Our text for this morning is Isaiah 56.
We're going to be going through verses 1-8.
I'll give you all a moment to turn there.
But as we're looking at this text, I'll just say up front, we're going to be thinking about it somewhat broadly with the topic of missions as it pertains to the Old Testament and as it relates to God's overarching redemptive plan throughout the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation.
Many of us have asked questions before like, did God adjust his plan to save Gentiles or has he always planned that?
Another way that can be asked is, does the Old Testament ever actually talk about God planning to save Gentiles?
And on top of that, you might ask, did God save Gentiles in the Old Testament or was it merely talk or hinted at in something that didn't happen until New Testament?
And furthermore, why does God save?
To what end or what purpose is he saving has chosen?
So this is a sampling of some of the things we're going to be talking about today through our text, Isaiah 56.
So turning there, verse 1, thus says the Lord, Isaiah writes, thus says the Lord, keep justice and do righteousness for soon my salvation will come and my righteousness be revealed.
Blessed is the man who does this and is the son of man who keeps and holds it fast.
Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, the Lord will surely separate me from his people.
And let not the eunuch say, behold, I am a dry tree.
But thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant.
I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.
I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord and to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it and holds fast my covenant,
these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar.
From my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel declares, I will yet gather others to him besides those already gathered.
So just real quickly here, a little context.
Again, Clay preached on Isaiah 40 last week and did most of the grunt work for me in laying that.
But I just wanted to note two things that are pertinent for our discussion today.
One, it is important to note that Isaiah is a contemporary of Hosea and Micah.
And if you're familiar with Isaiah, if you're familiar with Hosea and Micah,
you recall that those prophets are constantly calling out Israel and Judah for their sin,
namely injustice and a lack of righteousness.
They're worshiping foreign gods.
At this point, it was a nation that exploited the poor and the vulnerable while worshiping these false gods
and only giving external ritualistic worship to Yahweh,
not true single-minded devotion as he has called for.
So that's important to note.
And the other thing I wanted to note contextually before we move on
is that we need to bear in mind that Israel and Judah are on the verge of collapse.
God has been announcing his judgment.
It's been withheld at times through the prayers of Hezekiah and other intercessions.
But nonetheless, it is on the way, and the Babylonians will drag them away into captivity, into exile.
And they're going to be in exile for a while, and there's going to be three dispersions.
So we want to keep that in mind as we read this text with all that God's saying in it,
all that God is planning, all that God is doing.
So just looking at verses 1 through 2, and I've subtitled this section,
A Call to Righteousness.
And I'll read it again briefly, but we see here the Lord says,
So this is not works-based salvation.
Paul's very clear on this in Galatians.
Tyler read this text for us this morning.
We didn't collaborate.
That just worked out.
But Paul writes,
For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse.
For it is written,
Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law and do them.
Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law.
For the righteous shall live by faith.
Galatians 3, verse 10 through 11.
So Isaiah himself understood the logical flow of this.
He understood regeneration leading to sanctification.
In other words, we have to be made right, made new.
And then we can grow in holiness, grow in obedience.
Regeneration precedes sanctification.
And Isaiah recognizes this, and we see that in chapter 1, verses 16 through 17, as he records the Lord.
And the Lord said,
Wash yourselves.
Make yourselves clean.
It's that regeneration language.
Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes.
Cease to do evil.
Learn to do good.
There's the sanctification.
That idea of turning.
Total repentance.
180 degree.
Learn to do good.
Seek justice.
Correct oppression.
Bring justice to the fatherless.
Plead the widow's cause.
So again, the flow.
It goes from washing, that renewal, that regeneration,
to sanctification, to doing good, to stop doing evil.
So what is God saying in our first two verses back in our primary text, Isaiah 56?
He's saying that the true people of God will and should act like people of God.
They should be godly as a result of their faith.
God is just.
Isaiah 61.8.
So as his people, we too should act justly.
God is righteous.
Psalm 119.137.
So as his people, we too should act righteously.
Keeping justice.
Doing righteousness.
This is why God mentions the nearness of his kingdom.
And arriving in the later half of verse 1,
for soon my salvation will come and my righteousness be revealed.
This serves as a reminder and an incentive.
Hey, I'm coming.
Let that incentivize you.
In other words, we practice righteousness now because one day we will be made entirely renewed
and completely obedient from the heart.
And if we're not acting like citizens of heaven now,
then we have no reason to think we will be someday.
All right, we should be putting on the things of God now.
And we can only be the people of God by faith.
And that faith produces those good works.
It bears fruit, as Jesus himself said,
I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him,
he it is that bears much fruit.
For apart from me you can do nothing.
That's John 15.5.
So we cannot keep justice nor do righteousness apart from Christ by faith.
So going back to our text, Isaiah 56,
we see that God says all of this, justice and righteousness language,
all of that is in relation to his covenant with Moses in verse 2,
when he refers to those who keep the Sabbath.
Keeping the Sabbath is the most important sign of the Mosaic covenant.
Exodus 31.12.
And the Lord said to Moses,
you are to speak to the people of Israel and say,
above all, you shall keep my Sabbaths.
But this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations,
that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.
You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you.
Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death.
So this is of vital importance.
In other words, when an Israelite is looking at this text,
they're not just hearing, oh, Sabbath law,
they're hearing Mosaic covenant.
Understanding this is in connection with covenant.
So when we look at that, we've got to go,
okay, well, what's going on?
Well, it's an external sign like practicing righteousness and keeping justice.
It's revealing what's going on internally.
It's revealing that regeneration, that salvation,
that demonstrates one's belief in God
to provide and sustain him.
It is an exercise of faith
because keeping the Sabbath requires people to not work seven days a week
despite whatever shortage of food or what have you,
whatever problem they may face.
In other words, it could potentially be a loss in the worldly sense
when you're thinking about it pragmatically.
So for them to give up a whole day of work
in a time in which food is everything, right?
Farming, harvesting, that's how everything's driven at that time.
That is an act of faith.
So we see then it is entirely by faith that we are able to meet the standards of God
because we are all lawbreakers, both Jew and Gentile, Romans 3.23.
So we show this faith by our works,
as James and Paul most clearly articulate throughout their epistles.
It is by faith that saints of both Old Testament and New Testament,
Old Covenant, New Covenant, are saved.
For even Abraham himself, the father of our faith,
as you've heard the expression, was saved by just that, faith.
So in short, we as a people of God,
in light of these first two verses,
we are called to be holy for he is holy, Leviticus 11.44.
And this only happens by faith.
So moving on to our next section,
verses 3 through 5,
and I've entitled this a reminder of the promise to Abraham.
So we're talking about the Mosaic Covenant,
and we're about to move into the Abrahamic Covenant.
But picking up in verse 3,
God says,
So again, this is hearkening back to the Abrahamic Covenant.
God promised Abraham that he would father many nations,
and that all of those nations would be blessed by him and his descendants.
Genesis 22.18.
In his offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
So again, looking back at Isaiah 56,
we can see that the foreigner, right, the nations, right,
the foreigner here,
he is being brought near.
He has as much reason to hope in God as the Israelites,
as the physical seed of Abraham does.
So they too, as the seed of faith,
they have as much reason to hope in God,
so long as they come to God on God's own terms,
namely through his covenant.
But did foreigners ever actually become part of the people of God in the Old Testament?
Did God save them during that time, right?
This is that question I mentioned earlier.
And the answer is, well, yes.
There's actually a significant amount, but I'll note just four briefly.
Mosea's wife, if you've been doing the Bible reading plan,
you probably caught this this week,
but Zipporah was a Midianite who joined the covenant by circumcising her son.
Exodus 4.25-26.
So here you have a foreigner being blessed by Moses by way of covenant,
being brought in, being grafted in.
Two, many Gentiles, likely to be mostly Egyptian,
joined the Israelites on their exodus.
Exodus 12.3 says,
And granted, many of them rebelled later on,
but it's not a total rebellion by all of them.
It's never really clear on that, but I think we can infer
many of them probably remained faithful
and partook of the covenant as Zipporah did.
Another individual is Ruth.
She was a Moabite who joined in the covenant with God
and was part of Christ's lineage.
Ruth 1.4, Matthew 1.5-6.
And finally, and probably most notably, most famously
in the entire Old Testament,
is the city of Nineveh.
Repented and turned to God,
and their salvation in a broad sense
was confirmed by Christ himself, Matthew 12.41.
A great New Testament picture of these eunuchs and foreigners
who entered the covenant that God is speaking of
is found in Acts 8 with the Ethiopian eunuch.
The Ethiopian eunuch, who is both a foreigner
and obviously a eunuch,
was reading Isaiah 53, 7-8,
when Philip encountered him.
Of course, we all know the story.
Philip uses that text to preach to him about Christ,
forgiveness of sins,
and being made new and aright with God
by way of Christ, by way of the cross,
death, resurrection.
And that results in the Ethiopian repenting of his sin,
and Philip baptizes him in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
This is just one of many fulfillments of Isaiah's prophecy
of the eunuchs and foreigners
who become God's people.
The Ethiopian eunuch came to God
by way of God's new covenant,
which includes the external sign of baptism.
So though there's some discontinuity
in the exact external signs,
there's much continuity in terms of
the meaning behind it,
the faith behind it.
It's all by faith.
And it's interesting, too,
because Deuteronomy 23, 1
forbids any eunuchs
from coming into the presence of Israel
and the Lord for worship.
But here, Isaiah speaks of an elimination
of that restriction.
It no longer bears.
It's not the same, right?
Now the eunuch is called to serve God
and be in right standing with him,
as is the foreigner.
So the eunuch should not be discouraged
that he is a dry tree,
as our text writes,
which is meaning unable to reproduce,
because God has made provision
for the eunuch to keep the Sabbath
and enter a covenant relationship with him.
The reminder of the Abrahamic covenant
means a lot of things,
but we cannot overlook
the missional aspect of it
as it is so, I think, critical to this text,
I think is central to this text in many ways.
Again, Genesis 22, 18 shows us that
God's plan for Abraham,
and by extension Israel,
has always been to bless the nations,
the foreigners, the eunuchs.
This means God has always intended to save
both Jews and Gentiles,
as it's been part of his predetermined plan.
God is about the work of drawing a people for himself
from every tribe, tongue, and nation,
Revelation 7, 9.
And Paul, the apostle,
confirms the good news of the Abrahamic covenant,
the gospel of it,
when he writes,
in the scripture,
foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,
preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham,
saying,
In you shall all the nations be blessed.
So then, those who are of faith
are blessed along with Abraham,
the man of faith.
Galatians 3, 8 through 9.
And just a nice little verse here in the Old Testament,
I think somewhat captures this well,
beautifully,
is from Isaiah's contemporary,
Hosea.
We recorded the word of the Lord,
and declared,
and this is the Lord speaking,
I will have mercy on no mercy,
and I will say to not my people,
you are my people.
And he shall say,
you are my God.
Isaiah 2, 23.
And that's such a beautiful picture,
when you consider it,
because I'm just going off the faces here,
but I think everybody in here
is probably more Gentile than not.
And this means,
we too are grafted in,
we too are part of that blessing,
we too can be brought into that covenant.
This is news that should cause us to leap for joy,
we're not cut off from Israel,
but we are brought in by faith.
And a quick word of encouragement as well,
keep in mind the context.
So going back,
I mentioned Israel and Judah
are about to be dragged out,
away from the promised land,
away from the covenant land.
They're going to be Babylon's captives for their sin.
God's prophesying this through his prophets.
They're being punished for their injustice
and unrighteousness.
That's about to happen,
in just a short while.
And yet our text here is very encouraging.
It seems to be talking about people being gathered
on the holy hill,
which we'll come back to.
But meanwhile,
the Babylonians,
similar to the Assyrians,
they're thinking that they were mightier,
and that their gods were the true gods,
and that the Hebrew God,
our God,
Yahweh,
was weak.
They thought they were conquering Israel
because of their greatness,
their merit,
their things,
their whatever.
But they failed to recognize
that God was merely using them
as a tool
for his purposes,
namely,
the carrying out of Israel's punishment,
which was most fitting
for a couple reasons.
They were guilty of injustice,
as I've said so many times now,
and now their punishment
is that they will serve as slaves
in an unjust Babylonian society.
Another reason it's fitting
is that Israel failed to be
a blessing to the nations.
They failed to draw people in
and gather them
for worship,
as God had ordained.
But even now,
in the midst of their punishment
for their sin,
God is still accomplishing
his plan to gather people
for Israel to be a blessing
to the nations,
as they are now about
to be dragged out
to the nations
to proclaim the glory of God.
And two obvious examples of that
are Daniel and Esther,
and just consider the many ways
in which they glorified God
in pagan lands
among the nations.
So I'm mentioning all this to say
that regardless of what persecutions
we face,
regardless of what trials
or obstacles arise,
and even despite our own sin,
nothing will thwart
or oppose the plans of God.
Nothing's going to get in his way
of bringing the nations
to gather,
to worship.
So God is calling his people
to keep justice
and practice righteousness
while also reminding his people
that he is using each individual
to bring about multiplication,
that we should all be messengers
of his good news
and witness the expansion
of his kingdom
as free captives
from their sin.
But why?
To what end
is he doing this?
And this leads us
to our final section,
verses 6 through 8.
And I've subtitled this,
Those God Gathers
Will Worship.
Starting in verse 6 again,
And the foreigners
who join themselves
to the Lord
to minister to him
to love the name of the Lord
and to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath
and does not profane it
and holds fast my covenant,
these I will bring
to my holy mountain
and make them joyful
in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings
and their sacrifices
will be accepted
on my altar.
My house shall be called
a house of prayer
for all peoples.
The Lord God
who gathers the outcasts
of Israel declares,
I will gather yet others
to him besides
those already gathered.
So the answer is clear.
God gathers his chosen
for the express purpose
of worship.
It is not enough
that they are gathered.
We know that God
gathers people out of Egypt
so that they would worship him,
Exodus 7, 16.
But as he was giving
the law to Moses
on Mount Sinai,
they gathered to rebel
by worshiping
the golden calf.
It's all Exodus 32.
In Matthew 21,
starting verse 12,
we see many gathered
at the temple,
but Jesus drives them out.
Why?
Because they are not
worshiping God rightly
in his house of prayer.
Further,
their actions were wretched
because this very house
was meant to be
a place of blessing
for all people
as they worshiped,
and yet the merchants
were using it
as a den of thieves
to rob people,
to bring oppression,
to serve injustice.
The same problem
we're seeing in Isaiah.
They completely inverted
God's expressed will
and desire
by their sinful rebellion.
Again,
it is not enough
that the people are gathered.
They must be gathered
to worship.
And Isaiah 56
makes it clear
that we are gathered
to serve God,
to love God,
to offer sacrifices,
prayers,
and offerings.
This is the language
of worship,
the language and actions
of one who has
truly denied himself,
picked up his cross,
and followed after Christ.
If you will,
turn with me real quickly
to John chapter 4,
verse 20.
This is the famous passage
in which Jesus
talks to the Samaritan woman
at the well.
Again,
I think there's a lot
of things going on here
that are striking
in comparison
with Isaiah 56.
Picking up in verse 20,
the Samaritan woman
is speaking,
and she says,
Our fathers worshipped
on this mountain,
but you,
referring to Christ,
but you say that
in Jerusalem
is the place
where people ought
to worship.
Verse 21,
Jesus said to her,
Woman,
believe me,
the hour is coming
when neither on this mountain
nor in Jerusalem
will you worship
the Father.
You worship
what you do not know.
We worship
what we know,
for salvation
is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming
and is now here
when the true worshippers
will worship the Father
in spirit and truth,
for the Father
is seeking such people
to worship him.
He's gathering them.
Verse 24,
God is spirit
and those who worship him
must worship
in spirit and truth.
The woman said to him,
I know that the Messiah
is coming,
he who is called Christ.
When he comes,
he will tell us
all things.
Jesus said to her,
I who speak to you
am he.
So a couple of observations.
In the new covenant,
the hill on which we worship
is irrelevant.
Neither on this mountain
nor in Jerusalem,
but we are able
to worship the Lord
everywhere
now that we are
indwelled by the Holy Spirit.
We also see
that Jesus,
as the Son of God,
echoes God the Father
in Isaiah 56
by clearly asserting
that he is saving people
for himself
to worship in spirit
and truth.
We must be active
about the work of obedience
and doctrinal purity
if we are to know
and worship God rightly.
It's all of 1 John.
We know we love him
if we keep his commands,
we keep his word,
we keep his law.
We have to know him.
And finally,
Jesus Christ
is God incarnate,
the Holy One of Israel,
whom we will worship
one gathered
for the marriage
of the church
and the Lamb of God.
Revelation 19,
verse 6,
Then I heard
what seemed to be
the voice
of a great multitude,
like the roar
of many waters
and like the sound
of mighty pearls
of thunder,
crying out,
Hallelujah,
for the Lord our God,
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice
and exalt,
and give him the glory,
for the marriage
of the Lamb has come,
and his bride
has made herself ready.
It was granted her
to clothe herself
with fine linen,
bright and pure,
for the fine linen
is the righteous deeds
of the saints.
And the angel said to me,
Write this,
Blessed are those
who are invited
to the marriage supper
of the Lamb.
And he said to me,
These are the true words
of God.
Then I,
this is John speaking,
Then I fell down
at his feet
to worship him,
but he said to me,
You must not do that.
I am a fellow servant
with you and your brothers
who hold to the testimony
of Jesus.
Worship God,
for the testimony
of Jesus
is the spirit
of prophecy.
The great multitude
being made up
of Jews
and Gentiles,
those whom God
has called,
they,
we,
will give him
the glory.
We will wear
fine linen
as we produce
righteous deeds
by faith,
and we will
be gathered
and worship
the Lord.
So just three
applications in closing.
We want to be about
the works of missions.
By prayer,
by giving,
by encouraging,
by serving.
We have many
in our church
that are senders
and we have many
in our church
that are goers.
Let's come alongside
them in whatever capacity
that we can
to serve the Lord.
And don't undermine prayer.
I think so often
people feel,
oh,
well,
I don't have
enough money
to give
or I don't have
the ability
or the means
or calling
or whatever
you want to call it
to go over
and do that work.
Well,
prayer is one
of the primary
motives in which
the church has grown
and you see it
throughout Acts.
And that's something
you can do
and it's free.
Right?
It's easy.
Let's be in prayer
about missions.
Let's be in prayer
for missionaries
and prayer
for the lost.
Second application,
let's take heart
in knowing
that nothing
can thwart
or stop
God's plan
of salvation
and restoration.
We do not have
to worry about
persecution,
poor political
candidates,
or anything
that might
seemingly be
in our way.
Obviously,
a lot of things
are going on
right now
in our country
and some good,
some bad,
and, you know,
we all have
our interpretations
of them,
but regardless
of what's happening,
regardless of how
many conspiracy
theories are true
or this or that,
it's irrelevant.
It's not going
to stop God.
It's not going
to thwart
his plans to gather.
It's not going
to stop him
from saving
those whom he's
called.
And three,
most importantly,
and I think
if we're doing
the first two
right,
it results
in doing
this third
one,
we want
to worship
the Lord.
We do this
by obeying
his word,
by keeping
justice,
practicing
righteousness,
by being salt
and light
to the earth,
a blessing
to it
and its
peoples.
We should
be thankful
as Gentiles,
foreigners to
Israel,
that God
has always
planned to
graft us
into his
salvific plan.
let's express
that thankfulness.
We should be
thankful that
he is a just
and righteous
God who we
can trust.
And we are
going to an
eternal kingdom
where there will
be no injustice,
oppression,
wrongdoing,
or any evil
of any kind.
We're not going
to worry about
voter fraud
or any kind
of other
worldly thing.
In everything
we do,
we are going
to glorify God.
Everything
falls under
that umbrella
and there
is no
substitute
for it.
Without
it,
missions,
salvation,
and everything
becomes meaningless.
We are
saved for the
purpose of
worship and
we go on
mission and
support missions
for the sake
of gathering
God's people
on his holy
hill for
worship.
So let's go
to the Lord
now in prayer
and let's
worship him.