WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.680 We're going to look back this evening for a little while before celebrating the Lord 00:00:03.680 --> 00:00:12.120 Supper at Isaiah chapter 26, an ongoing study of this great prophecy. 00:00:12.120 --> 00:00:19.640 The last scene or the last chapter in a book or the last scene in a film is always really 00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:20.640 important. 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:25.320 It's always kind of in that sense, I suppose, the highlight because it usually, well, you 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:30.160 hope to find conclusion, you hope that it will bring the whole story together. 00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:34.000 And sometimes there's nothing worse than you've really enjoyed a book all the way through 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:38.560 until you get to the last chapter and it's a really rubbish ending or the same with a 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:39.560 film. 00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:42.600 There's nothing worse than the disappointment of a poor ending. 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:45.960 But I think generally we're optimists and generally we choose books that finish well 00:00:45.960 --> 00:00:49.840 or we use books and films that are recommended to us. 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:54.000 We look for resolution, we're disappointed because we look for resolution, don't we? 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.840 We look for a good ending, we look for something that's satisfying. 00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:01.960 A happy ending is usually pretty good as well. 00:01:01.960 --> 00:01:07.680 And that's true generally, it's true of our lives, it's true that maybe we're just seeking 00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:09.840 for our dreams to come true in life. 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:15.960 We're looking for a good ending to a situation we find ourselves in, we're looking for encouraging 00:01:15.960 --> 00:01:16.960 days. 00:01:16.960 --> 00:01:20.960 And maybe we're in our Christian lives or in our lives generally, we're just asking, 00:01:20.959 --> 00:01:24.159 God, well when are things going to get better? 00:01:24.159 --> 00:01:27.239 When are things going to improve? 00:01:27.239 --> 00:01:28.239 And that's a natural thing. 00:01:28.239 --> 00:01:32.959 It's something we're all aware of in our lives to one degree or another. 00:01:32.959 --> 00:01:38.879 But there's an incredible claim in Isaiah, in the prophecy of Isaiah later on in Isaiah 00:01:38.879 --> 00:01:43.439 46 where God says again, he says, remember the former things those of long ago. 00:01:43.439 --> 00:01:47.079 He says, listen, I am God, there is no other. 00:01:47.079 --> 00:01:50.159 I'm God, there is no one like me. 00:01:50.159 --> 00:01:54.799 I make known, it's very famous phrase, I make known the end from the beginning. 00:01:54.799 --> 00:02:00.439 From ancient times, what is still to come, I say, my purpose will stand and I will do 00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:02.319 all that I please. 00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:06.640 So there's an incredible reality for us as we gather in worship, as we think about our 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:12.800 lives and our relationship to the living God is that actually he already knows. 00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:15.359 He already knows our end. 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:21.120 And he already knows the end of the story and the end of the reality of the world in 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:22.280 which we live. 00:02:22.280 --> 00:02:26.760 And this is one of these passages that's moving. 00:02:26.760 --> 00:02:34.080 Looking beyond today, it's not prophetic of Jesus coming or prophetic of the New Testament, 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:36.240 it's looking beyond that. 00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:44.360 As Cori looked at last week, it's a continuation of this prophecy of the end time. 00:02:44.360 --> 00:02:46.520 And it's a progression. 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:48.120 And we see that, don't we, in the Bible. 00:02:48.120 --> 00:02:49.840 It is a progression. 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:54.840 It does have an end of the story and revelation in a sense, but it's an end that is prophesied, 00:02:54.840 --> 00:02:56.800 it's predicted, hasn't yet come. 00:02:56.800 --> 00:03:01.160 So we've got from Eden to Calvary right through to Revelation. 00:03:01.160 --> 00:03:06.800 And in this chapter, we've got a tale of two cities. 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:11.920 The original tale of two cities, as it were, in this chapter, two communities. 00:03:11.919 --> 00:03:20.119 And we see the different way that these two communities in God's eyes come to an end of 00:03:20.119 --> 00:03:21.839 their existence, as it were. 00:03:21.839 --> 00:03:31.079 In that day, he says in the beginning of verse one of chapter 26, is that recognition for 00:03:31.079 --> 00:03:35.039 us that he's speaking about a future time, he's speaking about a time that is still to 00:03:35.039 --> 00:03:36.039 come. 00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:42.159 And he's saying to the people of God, because remember, this are people who have gotten into 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:45.719 all kinds of mess and all kinds of trouble because they've turned away from the living 00:03:45.719 --> 00:03:51.919 God and that some of them have been exiled and there's more to be exiled and they've 00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:57.959 got all kinds of pressure from outside and they're tempted just to make all kinds of 00:03:57.959 --> 00:03:59.439 wrong alliances. 00:03:59.439 --> 00:04:04.319 And this is written in this context of God speaking to them through Isaiah, calling them 00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:05.919 back. 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:11.599 Calling them back to trust in God and to believe in His future for them, to believe what He 00:04:11.599 --> 00:04:15.759 has got planned for them and for all of His people. 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:23.199 And he's saying, come back to me rather than trusting and believing in their own judgment, 00:04:23.199 --> 00:04:30.719 on their own futures and recognizing the importance of not trusting in human alliances, 00:04:30.719 --> 00:04:35.639 whether it be Babylon or with Assyria or Egypt or any of these great nations, who seem so 00:04:35.639 --> 00:04:40.879 powerful, but he says, look, I know you're weak, he says, but keep putting your trust 00:04:40.879 --> 00:04:41.879 in me. 00:04:41.879 --> 00:04:48.360 And in a sense, what we're doing tonight is we're sitting down, as it were, you've got 00:04:48.360 --> 00:04:52.759 to visualize this, we're sitting down with them. 00:04:52.759 --> 00:04:56.519 We're sitting down with the people of the Old Testament to whom this book was written. 00:04:56.519 --> 00:05:01.240 And we're sitting down with them together and we're looking forward, all of us, to what 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:03.439 God's future plans are. 00:05:03.439 --> 00:05:09.000 The future for all who will entrust themselves to the living God in salvation and in truth. 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:12.120 It's further down God's timeline. 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:17.519 Now, this is maybe a bit of a weak example, but it would be a bit like Charles Lindberg 00:05:17.519 --> 00:05:24.000 and Amelia Earhart, who were the first male and female to fly solo across the Atlantic. 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:30.040 They were sitting there with Neil Armstrong, who was the first man on the moon. 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:36.879 And all of them were watching a future story of people landing on Mars. 00:05:36.879 --> 00:05:42.800 You see that progression, the two different kind of time scales as they all look forward 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:46.520 to something that they couldn't possibly have imagined in their time. 00:05:46.520 --> 00:05:50.480 And it's as if we're sitting with the Old Testament people of God and we're the New 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:55.560 Testament people who have got the crucifixion, the resurrection ascension behind us. 00:05:55.560 --> 00:06:00.800 But we're all looking forward to what God is revealing about the future. 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:08.560 And Corrie last week spoke about the mountain of God and all the beautiful symbolic pictures 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:09.560 that we have there. 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:14.680 Well, this is the city of God that's on the mountain of God that we're being described 00:06:14.680 --> 00:06:15.680 here. 00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:20.120 In that day, a song will be sung in the land of Judah, we have a strong city. 00:06:20.120 --> 00:06:23.480 He sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. 00:06:23.480 --> 00:06:28.000 And that's really what Isaiah is speaking about, your God through Isaiah is talking 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:31.160 about our destination as believers. 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:36.800 Our last chapter, a real page turner, but there's no the end at the end of it because 00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:44.319 it's an ongoing state, it's an ongoing relationship we have with the living God eternally. 00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:49.920 And the city is the picture of the Bible very often about the new heavens and the new earth 00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:55.280 is described symbolically as a city, we sung about it. 00:06:55.280 --> 00:07:02.360 It is sung about in Psalm 48, the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great king. 00:07:02.360 --> 00:07:07.600 Psalm 46 where we sung God is in her, God's in the center of this, a river of gladness 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:09.120 is running through it. 00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:12.040 It's described in Ezekiel as a city temple. 00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:18.560 It's described in Hebrews 11 as the city which Abraham was looking for whose architecture 00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:24.280 and builder is God, but it says that none of these Old Testament saints received the 00:07:24.280 --> 00:07:26.240 thing that was promised. 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:30.360 Again in Hebrews it talks about us here we have no enduring city because we're looking 00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:32.439 for a city that is to come. 00:07:32.439 --> 00:07:37.959 And of course Revelation finishes with that fantastic picture in Revelation 21 and 22 00:07:37.959 --> 00:07:44.120 of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven out of God with God in the midst, which links 00:07:44.120 --> 00:07:49.000 us to what Corey was saying last week about wiping away of all the tears because there's 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:57.560 that reference in chapter 25 Isaiah and also in Revelation about this amazing day and this 00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:04.720 amazing city where we will be with the living God eternally. 00:08:04.720 --> 00:08:11.319 Now I wonder for some of you, if that's a bit of a disappointment, is it a bit of a 00:08:11.319 --> 00:08:14.959 disappointment that the future is going to be a city? 00:08:14.959 --> 00:08:20.240 Are you intuitively people who think that cities are dark places, dangerous, a dark 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:24.079 underbelly, ungodly, full of people? 00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:27.600 Oog, God forbid. 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:33.879 And when you think of spiritual intimacy you think of skipping around the hills alone, 00:08:33.879 --> 00:08:37.759 looking at creation and the mountain tops and the solitude and you think, ah, the new 00:08:37.759 --> 00:08:39.600 heavens and the new earth are a city. 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:42.000 Ah, it's a bit of a disappointment. 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:48.279 Well, I hope not because there's a reason for it being described in this way and it's 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:56.200 primarily, it's not so much about architecture as about community and about a king. 00:08:56.200 --> 00:09:02.879 And the city of our God that is represented in the symbolism of the Old Testament, it 00:09:02.879 --> 00:09:05.240 represents a people with a king. 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:09.360 There's a new Jerusalem that's spoken of, it's coming down from heaven, represents a 00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:10.360 new cosmos. 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:15.639 It represents a whole new existence and it blows away any concept that we would have 00:09:15.639 --> 00:09:21.720 of a city and any of the real struggles sometimes that we do have with cities which are genuine 00:09:21.720 --> 00:09:25.560 of course and real in some ways in one way or another. 00:09:25.560 --> 00:09:32.279 But the biblical language and imagery is symbolic and it's speaking of, it's really 00:09:32.279 --> 00:09:36.199 trying to describe a reality that can't be described. 00:09:36.199 --> 00:09:37.699 It's beyond our wildest dreams. 00:09:37.699 --> 00:09:40.319 You know, we say that often here, don't we? 00:09:40.319 --> 00:09:44.959 First Corinthians 2nd, however, as it is written, what no eye has seen, what no ear 00:09:44.959 --> 00:09:50.279 has heard, what no human mind has conceived, the things God has prepared for those who 00:09:50.279 --> 00:09:51.279 love Him. 00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:53.799 These are the things God has revealed to us by His Spirit. 00:09:53.799 --> 00:10:00.360 It's unbelievable for us and it's trying to put it into language that we have some conception 00:10:00.360 --> 00:10:06.519 of what it will be because we know that revelation, and I think what he mentioned this morning, 00:10:06.519 --> 00:10:08.360 it's also, it's a garden city. 00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:12.519 It's a city with a tree of life in it and with a river flowing through it in its symbolic 00:10:12.519 --> 00:10:13.519 reality. 00:10:13.519 --> 00:10:19.680 It's eaten, improved and restored and glorified and made perfect. 00:10:19.680 --> 00:10:26.840 It's the place that gives expression to the deepest desires and the deepest longings for 00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:31.280 fulfillment that we have as human beings. 00:10:31.280 --> 00:10:37.519 We see it only in shadows, even in the beauty of creation, if you walk up in the mountains, 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:44.600 which are very beautiful, or in the beauty of the best community in the city. 00:10:44.600 --> 00:10:46.600 We see shadows. 00:10:46.600 --> 00:10:55.320 But what I would say is that the gospel community, this small city here, St. Columbus City, should 00:10:55.320 --> 00:11:02.080 point towards the light and should point towards Jesus Christ and should point towards 00:11:02.080 --> 00:11:09.920 the community, the new community of those in whom Christ dwells by faith. 00:11:09.920 --> 00:11:16.960 So in our relationships with Christ and with one another, we are to image, we are to mirror 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:21.640 this celestial city as it were. 00:11:21.639 --> 00:11:27.799 And that's a high standard and it's one for which we need the living God in our hearts 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:29.519 and our souls. 00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:32.879 So there's many things that are written in the New Testament and in the Old Testament 00:11:32.879 --> 00:11:34.720 about this city of God. 00:11:34.720 --> 00:11:40.259 There's one or two things here that I just want to pick out this evening. 00:11:40.259 --> 00:11:46.879 The first is that our future in this community with our King is a place of joy. 00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:52.039 In that day, in that day as it looks forward, the song will be sung in the land of Judah. 00:11:52.039 --> 00:11:57.879 It's going to be a place of singing, a place of worship. 00:11:57.879 --> 00:12:02.120 That's one of the reasons we sing in our worship. 00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:07.360 It's a reflection of the praise that we bring to the living God. 00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:15.360 Sometimes I think we marginalize singing as if it's kind of the preparatory bit before 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:16.360 the sermon. 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:17.960 It would be like that at all for us. 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:23.560 We shouldn't marginalize it because it's the expressions of our hearts together in 00:12:23.560 --> 00:12:28.360 presumably very powerful about singing together in praise to the living God. 00:12:28.360 --> 00:12:32.279 It's one thing, singing in the shower, but it's another thing of singing to the living 00:12:32.279 --> 00:12:40.560 God and to do it in unison and to do it as a reflection of the heart music of our lives 00:12:40.560 --> 00:12:43.360 that we are praising the living God. 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:46.960 We sing because we have reasons so to do. 00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:54.519 And it's a city of joy, a place of joy, and we seek to reflect that in our lives, not 00:12:54.519 --> 00:13:01.000 slapstick smiles, but deep seated and inner joy in knowing the living God. 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:05.560 And it's a city of God, with God at the very foundation. 00:13:05.560 --> 00:13:11.519 We sung that, God in Psalm 46, God in the midst of her shall dwell. 00:13:11.519 --> 00:13:17.279 But also it speaks here in verse 4 of Trust in the Lord, Forever for the Lord God. 00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:19.639 He is the everlasting rock. 00:13:19.639 --> 00:13:26.519 It's this community of God's people that we look forward to, a city, a people of God, 00:13:26.519 --> 00:13:28.960 with God at the very foundation. 00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:33.240 And we see that in Revelation that He dwells in the midst of His people. 00:13:33.240 --> 00:13:35.319 And He is the picture. 00:13:35.319 --> 00:13:36.840 He is the foundation. 00:13:36.840 --> 00:13:38.519 He's the rock in what is built. 00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:44.879 And there's this lovely picture of, it's a place where the bulwarks are the pillars, 00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:50.439 the towers, and the walls are salvation, are called salvation. 00:13:50.439 --> 00:13:52.879 He sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:56.120 So it's as if God is the very foundation. 00:13:56.120 --> 00:14:02.120 And Jesus Christ is the protection through His salvation that He worked in the cross 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:05.519 that we were looking at this morning. 00:14:05.519 --> 00:14:07.319 That's where its strength comes from. 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:12.440 It comes from the resurrected Christ, the one who defeated evil and defeated the power 00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:13.440 of death. 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:16.760 We have a strong city. 00:14:16.760 --> 00:14:18.680 Everlasting God is the foundation. 00:14:18.680 --> 00:14:23.120 The bulwarks, the walls are salvation itself for what Jesus Christ has done. 00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:27.800 So salvation, the work that Jesus has done for you and I is in its very DNA. 00:14:27.800 --> 00:14:30.760 It's in its very architecture as a city. 00:14:30.760 --> 00:14:33.320 It breathes redemption. 00:14:33.320 --> 00:14:36.720 This place, this future that we have with God. 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:43.360 The Lamb as if slain as its heartbeat at the very center of this place. 00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:48.759 It's a community, we're told in verse 2, of the righteous. 00:14:48.759 --> 00:14:52.840 Open the gates at the righteous nation that keeps faith, may enter in. 00:14:52.840 --> 00:14:58.879 Reminder that salvation, covering in the righteousness of Christ, taking Christ as our Lord and Savior, 00:14:58.879 --> 00:15:04.320 is all critical and central to our belonging, our citizenship in this future. 00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:12.920 As a new Israel, a new Jerusalem, the church of the redeemed, racially, ethnically, socially 00:15:12.920 --> 00:15:20.160 diverse, filled with everyone who puts their trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. 00:15:20.160 --> 00:15:24.120 Do you still want to run to the hills? 00:15:24.120 --> 00:15:27.400 Is that where we still need to go to that place of isolation? 00:15:27.400 --> 00:15:31.760 But we're called, we're called now. 00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:35.559 We're called now, whether it's urban or rural. 00:15:35.559 --> 00:15:42.120 We're called now to be committed to building a godly, a molding, a godly community that 00:15:42.120 --> 00:15:46.919 reflects what we will one day be by His grace and His strength. 00:15:46.919 --> 00:15:51.960 We're to be a community where salvation is the walls. 00:15:51.960 --> 00:15:57.240 We're to be a community where the everlasting God is the rock to whom we go to and to whom 00:15:57.240 --> 00:16:00.120 we trust at all times. 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:08.960 Being that relationship with Christ and His people, such a messy thing to do. 00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:15.759 But that's what we're called to by His grace, to reflect what one day we will be perfected 00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:17.840 in, in glory. 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:20.879 So it's the city of God with God as the everlasting rock. 00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:22.360 It's a place of joy. 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:25.960 It's also a city of perfect peace. 00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:28.399 Verse 3, I'm not going to go through the whole chapter. 00:16:28.399 --> 00:16:31.279 I'm just focusing on the first bit really. 00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:35.919 You keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed in you because He trusts in you. 00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:37.159 It's that great concept. 00:16:37.159 --> 00:16:40.039 Again, we saw it this morning. 00:16:40.039 --> 00:16:42.039 Great concept of Shalom. 00:16:42.039 --> 00:16:45.720 Jesus said, my peace I give to you. 00:16:45.720 --> 00:16:57.319 It's the powerful description of what life should be, everything as it should be. 00:16:57.320 --> 00:17:03.960 That's the peace that Christ offers and will perfect in glory for us. 00:17:03.960 --> 00:17:09.039 Where there's that, not just where evil is defeated as it has been on the cross, but 00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:17.640 destroyed entirely, where sin is eradicated, which is why all the wiping away of the tears 00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:28.520 comes from and will be covenantally communal together with the King. 00:17:28.520 --> 00:17:33.759 Now I think the reason sometimes we recoil from the idea of the city and we want to run 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:41.000 to the hills quite understandable because the cities here so often reflect the opposite, 00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:42.000 don't they? 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:51.720 They often reflect division, exacerbated in the city, fear, evil, the opposition of other 00:17:51.720 --> 00:17:53.599 people. 00:17:53.599 --> 00:18:00.519 And so we sometimes transpose that into our idea of the city and the future. 00:18:00.519 --> 00:18:05.599 But the city that we will belong to is a community of reconciled believers with the Prince of 00:18:05.599 --> 00:18:16.399 Peace on the throne and who gifts us that spiritual everything as it should be because 00:18:16.399 --> 00:18:19.599 of the war that he has already fought on our behalf. 00:18:19.599 --> 00:18:26.119 It is an unimaginable wholeness that we are granted by the living God. 00:18:26.119 --> 00:18:32.039 And that is, if you're a believer this evening, if you will participate in the Lord's Supper 00:18:32.039 --> 00:18:37.399 and if you trust in Jesus, that is your trajectory and mine. 00:18:37.399 --> 00:18:39.759 That's where we're going. 00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:43.680 The older we get, the more comforting that is. 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:49.599 Maybe you don't think about it so much when you're younger, but it's a tremendous trajectory. 00:18:49.599 --> 00:18:56.359 We might be getting old and looking old outside, but inside we're getting younger. 00:18:56.359 --> 00:19:02.559 We're being renewed day by day because of the living God and the future that we have in Him. 00:19:02.559 --> 00:19:09.079 We will join and we join the crowd of Hebrews 11 who welcome these things at a distance. 00:19:09.079 --> 00:19:16.000 But today in St. Columbus, Shalom matters. 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:20.479 It matters how we think about one another, how we speak to one another. 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:26.720 It matters our response to division, to opposition, to isolation. 00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:31.039 Loneliness should not mark the local church. 00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:37.920 Cleakishness, separation, all of these things that so often bring bruising and disappointment 00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:42.720 in life and make us recoil from the idea of the city. 00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:49.240 And our experience of that should not be the case in our life as a church. 00:19:49.240 --> 00:19:56.720 We have much work to do in His kingdom and much of it is very plain and very everyday, 00:19:56.720 --> 00:20:03.519 but very significant as we relate to one another and as we share in the trajectory that is ours 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:04.759 in Christ. 00:20:04.759 --> 00:20:10.200 So the city of God represents a people with a King, joy. 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:13.720 God at the center, perfect peace. 00:20:13.720 --> 00:20:17.000 But we also notice because it's a tale of two cities and briefly just want to finish with 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:23.400 this that He also speaks about the city of man in verses 5 and 6. 00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:30.960 He gives us this picture of the future, but then He also contrasts it with another image, 00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:37.799 another symbol of really, it's the whole Babylon picture again that Cori's been talking about 00:20:37.799 --> 00:20:39.799 over the last couple of weeks. 00:20:39.799 --> 00:20:44.799 All that Babylon symbolizes that is life without God. 00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:49.000 For He is humble the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:52.799 So that's the city of man, the lofty city. 00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:56.759 He lays it low, lays it to the ground, casts it to the dust, the foot trample it, the feet 00:20:56.759 --> 00:21:00.359 of the poor, the steps of the needy. 00:21:00.359 --> 00:21:09.639 So He's pointing forward again to this trajectory and He's reminding us that there's a last chapter 00:21:09.639 --> 00:21:12.519 for everyone. 00:21:12.519 --> 00:21:17.319 And it might be very different from the present reality for some people. 00:21:17.319 --> 00:21:22.519 Might be very different because there's a complete role reversal really what we have. 00:21:22.519 --> 00:21:27.079 So in this lofty city, this powerful city, you may be reflected by Babylon or Assyria 00:21:27.079 --> 00:21:32.359 or Egypt or any of these powerful nations that didn't worship the living God and didn't 00:21:32.359 --> 00:21:35.720 follow the living God and could be personalized into individuals as well. 00:21:35.720 --> 00:21:38.879 Sorry, that's me I think. 00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:43.640 Just to recognize and remember that there will be a complete role reversal. 00:21:43.640 --> 00:21:46.520 Things are going to be turned on the head completely. 00:21:46.520 --> 00:21:50.360 So we see that power and pride will be worthless. 00:21:50.360 --> 00:21:55.240 The lofty city, He lays it low, He lays it to the ground. 00:21:55.240 --> 00:22:00.360 We've seen that over and over again in what God is speaking about in Isaiah. 00:22:00.360 --> 00:22:05.720 He's saying that there is something that's going to change and those who desperately 00:22:05.720 --> 00:22:15.600 grasp onto permanence and power and life that they can never attain to will lose that if 00:22:15.600 --> 00:22:19.559 they keep their backs turned on the living God. 00:22:19.559 --> 00:22:27.799 Verse 14 speaks about these powerful leaders, the lords that have ruled over us. 00:22:27.799 --> 00:22:28.799 They are dead. 00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:29.799 They will not live. 00:22:29.799 --> 00:22:30.799 They are shades. 00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:33.440 They will not arise. 00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:40.880 To that end, you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them. 00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:47.400 Any who grab God's goodness and claim it as their own, any who reject His Lordship and 00:22:47.400 --> 00:22:55.480 His salvation, who mould their own confused standards and live as independent city dwellers 00:22:55.480 --> 00:23:05.360 as it were, spending lives, easily spending lives on, because we all do it on our own 00:23:05.360 --> 00:23:14.240 thrones, kicking others off their thrones, making self-serving alliances that we think 00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:22.599 will give us security and friendship and power and control, people living as if their own 00:23:22.599 --> 00:23:32.679 lives and their own thoughts and their own philosophies are strong and lofty, will if 00:23:32.679 --> 00:23:40.519 they reject God, be brought to humility and be brought to judgment. 00:23:40.519 --> 00:23:46.119 It does remind me a little bit, I'm not sure particularly why, in this case of a bit of 00:23:46.119 --> 00:23:50.359 graffiti somewhere allegedly. 00:23:50.359 --> 00:24:02.039 It's probably fabled in many ways, but someone graffiti is saying, God is dead, Nietzsche, 00:24:02.039 --> 00:24:03.039 1883. 00:24:03.039 --> 00:24:06.439 It was the end. 00:24:06.439 --> 00:24:07.439 God has gone. 00:24:07.439 --> 00:24:08.679 We've gone beyond Him. 00:24:08.679 --> 00:24:09.679 He's finished. 00:24:09.679 --> 00:24:12.159 There's no place for Him. 00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:20.480 And then a few years later, someone scrolled, Nietzsche is dead, God, 1900. 00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:24.759 So it's the reality, you know, that the greatest powers, the greatest strengths, the greatest 00:24:24.759 --> 00:24:33.360 atheists, if they will not recognize and understand their mortality, and if we will not, and if 00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:42.240 you will not, then there is always a living God to recognize and to face up to. 00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:46.719 Pride and power will be worthless, and the last will be first. 00:24:46.719 --> 00:24:48.199 It's interesting, isn't it? 00:24:48.199 --> 00:24:53.240 The foot that tramples on the lofty city is the feet of the poor and the steps of the 00:24:53.240 --> 00:24:54.740 needy. 00:24:54.740 --> 00:25:03.279 Jesus says in Mark 11, many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. 00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:06.079 Justice will be done by the living God. 00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:15.079 Followers of Christ, we might feel rejected, oppressed, regarded as weak and poor and insignificant, 00:25:15.079 --> 00:25:23.920 and sometimes increasingly, maybe regarded as dangerous, who ought to be silenced. 00:25:23.920 --> 00:25:28.160 We will be the ones that will stand in that day, hiding in the strength and the love and 00:25:28.160 --> 00:25:31.519 the grace of Jesus Christ through nothing that we have earned, nothing we've done on 00:25:31.519 --> 00:25:36.240 our own, but simply through trusting in His living name, because He enables us to become 00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:37.740 overcomers. 00:25:37.740 --> 00:25:41.039 And we will have status, and we will be joint heirs. 00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:47.000 On that day, God says to a small church in Corinth who are bickering and fighting among 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:52.000 themselves and bringing each other to the courts of the land for judgment, He says, 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:56.000 Do you not know that the Lord's people will judge the world? 00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:57.240 And you are to judge the world? 00:25:57.240 --> 00:26:01.000 And are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:04.839 Do you not know that we will judge angels? 00:26:04.839 --> 00:26:10.640 He's talking about a complete role reversal and reminding us of our future in Him and 00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:19.079 the importance of recognizing this trajectory that He speaks about right in the belly of 00:26:19.079 --> 00:26:21.279 the Old Testament. 00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:26.960 He talks beyond even Calvary in the ascension to what we have to enjoy. 00:26:26.960 --> 00:26:33.200 So I'm going to finish there, just want to say a couple more things just as we, before 00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:40.799 we celebrate the Lord's Supper, but we're going to sing before we do that in a minute. 00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:46.720 But so what we're going to do is we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper together. 00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:49.200 And if you're a visitor here, you might not know what we do. 00:26:49.200 --> 00:26:55.319 What we tend to do is, what we do do is that we come forward, most of you come to the front 00:26:55.319 --> 00:27:01.519 and take a cup and the bread and go back to your seat and we wait and we take it all, 00:27:01.519 --> 00:27:09.679 we eat it and drink it together as a symbol of unity and the recognition of our oneness 00:27:09.679 --> 00:27:11.439 in Jesus Christ. 00:27:11.439 --> 00:27:20.279 And before we do that, I'll read, I want to read from Mark's Gospel chapter 14 because 00:27:20.279 --> 00:27:27.399 it links in with a lot of what we've been talking about in different ways over the last 00:27:27.399 --> 00:27:28.920 week or two. 00:27:28.920 --> 00:27:38.599 Mark chapter 14, linking the Old Testament Passover with the New Testament Lord's Supper. 00:27:38.599 --> 00:27:45.920 Mark 14 and verse 12 tells us, on the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed 00:27:45.920 --> 00:27:50.200 the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, where will you have us go and prepare us to 00:27:50.200 --> 00:27:51.759 eat the Passover? 00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:57.960 And then in verses 22 says, after they were eating, he took bread and after blessing it, 00:27:57.960 --> 00:28:02.360 he broke it and gave it to them and said, take, this is my body. 00:28:02.360 --> 00:28:06.800 And he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them and they all drank of it 00:28:06.800 --> 00:28:11.680 and he said to them, this is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many. 00:28:11.680 --> 00:28:18.759 I say to you, I will not drink it again of the fruit of the vine until that day when 00:28:18.759 --> 00:28:21.600 I drink it in you in the kingdom of God. 00:28:21.600 --> 00:28:23.440 So we're going to pray and give thanks at this point. 00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:26.480 Lord God, we pray and give thanks for the Lord's Supper. 00:28:26.480 --> 00:28:33.640 We give thanks for the link between the Passover, between being covered in the, the lentils 00:28:33.640 --> 00:28:43.280 being covered in the blood of the sacrificial lamb that saved them from the angel of death 00:28:43.280 --> 00:28:50.360 and the link between that and Jesus Christ and the lamb of God as we saw recently, who 00:28:50.360 --> 00:28:52.840 takes away the sin of the world. 00:28:52.840 --> 00:29:00.160 Reminders of these truths, by faith, Lord, we believe, help our unbelief, help us to grasp 00:29:00.160 --> 00:29:01.160 it more clearly. 00:29:01.160 --> 00:29:06.279 Thank you for the bread and the wine which symbolizes Jesus' body and blood. 00:29:06.279 --> 00:29:13.160 And we pray and ask that you would enable us to consider what you have done on our behalf 00:29:13.160 --> 00:29:15.680 as we celebrate together. 00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:17.200 We ask it in Jesus' name. 00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:33.279 Amen.