you, maybe you could ask like I did, what application is
there for me about a chapter of the Bible given to a city,
written for a city? And the answer is a lot because
of what happens there, because of the hope that comes from what
God is going to do in that place.
And we learn that it's going to be our city.
It's going to be your city as well as his city.
And we learn in in verse 13, because it's our home and
because it's God's home, it's where he will dwell forever with
his people. That verse 13 says he desires to
beautify the place of his feet. And then the application begins
to pour in when we realize that when God addresses the city,
he's not just addressing the city.
It by extension comes to the people who live in that city,
which is me and you. And so all of a sudden Zion's
glory becomes our glory and Zion's rising is the people's
rising and it's restoration is our restoration.
And the the call to rise and shine becomes our call to rise
and shine. And so the passage is describing
several things, I think. First, it's looking what did the
author have in mind? What is Isaiah thinking?
I think he was thinking in the immediate future of saying you
are in this ruined city, come back from exile, and Jerusalem
will have a certain glory again, and the second temple is going
to be built there. God will never dwell in that
second temple, but there will be some measure of glory in this
rebuilt temple. So there's the immediate future.
I think he's looking to the near future where when Christ comes,
it's all about light and the resplendent light.
Think about Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, where he
kind of tears back the veil, and here is this glory.
You get little foretaste and glimpses of what that future
Kingdom is going to be like, and you get to see that when He
comes. It talks in this passage in
Isaiah 60 about how they will bring kingly gifts and
submission to him, gold and frankincense and myrrh.
And when the light of the world came into the world, what
happened? The Magi came from the east,
bringing gold and frankincense and myrrh, kingly gifts.
He's he's, it's this partial fulfillment.
But what he really has in mind is the future heavens, the
future earth, when the glory of Jesus Christ will unite all
people. That's what the chapter's about.
We're looking all the way into the future.
Yes, there's partial fulfillment.
Yes, it's coming in part. But he's looking to that day
when this city will be glorified.
It will be made beautiful because you are beautiful and
most importantly because he is. And the word that's used four
times over and over, the keyword of the passage is glory.
And I want to stop for a minute to see as you go through the
word is used in in several senses.
First, it says in verse one, the glory of the Lord has risen upon
you. And this is the same sense of
the the word glory in verse 2. It's saying you will get to see
in the flesh the goodness, the greatness, the attributes, the
perfection of God. It will be beheld by His church.
You will see the King and all his beauty as Isaiah says.
Verse 2 says the same thing. The Lord will.
Arise upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you, and the
attractiveness of His goodness and His greatness is like a
light. We're like moths.
Kings are like moths that can't help but be drawn to him.
Look ahead to verse 19 with me. This is a different word in the
original, but we also translate it.
Glory. This is no longer will you have
the sun for light by day, nor for brightness will the moon
give you light, but you will have the Lord for an everlasting
light in your God, for your glory.
And this is another usage of the word glory.
It means the the literally the shining of God.
And we say that from what best we can tell, it's his, His
perfection, his perfect goodness, and his perfect mercy
and holiness shines out. It's the Shekinah glory of God,
and it's visible. This is why in Isaiah 6 the
angels had 6 wings, two had to cover their feet because God was
so holy. And with two they flew.
And it says with two they had to shield their eyes from the
resplendent glory of God. And this is what the angels at
Christ's birth, when the, the light of the world came into the
world, the angels says that they came and it says the glory of
the Lord shone round about them. And the people were afraid
because of this. This is the glory because of
this shining Moses when he went on the on the mountain and he
would commune with God and he would talk to God, what happened
to him? He would come back and he was,
he was, he would radiate just from the reflection of the glory
of God. It was so much that the people
couldn't even look directly at him and he had to put a covering
on his face to address the people.
That's what we're talking about. God says you're not going to
need a sun anymore. You wouldn't be able to see it
for the resplendent glory of God.
You don't need a moon anymore because the God of glory is
going to fill the universe with his light.
That's what this passage teaches.
He's our glory, literally our light.
Look at verse 13. One more use the glory, he says
of Lebanon shall come to you. And this is where the majority
of the space is devoted. He's making beautiful the place
of his feet and the glory of Lebanon is literally the glory
of created things. This is their rich natural
resources. This is all the things of
Lebanon that have given them station in the world and it's
made them famous and it's given them a place.
It's literally their trees, and it gives them prestige and honor
and wealth. He says in verse 13, the glory
of Lebanon will come to you. It gives them that three kinds
of wood. And then he tells you why this
is perhaps the most important verse for understanding this is
to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I shall make the
place of my feet glorious. So he says I'm glorious.
We know that on that day when Jesus comes and we're with him,
we will be glorified. We will be glorious.
But most importantly, he says that he is glorious.
And so we have to have a setting that's appropriate for this, for
all of this glory. And we say that Thrones don't
rest in the mud. We don't design Thrones to to
sit in the mud. We designed Thrones to sit on
marble. And we don't put kings and
drafty rent houses with leaking roofs.
It's not how it works. You're always making a home
worthy of his station, worthy of his rule, worthy of his reign,
worthy of our glory, and we say an infinitely more importantly,
worthy of his glory. Verse 13 says the place of his.
Feet will be. Glorious.
But if you look to verse 21, you see why It's ultimately because
He is glorious. Because He is glorious, the
place that He rests, His feet will be.
Verse 21, your people shall all be righteous.
They shall possess the land forever, the branch of my
planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified.
So there's the ultimate meaning. We're talking about the city,
we're talking about the house, but it has to be glorious
because God himself is. So I, I want you to to divide
the text in your own minds into two sections.
Verses 1 to 18 is the glory of the place of God's feet.
You can emphasize verse 13, the glory of the place of God's
feet. And then these last four verses
19 to 22 emphasize the glory of God himself.
And you can emphasize verse 21. It's for the glory of God.
The first verses 1 to 18 all work together to ask the
question, to answer the question, how will Jesus make
the place of his feet glorious? What does that look like
practically? And the several things, The
first one is that his glory is going to shine even more
powerfully because the context that it exists in.
That's why there's sin in this world, because one day the King
of glory is going to come and set all things right and we're
going to know how powerful and merciful he really is.
And Isaiah 59, it showed the tremendous sinfulness of the
world, and it forced us to turn our fingers in it ourself and
say, and I'm sinful. Depart from me, Lord, for I'm a
sinful man. And it describes this sinful
sinfulness as darkness. It does it in verse 2.
That was the emblem of Isaiah 59.
In chapter 60, verse 2, it says, for behold, darkness shall cover
the earth and thick darkness, the people darkness and
Scripture, just like light is an emblem.
It doesn't mean literal darkness.
It's spiritual darkness that comes with all of these other
things with it ignorance and sin and sorrow.
And it's the the context that we live in right now.
This world is a dark place. Our world is called the Valley
of the Shadow of Death and the preacher of the 19th century,
very famous preacher Alexander McLaren said Darkness inhabits
the land over which, like a pall, PALL.
Death casts its shadow and a pall, if you don't know, is the
cloth that goes over a coffin, which is why you have
pallbearers at funerals. And so it says that like the
like that cloth cast a shadow over a coffin.
So death and darkness cast its shadow over you in this world.
And that is the context of Isaiah, of the rest of Isaiah
60. He's saying it is in that
darkness that the light of Jesus Christ shines.
An illustration for me on Thursday.
We were going to an event in Chandler and I was driving into
the storm and there was the storm clouds.
You know, everywhere you've seen illustrations like this, you've
seen this yourself. But in the midst of all those
storm clouds, there was 1 little patch where there were no
clouds. And so all of the glory that was
from above was kind of concentrated in this, this kind
of pillar going from heaven to earth.
And as I was looking at it and and thinking how impressive that
light was, a lightning bolt struck from the clouds down to
the ground. And I thought that is.
The illustration of Isaiah 60, he's saying there will be in the
midst of all this darkness. You can't help but look at the
light and it will show in power. It will show the power and the
light and the majesty of God. And, and that's what this is
saying. In thick darkness the Lord will
arise upon you, His glory will be seen upon you.
Verse 3 The nation shall come to your light, and kings to the
brightness of your rising. So he will make the place of his
feet beautiful by contrast. That was the first and the
second. The place of His feet will be
beautiful, because verse 4 says that the elect from every tribe,
tongue, and nation will be gathered on that day to Zion.
Zion being the fortress that's representative of all of His
holy mountain, Jerusalem, His promised land.
Verse 4, your sons and your daughters shall come.
Chapter 59 said that who? Who are the sons and daughters
of God? Verse 59 or chapter 59 said
anybody who turns from their sin and puts their faith in Jesus
Christ becomes a child of God and a daughter of Zion.
One of our favorite passages as a church, I hear you all say it
all the time, is. Psalm 87, where God says that He
registers as He records the people.
We were not native, we were adoptive into God's family.
We were adopted in, we were sojourners and given this land.
And so Psalm 87 says God records in the Lamb's book of life in
the heavenly register of Jerusalem, though you were not
born there. He says this one was born here,
He was born here, she was born here.
And so this is what this passage is saying.
Isaiah 2 painted the picture of the church flowing like a stream
uphill to Jerusalem and it was beautiful because it uses the
word river or stream as a verb. And he says we're literally
flowing. Zion is a city on a hill,
Everything is up. And so the the imagery is 10,000
* 10,000 Saints of God making this final pilgrimage.
So many people that if you were on a helicopter looking down, it
would look like a stream of water flowing uphill into God's
city. That's it is the greatest
pilgrimage that will ever be seen.
It is. Nothing prevents you from coming
to God's mountain. It says there's no barriers.
Some it's going to are going to come from far away it says,
meaning that distance is not a barrier between you and God's
city. It says that some are going to
be carried on the hip. I don't know if that means that
there will be the infirm, but if even if there are they, they
will not be hindered. If you have children, they will
not be hindered. They will all come.
Verse 5 says you will see it for yourself.
Then you shall see and be radiant and your heart shall
thrill and exalt thrill being the literal word for tremble,
right? You're you're the BPM of your
heart is going to raise up and you don't have to worry about
it. Bill Putman when your heart
spikes and you get excited because Jesus will be there and
he's the healer. We get to be there as he is no
sin, no infirmity, trembling so exciting.
And 3rd, the place will be beautiful.
And here's the the thrust of the passage because it will be
physically stunning. That's what all these verses are
are about to tell us. The place will be physically
beautiful. It will be comprised of the
wealth of nations. The wealth of all the nations,
the sea and the land are going to be stored there.
It's going to be built of the most exotic resources that this
world has to offer. Jesus himself will be there.
It's comprised of the best of all creation.
Look to verse 5. It says it's going to include
the abundance of the sea. The wealth of the sea will be
contained in the city because the abundance of the sea shall
be turned to you. The wealth of nations shall come
to you. He's going to open up the sea.
And then verse 6, I think this sounds more like a curse than a
blessing. It says a multitude of camels
will cover you. But it means.
That in in the sense of camels are classic pack animals and
God's saying they're going to be weighed down with luxury
articles from as far away as India and East Africa.
And they're all going to be coming.
The abundance of foreign nations from Midian and IFA and Sheba,
they're going to bring gold and and frankincense and myrrh and
livestock with praise on their lips.
It's no coincidence that when the kings came or when the Magi
came with kingly gifts to Jesus, this is what they brought.
It was the goods of Isaiah 60. And it's no coincidence for us
either that the there you are Keith Hess.
I should have known you were here for him earlier.
When they bring the wealth of nations, you are part of that.
Even now, as you open up your treasury, part of your wealth
flows into Jerusalem, and it has to be this way.
And it's just a reminder that one day God's going to make
claim that all of it is His. And we give that foretaste now
because it all belongs to Him. Verse 7, The flocks of Kadar and
the Rams of Nabayaf are going to be there.
This is pastoral wealth, animal wealth.
And something else is happening here, not just sheeps and Rams,
but Kedar and the buy off were Ishmael's sons.
These were the Arab tribes in scripture, which has impact for
us as we send missionaries to Morocco.
God has already said that all nations would be blessed through
him to Abraham. All nations are going to be
blessed through you. And that doesn't just mean the
global W Europe and America. This means this passage is
teaching Muslim nations as well. Saudi Arabia, it says, they're
going to bring praises to God, and Iran and Oman and Morocco
bringing tribute, it says, and worshipping God.
Verses 8-9 Who are these that fly like a cloud and like
they're doves to their windows? The coastline shall hope for me,
the ships of Tarshish first to bring your children from afar,
their silver and gold with them. For the name of the Lord your
God and for the Holy One of Israel, because he has made You
Beautiful again. He is beautiful.
He Makes You Beautiful. He's making his city beautiful.
And those that fly like a cloud is the image.
If you're standing on the coastline and you look out on
the horizon and there's merchant ships as far as you can see and
their, their sails are all raised because they're bringing
tribute from the nations. That's what these clouds are.
They're coming like a cloud. This is Tarshish, she says.
They're bringing not only the wealth of nations across the
sea, but so important worshippers with them.
This is the gathering not only of all the people, but of all
the wealth. He says these ships of Tarshish,
which were the greatest ships in the ancient world, are bringing
not only the wealth of the nations, but worshippers to
Jerusalem as they in gather to their eternal home.
Isaiah 23 three said that Tarshish was the merchant of the
nations and it brought all of the wealth of the Nile.
Wherever it went, the largest ships of the ancient world, they
bring gold and silver. It says the reason for the name
of the Lord, for the Holy One. All of this wealth, all of these
worshippers are for him. And continuing again, how will
he make the place of his feet glorious?
It goes on and on. Verse 10, foreigners and kings,
we're going to build up the walls.
Verse 11, the gates are open continually to receive wealth.
You couple this with verses 8 and 9.
It says the ports are going to be open.
And you go on, it says, and so will the gates be open to
continually bring all of the wealth to God.
Verse 12, there's going to be no enemies, there's going to be no
threats. It's always going to be day.
It's safe, it's secure to all those who don't have a safe and
secure home now, one day you will and the heavenly Father
will love you and protect you. Verse 13.
The glory of Lebanon will be there.
All three types of trees are mentioned and they're bringing
in the best to make his House Beautiful, to beautify the city.
Verse 16, you will suck the milk of nations.
All the unique resources from all over the world will come.
This is bringing back the imagery of Isaiah 4923 when he
said kings will be your foster fathers, princesses will be your
nursing mothers. And verses 17 to 18, so
important, so beautiful. He says Zion is going to be
transformed socially. Your overseers will be peace.
Your taskmasters will be righteousness.
Violence shall no more be heard in your land.
It says that Zion is going to be transformed spiritually.
Your walls will be called salvation, your gates will be
named praise. And then finally Zion will be
transformed physically, he says, and that place is going to be
more glorious and more beautiful than you could have ever asked
or imagined. He says it this way, instead of
bronze, I will bring gold, instead of iron, I will bring
silver, instead of wood, bronze and instead of stones, iron.
And you can think of Solomon. He's bringing up all these
building materials that represented Solomon and, and his
glory and all of the, the glorious temple and all of the,
the peace and prosperity that came while he was the king.
He says, imagine all of that. And now imagine a a greater
glory, thinking again of the the radiant glory that was coming
under the under those dark clouds on a stormy sky.
And now imagine something more glorious than that.
That glory is coming from somewhere.
And that's what he's saying. It will be a greater glory that
will be the dwelling place of God and men.
The place of his feet will be beautiful.
And then he moves to the second aspect of the text in verses 19
to 22, moving to the glory of God himself.
And he says that his light begins by saying his light is
going to replace the sun and the moon.
Verse 19 The sun shall no more be your light by day, nor for
brightness shall the moon give you light, but the Lord will be
your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.
Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself,
for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days
of mourning shall be ended. This is what Revelation 21 and
22 quoted. It quotes Isaiah 60 when it
says, and the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it.
This is how the Bible ends. For the glory of God gives it
light. Its lamp is the Lamb of God.
By its light the nations will walk, and the kings of earth
will bring their glory into it. It says its gates will never be
shut by day, and there will be no night there.
They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the
nation's. Isaiah 60 tells us what that
means. Nothing unclean will ever enter
it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only
those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
These are describing the same event, the same day, the same
mountain, the same people, the same glory, your future glory.
And he moves on in verse 21 to describe you.
This is where he directly addresses you and he says you
will be righteous, you will possess the land forever.
And you just get this little tiny sliver because you as well
as all the wealth of the world kind of gets enveloped up into
wrapped up into this glory of God, the glorification of him.
And he calls you here the work of his hands.
Paul picks up on this in his New Testament metaphor where he says
you are his workmanship or maybe your transition.
You are his masterpiece. You're created new in Christ for
good works which God prepared beforehand that you should walk
in them. You're eternally the work of
God's hands. You are that now.
You're eternally the branch of his planting.
And then Isaiah tells you why you get this little glimmer, and
it gets pulled up into the light of God as he says that he might
be glorified. And then verse 21, the people
shall all be righteous, they shall possess the land forever,
that he might be glorified. So it's important to know that
the end and goal of all things is the glory of God.
I think Augustine said it best for his own sake.
Therefore he made all things and all things serve his glory.
And then the whole chapter ends with this promise from the Lord.
He says, I am the Lord, I will hasten it.
Beautiful passage. And I like to stop by way of
application sometimes and ask the question, what would the
Bible be missing if a gust of wind were to blow Isaiah 60 out
of our Bible? And I asked that because it did
that for me with Malachi. My preaching Bible still has no
Malachi in it because the wind blew it away.
I need to get a new one. What would be missing if you
tore out Isaiah 60 and it was gone forever?
You would miss, I think, the significance of the riches and
the sufficiency of your home in the new creation.
We'd miss this idea that our city will be the most wealthy,
prosperous, beautiful city that has ever existed in the world.
Wealth is going to flow. We're going to lack for nothing
forever. The greatest king will make it
prosperous. I think we'd miss, secondly, the
the beauty of the future city. This whole chapter is just
trying to give you the impression of, of what a
beautiful place it's going to be.
And we need to hear this as American Southern Baptists.
Where there's three transcendentals and we only like
to talk about two of them because one makes us
uncomfortable. We, we, we behold truth, we love
truth, we love goodness, we like to talk about goodness, beauty.
Why would we spend any time on beauty?
Why are we going to plant a flower garden at our church and
we could spend that time evangelizing?
Why are we going to make our House Beautiful when we could be
using that money to, to evangelize and to, to reach the
lost? And I think we see and hear that
participating in beauty is part of how we image God.
God is the God of beauty. He's beautiful.
He makes his, the place of his feet beautiful.
I'm not saying be wasteful, but I'm saying there is a place for
us to beautify our homes and our church.
It's worthy of our time and our investment.
We get unique insight into this. I think third, we'd be missing
deeply theological statements about God dwelling eminently
with us. He's trying to to put this on
you that this is your home and this is his home.
It is our. Home.
We will be there with the King of Glory.
Illustrating this in my mind is George Mueller.
Everybody knows him and his prayers and how many thousands
and thousands of orphans he cared for.
But maybe less known is that when he created those Ashley
Down orphanages, he, he didn't just create the orphanages.
And then he lived over here and he brought him food and, you
know, he built his home into their home.
Because he said he loved them and he wanted to be with them
where they were. And so God says here, that's
what he does with us. He doesn't create a nice place
for us to live and he stays in heaven.
We're here together. He loves us.
We'd be missing forth the the teaching about the global
prominence of Zion that nations and kings are going to come
here. 5th We're going to miss the Arise Shine mandate.
Which is one of the most famous calls in the Bible to embody
hope and light in the world. Those two verbs are the
application and he's not just talking to the city he's saying
this is for you. You're called to put on the
armor of God and embody hope and light and last we'd missed the
amazing bridge between the future salvation of Israel and
the nations. It reminds us powerfully that
this, this place that God is building is going to be built of
exotic resources from all over the world and exotic worshippers
from all over the world, especially, he says, emphasizing
here the Muslim nations. And that's something that we
need to remember. It gives us hope when our
evangelistic efforts are not going like we'd like them to.
We're all going to be gathered into one place for worship, for
enjoyment, even the Muslims. And so lastly, I want to say in
the final Mission Impossible movie.
If you've seen it, Luther has a quote and it reads this way.
In his final speech, he says any hope for a better future comes
from willing that future into being a future reflecting the
measure of good within ourselves.
He says like it or not, we're masters of our own fate.
Nothing is written. I hope that makes you cringe.
This gets This movie gets a 10 out of 10 for explosions and
anxiety. It gets a 0 out of 10 for
theology. Our passage picks this apart.
Considering Isaiah 59. I want you to see that any hope
for a better future does not come from within us.
Any hope for a better future, Isaiah is trying to teach you,
comes from an external righteousness apart from us,
there's no good within ourselves.
Our future, this passage teaches, is certain.
It's already been revealed history and your future has
already been told. Somebody else willed it into
being. We don't will the future into
being. Jesus Christ willed the future
into being, which is why 12 times in the gospels Jesus says
it is written, it's already been written, the future is secure.
And in our passage he says the future has already been written.
There will be a new heaven, there will be a new earth, and
the glory of the Lord will be the light and He will be our
righteousness. And Isaiah has been painting a
picture and we we have to see it all in context.
Now as we see the last passage that's been mentioned, this,
this place where we're going to worship in chapter 2, he
emphasizes this is going to be a place of education.
Theological education and worship are going to happen
here. It shall come to pass in the
latter days that the mountain of the House of the Lord shall be
established as the highest of the mountains.
It shall be lifted up above all the hills.
Nations shall flow to it, and the people will say, come, let
us go up to the mountain of the Lord, that He may teach us His
ways so that we may walk in his paths, Isaiah emphasizes in
chapter 4. It's going to be a place of
physical and spiritual protection.
There'll be a booth for shade by day from the heat and for
refuge. And a shelter.
From the storm and the rain, it will protect us.
And Isaiah 25, talking about the same mountain, he says there's
going to be a feast there when we take the Lord's Supper
together, as we will. Crystal needed a Senate next
week. Every time we take that Lord's
Supper, we're thinking about that day and that mountain, He
says On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make a feast for
all peoples of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of full
of marrow, of aged wine, well refined.
And he will swallow up on that mountain, the covering that's
cast over all the peoples that says he will swallow up death
forever. He will wipe.
Every tear from every face in the reproach of the people he
will take away from the earth. For the Lord has spoken, and we
will say, this is our God. We have waited.
For him that he might save us. For the hand of the Lord will
rest on this mountain. Isaiah 26 says that it will be a
day for singing, and you can read that to see the song that
we'll sing. Open the gates that the
righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
Isaiah 35 says it will be a place of healing.
Finally, the eyes of the blind will be open, and the ears of
the deaf unstopped, and then the lame man shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute will sing, and the ransom to the Lord
shall return and come to Zion with singing.
Everlasting joy shall be on their heads.
They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing
shall flee away. And if you want to wrap all that
together, he says Zion is a place of worship.
It's a place of education, a place of protection, of
feasting, of singing, of healing, and of joy.
So why does Isaiah 60 matter? It teaches you why you're
homesick all the time. Because you're not home yet.
Your healing hasn't come yet, which is why your bones ache.
Your joy is not complete, which is why you get depressed and
sorrowful. And your faith is your passport
to a country that you don't live in yet.
And your faith is a passport to a place that you've never been.
And all this matters because one day you're going to live in
Zion, and that day is not today, which is why Jeremiah says put
down roots here. And have children and plant
gardens and seek the welfare of your city.
But there's a coming future beautiful city.
And it's your city. The one that God is preparing
for you in the name of your eternal city is called Zion.
And what are you to do as you wait for that city?
You are to remember you are a soldier of the cross, and you
are to rise and shine and give God your glory.
And let's pray for that. And we'll sing these words back
to the Lord after God. You were, you were the soldier
of the cross. And all of this is, is, is
available to us because of the work and the sacrifice of your
Son. If there's anybody in the room
who does not know Jesus and his righteousness, His moral purity,
His perfection, and that righteousness has not been given
to them as a gift through the Holy Spirit who unites us to
God, whose name is the gift. I pray they would have the
boldness, the conviction to put their faith in Jesus today and
so have this passport to this eternal home.
God be with us. Give us patience as we wait when
this world is full of of trials. It's called the the valley of
the shadow of death and a place that's filled with, with
persecution and depression and darkness.
Lord, sin and infirmity, give us patience and give us zeal like a
cloak. Give us readiness like shoes, so
we can do all the good works that you've given us to do as
workmen, as your masterpiece. Until this day, Lord, we look
forward to it with joy. And we ask all this in the name
of Jesus, Amen. Thanks for listening.
To learn more about Heritage Church or if you'd like to
respond to this sermon, visit our website at
www.heritageshawnee.org.