Such Love-Part 2

Subtitle: He Paid the Price for Us

Psalm 49:6-8,15; Isaiah 49:5-7; Luke 23:39-43.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Resurrection Sunday, April 9, 2023.

We continue our series on the love of God.  We talked last week about God loving us so much that He took on the nature of a human.  He became one of us.  This is called the incarnation.

However, God did not use His humanity to rule over us with an iron fist.  Instead, He uses it to pay the price required to help us get back everything that we have lost due to sin.  This can be regarding some of the immediate consequences of sin, but ultimately embraces all that we have lost eternally.

Let's look at our first passage.

The true predicament of my soul  (Ps 49:6-8,15)

The psalmist brings up the issue of redeeming a person.  Verse 7 says that the wealthy of this world (who are so used to being able to buy what they want) will not be able to redeem their brother.  Anyone who may be perplexed at this statement quickly has it cleared up in the next verse.  The psalmist clarifies that they are talking about redeeming the soul.  Redeeming the soul is soul costly that it "shall cease forever," as the NKJV reads.  The phrase can also mean to not be completed. This is most likely the intended meaning.  No matter how long, i.e., forever, a wealthy person saves up, they will always fall short of the cost of redeeming the soul of their brother. 

This concept of redeeming a soul is important to note.

The psalmist then declares that God will redeem them from the power of the grave.  In order to really absorb what the psalmist is contemplating here, we need to take a few minutes to talk about the concept of redemption.

Redemption is the idea of paying the price required to release something back to the original owner, whether that is yourself, or another person.

There were several situations in ancient Israelite society that would call for redemption.  The firstborn of every Israelite family, including of their animals, belonged to the Lord.  A husband and wife were required to redeem their firstborn child by paying a set price to the tabernacle. 

This was not a blatant attempt to make money off of the families of Israel.  Rather, it harkened back to their time in Egypt.  They were slaves, and God was using Moses to deliver them from Pharaoh.  This involved 10 plagues in which God essentially forced Pharaoh to all but drive the Israelites out of his land.  The tenth plague was the death of the firstborn.  A destroying angel would go throughout Egypt and kill the firstborn of every family and every animal.  God instructed Israel to offer a lamb and put its blood upon the doorposts of their dwelling.  God Himself would protect those households that had obeyed and applied the blood of the lamb to their doorposts.  This continuing redemption was to be a reminder to Israel of God's deliverance of the firstborn in Egypt. 

Another situation that required the concept of redemption had to do with property.  If a person became poor, they may need to sell their property.  They could then use the money to set up some other way of making it.  If this fell through, they may even need to sell their labor and become an indentured servant.  Regardless, it could happen that an Israelite would be so destitute that they would never get their land back, until the Jubilee (if that was being observed every 50 years).  Even then, they may be financially unable to do anything with it.  This is where a close relative could step in, pay the value of the land, and give it back to their kin.  This would be a righteous act of grace for one of your extended family members.  The story of Ruth has this issue at the center of its plot.

This sets up a specific word that is used for redeeming that literally means "to do the work of a kinsman."  It is sometimes translated as a Kinsman Redeemer.  This always involves a situation where a poor person who is unable to do so is helped by a rich relative who is gracious.

The idea that a soul may need to be redeemed is a powerful concept that relies upon the imagery provided in such situations as I have described.  God had made sure that this concept would crop up in different ways throughout their society so that they could understand a deeper predicament of humanity, the need for spiritual redemption.

This begs the question.  What was sold, and why are we so "spiritually" poor that we are unable to get it back?  Genesis three and the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden represents part of the problem.  We chose the knowledge of good and evil (I think we have received a good dose of both) over the top of a good relationship with God.  God had warned them against eating from that tree.  This breaking of faith with God had the consequence of separating them from Him, as well as mortality.  They exchanged their eternal relationship of goodness with God for the idea that they could be something without Him.

Yet, it is more than this.  We had opened the door to the idea of rejecting God's purpose, or plan, and moved in the direction of living life in our own wisdom (or was their own?).  Humanity exchanged immortality for mortality, and the sure plan of God for the sketchy plan that we could come up with on our own, or with help from fallen spiritual beings.  This was an immoral response to the goodness of God.  Such sin not only separated us from God, but it also began to stack up as we continued to double down on sinful actions.  At a basic level, humanity as a whole is a prodigal son in bondage to the things of this world and far away from the place we were meant to have next to Father God.  We have no means of getting that good place next to God back, and continue to descend into a hell of our own making.  We need redemption!

God promises a redeemer  (Isaiah 49:5-7)

Isaiah speaks about the redemption over 24 times between chapters 40 and 66.  It is interesting that this section has 13 chapters (40-52) and then the amazing chapter 53 gives us a powerful picture of God's answer for man's redemption.  In fact, throughout that section, there are 4 glimpses of God's Redeemer who would come forth to redeem both Israel and the nations.  These glimpses are called the "Servant Songs" by theologians.  This section builds up to chapter 53, which is the shocking reveal that the Redeemer would come forward to be a sacrifice for the people.  We then have another 13 chapters to the end of the book as a sort of resolution of the tension. 

Isaiah 49 is the second "Servant Song," which pictures the Redeemer of Israel.

Another aspect of chapters 40-52 is that Israel was supposed to be the servant of God to help take back the nations for God.  However, God's servant Israel was a deaf and blind servant.  Just picture for a moment how helpful a deaf and blind servant would be to their master.  Israel had become deaf and blind because of their sins.  How would they ever get back the position that God had made for them next to Him in redeeming the nations?  It would only happen through God's a special and unique redeemer sent from God.  Israel could not do it for themselves; they were spiritually too poor, but God would help them.

This is something to understand.  With sin, no amount of money, or even good works, could pay for what we have done.  The penalty is to die as a slave and go into eternity out of relationship with God.

In Isaiah 49:6, it is said that it would be too small of thing for this coming Redeemer only to redeem Israel and cause their scattered exiles to be gathered back to God in the land.  This Redeemer would also become a light to the Gentiles, i.e., the nations, and He would be God's salvation to the ends of the earth.

This may help you to understand why it was so important for Mary and Joseph to name this special child that she carried, Yeshua.  It means "Yahweh's Salvation." 

The early Scriptures are a story of humanity's relationship with God continuing to fracture into a worse and worse predicament.  The Fall in the Garden causes humanity to be kicked out of the earthly paradise and close relationship with God.  Of course, there was interference from a spiritual interloper, the devil.  This happens again in Genesis 6, which causes mankind to become extremely evil.  After the flood, we see the Tower of Babel rebellion.  Their sin causes the judgment of God.  They are cast off to serve those false pretender gods that they were seeking, and God goes to Abram to make a new nation for Himself.  Yet, this nation of Israel essentially fails to be the servant that God wanted because...you guessed it!, because of sin.

God knew this would happen all along, but we needed to both live it out and see it for ourselves.  We are too easily manipulated by evil spiritual forces, and  too stuck in our sins to be free, and that includes the so-called "righteous" among us.  Thus, God's promise through Isaiah that He would raise up a special Redeemer who would do what humanity could not.

Redeemed by the life of our kinsman  (Luke 23:39-43)

Jesus was not just coming to give us the good example, though He truly is a perfect picture of what we should be.  He became human, and then lived a perfect life, a sinless life, so that he could perform the work of a near kinsman, that is, pay the price to help us get our inheritance back.

Jesus could pay the price of death that was owed by Israel, but also by all the nations of the earth.  None of us were worthy, and none of us are worthy today.  We still need the redemption of Jesus.

That is what Jesus was doing that day in which we nailed him to a cross between two thieves.  This is just how "righteous" we are.  When God gave us the perfect person, we killed him.  If God were to do it again, we would just kill that one too.  Thus, all the prophets who had a glimpse of God's coming Redeemer also saw that he would be despised and abhorred by many. 

We are all in the same predicament, no matter how good we are compared to others.  We have lost our inheritance to dwell eternally with God, and we are bereft of any spiritual value to get it back.  Yet, in this state, God knew that some would believe.  For those who will stop demanding that God accept their life as "righteous enough," and simply admit that they cannot do it themselves, Jesus comes to pay the price.

Jesus became your kin so that he could pay the price for your sin, and restore you to the eternal inheritance that God always intended for you.  This is particularly on display in the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus.

These thieves are real men, and this is what really happened.  However, they are more than just incidental, accidental, parts of the story.  They are symbolic of all of humanity.

All of humanity is destined to die as sinners.  Yes, we can point to another person and rightly say that we are better than them to some degree.  However, we are still spiritual beggars who are unable to pay the full price for our sins and live with God.  Our relative righteousness is like a person bragging that they have one million dollars in the bank and laughing a person who lives paycheck to paycheck.  Comparatively, they have it better.  But, if the analogy is to properly fit mankind, the person who has a million dollars in the bank, and the poor person, both owe a debt to God that is astronomical.  A debt that they cannot ever pay back.  They will be in the same boat on the day that they die and their debts come due.

These two thieves are both dying for their sins.  Yet, in that state, they have two very different hearts.  One thief is full of self-righteousness and challenges Jesus to save himself and them.  You can notice that he is only thinking of the natural problem.  Jesus is no good to him, unless he can help him get out of this predicament in a natural way.  There is no sense within this thief that he is guilty, but Jesus is innocent, none at all.

The other thief is a different story.  He recognizes that he deserves what he is getting.  These are the just desserts of a thief, even if it is the dirty, rotten, no-good Romans doing it.  Yet, he simultaneously recognizes that Jesus does not deserve the death that he is receiving.  Something comes alive in him in this moment.  He comes to believe that somehow this Jesus must really be the Messiah.  He doesn't know how, but in some way the God of Israel will do something powerful, and this man Jesus will be the king of a Messianic Kingdom.  Like Abraham offering up his child in faith, so the man gives a prayerful request to Jesus.  "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

We want God to come down and get us out of our mess, but instead, God came down and let himself be crucified among us.  What good does that do for us?  Yes, we all believe that the biggest problem in life is all those other evil things, people, nations, etc. out there.  God come stop the Russians, the Chinese, Washington D.C., etc.  God stop that race; God get those greedy bankers; God make the rich give us their money.  In our self-righteousness, we call for God to "solve" our problems.  However, those things are not our true problem.  Our true problem is the sin within us.  A willfulness to reject God and try to make our way without Him, and then rail against Him when there are bad consequences.  

The day they were caught and sentenced to execution was the greatest days of their lives because it would put them in a place to see God's great Redeemer.  In our pain and suffering, God is not only there, but He has been there long before we ever made it there.  When God created the heavens and the earth, He did so in tears.  He was the One going forth sowing in tears, knowing that He would doubtless come again rejoicing with a harvest.  Our sense of suffering is only the tip of the iceberg of the timeless assault of evil, pain and suffering upon the heart of God.

God used the wicked Romans that day to help one of those thieves come face to face with His sin, while also coming face to face with the righteousness of Jesus.  He believed that day, and Jesus told him that he would be with him in Paradise that very day!

This bothers some people.  This man had lived the life of a thief.  We can make it noble by saying he only stole from Romans, but we don't know that.  Sin always pulls us lower than we ever intended to go.  This man would die within hours.  He has nothing to offer God.  Why would God save Him knowing that He is not going to get any good works out of this man?

This begs the question.  What does God really want?  The answer is that He simply wants you, your heart, mind, and love.  On that day, that man quit rebelling against God, turned, and embraced the truth about whom Jesus was. 

God is looking for whosoever will let go of demanding that their righteousness be accepted as enough.  He wants whosoever will let go of their way of thinking, their plans, and whosoever will yield to His wisdom, purpose, and plan.

Yes, that man had nothing to offer God that day, but himself.  All of mankind is symbolized in these two guys.  We are all sinners who are going to die.  Some will die doubling down on their own righteousness and despising Christ, and yet, some will yield to Christ and ask for mercy, forgiveness.

God wants you to have the place that He intended for you all along, a place at His side in a loving, eternal relationship, where there is no sin, no evil, no pain, no suffering, and no consequences of our sin wrapped around us like chains.

Jesus came to redeem you from the bondage of your sins.  God doesn't want you to wait until you are dying nailed to a cross.  But, if you delay and one day find yourself nailed to a cross, know this.  It is the grace of God use our sins to nail us to a cross.  Can I even now let the Spirit of God and the Word of God nail me to a cross that I deserve, and in that moment, not only recognize my need for a redeemer, but recognize Jesus as the One who loved me so much that He paid the price for me?

O friend, yield to Jesus today.  Quit trusting your way, and the way of the world.  Submit and follow the only one who ever laid down his life, and then three days later rose up out of the grave, with over 500 witnesses to this fact.  Give yourself to Jesus today!

Such Love 2 audio

Grieving the Holy Spirit

Ephesians 4:25-32.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on June 05, 2022, Pentecost Sunday.

We talked about the gifts of the Holy Spirit last week.  One thing we know about the Corinthian Church is that they were very busy exercising spiritual gifts, especially speaking in tongues.  It is important to note that Paul does not question that their spiritual gifts are genuine, just that they were not treating one another in the way that the Holy Spirit wanted them to do.

This disconnect can happen when we focus on the gifts of the Holy Spirit instead of the purpose for which they are given.  We must never treat the spiritual gifts as a badge of honor that cries out, “Look at me!”  They are a means to an end.  They serve a holy purpose and that purpose is to help one another become like Jesus.  Yes, the whole purpose of spiritual gifts is to help everyone become like Jesus, i.e., fight sin in our life and live out his righteousness.

It is a sad condition that many who appear to be operating spiritual gifts are not becoming like Christ, but harm themselves and others.

Let’s look at our passage.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit

Ephesians chapter 4 opens with six verses that point Christians to work in order to keep the unity of the Holy Spirit in the bond of peace.  Always remember that it is the unity of the Holy Spirit that we are to keep, and not just unity around a leader, or leaders, who are not following the Holy Spirit.  There is a spirit of this world that attempts to bring us under its false and perverse unity.

In verses 7-16. Paul shows that the whole purpose of spiritual gifts is that we may all take on the image of Christ, which should exhibit as unity of the Holy Spirit in our midst.

Ephesians 4:17-24 has Paul speaking about our need to put off the old man and put on the new.  We can see this as putting off the image of fallen Adam and putting on the image of Christ.  We can also see it as putting of the old me that followed the flesh, and putting on the new me that is co-laboring with the Holy Spirit to become like Christ (following the Spirit).

This brings us to our text where Paul lists out concrete issues that we must deal with in becoming like Christ and thereby coming into a unity of the Holy Spirit.  In the middle of this list, Paul points us to the necessity of working with the Holy Spirit.  When we neglect, even refuse, to follow and listen to Him, it grieves Him (vs. 30).  I want to look at this issue of grieving the Holy Spirit first, and then, we will walk through the list of issues that Paul points out.

The idea of grieving the Holy Spirit was talked about by the prophet Isaiah nearly 800 years before Paul in Isaiah 63:9-19. 

“9 In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old.  10 But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; so He turned Himself against them as an enemy, and He fought against them.”

In Isaiah, we are being pointed back to those days of Israel’s affliction in Egypt, and the salvation of God leading them by the Angel of His Presence.  This parallels the Christian experience today.  We are being led out of the spiritual Egypt of this world and over the top of the impotent resistance of the Pharaoh of this world.  Jesus is leading us to an eternity dwelling with God in a universe flowing with milk and honey.  This is our ultimate inheritance.

There is another parallel to the inheritance that God has for us in this life.  He is giving us our territory, our own mind, heart, and soul (“possess your soul”).  There are giants of sin and bondage to fight, even evil spirits that war against our soul.  However, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can gain victory in this life and take possession of our inheritance.

Yet, in Isaiah 63, we see that Israel rebelled and grieved the Holy Spirit, which led to the Assyrian exile for the northern ten tribes, and eventually the Babylonian exile for Judah and Benjamin.  Paul is essentially calling us back from that path of grieving the Holy Spirit and coming under God’s discipline.

There appears to be two aspects of God’s heart for us.  He hurt for Israel when they were in bondage, and so He delivered them.  However, after centuries of rebelling against Him, He was grieved by their willful desire to sin and reject Him.

In a similar way, it is possible for Christians to be so willful in sin, and so inattentive to the love of the Lord, that we grieve the Holy Spirit.  Of course, He will faithfully discipline us as any good Father would with His children.

We should note that the Holy Spirit is grieved partially because we are working at odds to His purpose.  However, Spurgeon points out that the Holy Spirit grieves over us because He knows the misery that sin will cause for those sinned against, and also those who do the sin.  The Holy Spirit also knows the correction from the Father we must receive that wouldn’t be necessary if we just listened.  Any parent can identify with that let-down feeling one gets when they realize that they are going to have to discipline their child, when they were hoping that they were past that.  The Holy Spirit also knows how much communion, fellowship, peace and joy that we lose along the way because we persist in our rebellion.

Christian, don’t fight with the Holy Spirit.  Let Him empower you to fight against sin, both in knowing what to fight, and how to fight.

Paul reminds us that we have been sealed in the Holy Spirit.  Actually, back in Ephesians 1:13, Paul says that we are sealed “with the Holy Spirit.”  Because He is God, the Holy Spirit can be both the thing that we are sealed inside of, and the seal itself.

A seal typically has two purposes in the Bible.  It protects the contents that are inside, and it identifies, or authenticates, the contents.  The presence of the Holy Spirit in our life is a sign to all evil things around us that we belong to God.  As long as we stay in the Spirit, the enemy cannot truly take away our victory.  The Holy Spirit is also the sign that we are genuine believers and not just people hanging to the edges of the group.

Paul states that this sealing of the Holy Spirit is to protect and identify us until the Day of Redemption.  In both Ephesians chapter 1 and 4, Paul ties this sealing work of the Holy Spirit to the Day of Redemption.  Of course, salvation is a day of redemption, but it is not the completion of our redemption.  Redemption is the getting back of something that has been lost.  At salvation, we are redeemed spiritually as fellowship with God is restored.  However, we are still dying beings and our bodies are not redeemed.  Scripture always connects the Day of Redemption to the ultimate redemption of our bodies.  Note Romans 8:23.

“…but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.”

We are saved in the hope that there is a day of resurrection for us, along with all of the people of God.  The Holy Spirit is our guarantee that God will keep His word!

Sin versus the life of Christ

This brings us back to our everyday lives.  In some ways, they may seem mundane, repetitive, even a chore.  However, as a believer in Jesus who is sealed by His Holy Spirit, we are on a journey of becoming like Jesus.  The things that you face every day that tempt you to sin are the giants that you are meant to take on and fight in the power of the Holy Spirit.  He gives us power to say, “No,” to sin.

Paul walks through several sins that so easily trip up the work of the Spirit in our life and the unity that we are supposed to have with one another.  These things grieve the Holy Spirit.

Paul tells us not to lie, but to speak the truth instead.  People lie to each other for various reasons, but they all are rooted in fear.  The Holy Spirit is leading us to speak the truth in love, rather than lying to one another.  Lying becomes the cop-out, the easy way that isn’t really the easy way.  It seems easy at first, but in the end, you will be stuck in a quagmire of lie after lie that you must tell to protect earlier lies.

Sometimes it would be better if we said nothing at all.  Leaving room for the Holy Spirit is better than giving in to sin.  However, sometimes we are silent because we are afraid of what will happen if we raise our concerns.  Remember that just because I am angered by something, it doesn’t mean that I am right.  The key is hearing from the Holy Spirit whether we should be silent or speak the truth in love.

Paul then tells us that we must not let our anger lead us to sin, and we should deal with it today.  Anger is not our problem.  Our problem is that anger often motivates us to sin.  Fight or flight are often motivated by anger.

Now, anger is good in that it is that internal alarm system that lets us know when we have allowed something to continue too long without doing something about it.  When it goes off, we know that we need to do something.  However, we often do not think well when we are angry. 

Scripture says to be angry and not sin.  This does not mean that we simply eat the anger and keep quiet.  I need to deal with what angers me today.  This doesn’t mean we have to resolve the issue before we go to sleep.  However, we do need to start the work of dealing with our anger today.  Don’t put it off.

Sometimes I will find that I shouldn’t have been angry, or that I am angry out of selfish reasons.  However, sometimes God is using my anger to wake up others who are being insensitive to the Holy Spirit and others.  He sometimes speaks to us through others, and I don’t just mean through holy prophets.  God can speak to us even through sinners, if we are listening for His Spirit.  Don’t pick apart criticism looking for any little error so that you can disregard it.  Instead, pray and hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying.

In verse 27, we are told to not give place to the devil in our lives.  Only Christ through the Holy Spirit should have a place in our life, but we can give territory to the devil.  Giving him a place in your life gives him an area from which to attack your faith.  It might be a little sin that you don’t want to give up, or it might be a pet lie that he keeps whispering in your ear that you won’t let go of.  Jesus said in John 14, “the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me.”  This is true of Jesus, but it is not necessarily true for us.  We must work hard to press the devil out of our hearts and minds, and keep him out.  Like a little wedge, the devil will use any place of sin that we give him to tap and tap until he topples our faith.  True repentance is the only way to take back territory from the devil.

Paul then moves to stealing.  We must not steal, but labor in order to be a benefit to others.  Just because you work doesn’t mean that you won’t need help yourself.  The intention is that you will get to a place where God can use you to help others.  Don’t take the path of the life-sucking leech.  Instead, take the path of Jesus, which is being a life-giving person.  Too many people today justify theft because they feel like society is not giving them what they deserve, or are owed.  Christians should reject such an attitude.  God is our source and supply.  He knows exactly what I need, and I should be thankful whether little or much.  Both of them are a test of our faith in different ways.

Verse 29 moves to our speech.  Don’t speak rotten words, but rather words that edify others.  Rotten words are at best useless words.  Words that give no benefit to the other person.  However, rotten words can also be harmful to others.  A life-giving source, a person who is like Jesus, should speak only those words that will help others to become more like him.  Yes, I know.  Only a perfect man can tame the tongue.  That only means that you will have trouble in this area.  Welcome to discipleship.  It isn’t easy.

Paul ends with a summation of the character of Christ in verse 32.  None of us are perfect at all times in all of these things, yet.  We will need to walk in the kindness and tenderness of the Lord Jesus Christ as we learn to forgive one another.

It is not good enough to be exercising spiritual gifts, while all along grieving the Holy Spirit through the way that we mistreat one another.  May God help us to pursue love AND desire the spiritual gifts!

Grieving the Holy Spirit audio

The Promise of the Father

Isaiah 59:19-21.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on May 21, 2017.

In Acts 1:4 it says of Jesus and his disciples, “And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’”  We are going to take some time to answer the question, “What promise from the Father is He talking about?”  There are many promises throughout the Old Testament of the Bible, some of them promise blessing, and some of them promise judgment.  But Jesus is clearly referring to the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Throughout the Old Testament we see at first hints of this promised giving of the Holy Spirit.  However several places in the prophets make a clear promise from God that this day was coming.  Just as people were baptized in water by John to point to a spiritual inward act of repentance, so at a higher level would be the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Repentance is good.  But, if the Holy Spirit does not take up residence in our heart and then also fill us with His enabling power, moment by moment, then the repentance will fall short and our faith will wither.  This baptism takes that initial connection to the Spirit of God and makes it a continual, empowering presence.

Now it is easy in this world to lose sight of the reality that God promises to place His Spirit upon us, and within us.  If we try merely to be righteous without a real, abiding presence of the Lord, we will find ourselves drained of any spiritual strength, and without a sustaining hope.  So let’s beware the trap of only living righteously in the natural.  But, let us live out that righteousness with the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

He promises to deliver

It would be good to read the whole chapter in order to get the context of these verses.  You will find two things in this passage.  First, you will see that Israel had turned from God and towards unrighteousness.  They had become such a wicked society that those who tried to follow the Lord made “themselves a prey” (vs. 15).  It was a dangerous time to be a person who followed the ways of the Lord.  The situation is so dire that the Lord is pictured in vs. 16 amazed that they had been taken captive by sin and there was no one who could step in and deliver them.  We could think that surely Isaiah could be the answer.  But, it takes more than a prophet to speak on behalf of God to save people from their sins.  Even Isaiah himself testified that, “I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”  Thus it transitions by saying that the Lord would bring forth salvation and deliverance by His own right arm.

This deliverance is described in verses 16-18.  There we see a dual deliverance.  Israel would be delivered from the wicked of the nations that surrounded them.  However, God would also judge Israel and deliver the righteous from the unrighteous within the land.  God recognized that not all Israel was righteous.  In fact, though it is true that the nations persecuted and oppressed Israel, the righteous of the land were even more oppressed by the wicked that rose up from within the nation.  This was not a national problem that could be fixed with a war to end all wars.  It was a problem that started in the heart of every man, woman, boy, and girl.  So what is a person who wants to serve God supposed to do?  They need to recognize the reality that we can easily see the sins of others and blame them for our struggle.  But, we rarely recognize the truth that our greatest persecution comes from with our own sinful nature.  Our hearts betray us and long for paths that lead to pain and destruction.  Ultimately the Bible makes it clear that God is giving people a choice.  You can either let God deliver you from your own sins, or you can reject him and join ranks with the rebels, both the heavenly ones (the devil and his angels) and the earthly ones (wicked humans).  This promise to deliver from our external enemies and our internal threat, both foreign and domestic threats, brings us to verse 19 where the whole earth will fear the Lord when He accomplishes this deliverance.  In some ways our Lord accomplished this deliverance at the cross.  He made provision for our own sins to be forgiven, and He secured for us an eternal inheritance that overcomes anything the wicked of this world could do to us (including kill us).  However, at our Lord’s Second Coming, the Scriptures are clear that he will remove the heavenly and earthly rebels and hand the administration of the earth over to the righteous.  So in a sense we are still waiting for this to be fulfilled, all the while enjoying the benefits of our Lord’s deliverance begun at the cross.

The second part of verse 19 has a grammar issue.  It is not clear just what is coming like a flood.  If it is the enemy then the clause states this, “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will raise up against it.”  However, it is possible that it is the Spirit of the Lord itself that comes like a flood.  And thus it would read, “The Spirit will come like a violent river against it.”  In the end both options leave us with the sense that no matter what the enemy does, God has a day in which He will judge them and remove them out of the way.  That day will leave the whole earth trembling in fear at His great power.  We must not forget, in these days when it seems that wickedness reigns in every nation on earth, and holds the reins of power in every aspect of our societies, that God has not forsaken us.  Through Jesus, He has taken up the task of delivering us as our representative champion.

However, verse 20, uses the title of this champion, The Redeemer.  The word could be translated “Kinsman Redeemer,” like it is used in the book of Ruth.  The idea of the Kinsman redeemer was that close relatives were to safeguard the person, property, and posterity of their extended family.  Thus if someone was murdered then a close relative was to take up the role of Kinsman Redeemer.  They would take on the duty of seeking out who did it and getting justice.  In Ruth the issue is more about property and posterity.  Ruth had married an Israelite who had sold his land and moved to Moab because of famine.  When she comes to Israel, she is technically heir to his property, but doesn’t have the money to redeem it (buy it back).  Not only this but, they had no children before her husband died.  Thus his name or lineage was in danger of dying out.  Thus the story is about Ruth asking Boaz to be a Kinsman Redeemer to her.  He does this by marrying Ruth and restoring both her property and her posterity.  This gives us background to why Jesus becomes a human.  It is so that he can be our Kinsman redeemer.  He is one of us.  We are all under the threat of death due to our sins.  We have been plundered of all our inheritance that God has intended for us and are spiritually childless.  However, Jesus steps in and takes those who turn from transgression (vs. 20) as a bride.  In Him we now have eternal life, an eternal inheritance and an eternal posterity.  The deliverance is not just from external enemies, but also from a plight of powerlessness that have brought upon our self through sin.  In Jesus, all that the devil has done to spoil God’s kingdom is overturned for those who “turn from transgression.”  So the promise of deliverance is not to the wicked, but to those who are like Ruth.  They long to take their place in God’s kingdom but are powerless to do so.  These he buys back from their sin and its consequence of death.  These He redeems.

He promises a covenant with the redeemed

Verse 21 states that the Lord will make a covenant with those who are being redeemed.  This is clearly a covenant that is different from the covenant that God made through Moses.  This is why the Bible is divided into the Old Testament (or Covenant) and a New Testament (or Covenant).  The promise/covenant is basically God’s Holy Spirit.  The same Spirit, that was upon Isaiah in order to reveal to Israel the Word of God, would be upon all those who are spiritually descended from him, or have the same faith as him.  I say this because Jesus points out this line of argument in John 8, where the crowd in Jerusalem thought they were protected because they were Abraham’s children.  Jesus challenges this assertion and points out that they are nothing like Abraham.  If they were truly Abraham’s children then they would have rejoiced to see Jesus and embraced him.  But, they were nothing like Abraham.  They were like their true father the devil.  The point is not that Jesus thinks that they are biologically from the devil.  Rather, they may be biologically children of Abraham, but they are spiritually children of the devil.  They have turned their back on their earthly and heavenly father, and chosen to identify with an evil, fallen father.  So too in this passage, the descendants are not just biological descendants.  Yes, parents must endeavor to raise up their biological children to also become their spiritual children.  But, what is God’s promise to these descendants?  The Spirit of God will be upon them and fill their mouths with God’s Word.

It is important to recognize both aspects.  We are intended to walk daily with the Holy Spirit upon our life and filling our mouth with God’s Word.  This daily communion with the Spirit and this daily filling of our heart and mind with God’s thoughts and decrees is a promise that God has made available for us.  So the question is, “Are you spiritually a descendant of those who believed on Jesus, and if so, are you walking in harmony with God’s Spirit?”  May God help us to reject this world’s encouragement to pursue the things of the flesh and thereby losing the precious communion and empowering that He has for us.

Not only would the Spirit be in their life, but it would not be a momentary thing.  In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit only came upon certain individuals and only at certain times.  Thus the Holy Spirit’s presence was an uncommon event that came upon uncommon people at uncommon times.  This promise is that the Holy Spirit would become the common experience of the common, righteous person, without end.  It is this promise that enables us to live in a world surrounded by the unrighteous (both spiritual and natural), wrestle with our internal, fleshly nature, and be victorious.  Jesus not only overcame the world, but He enables us to overcome the world.  By the Holy Spirit we can go into our heart and mind and recognize the areas that need to be let go and the areas that need to be built up.  He can free us even from that inner unrighteousness that seeks to overcome us.  In Christ we are more than victorious over our own sin-problem.  We are enabled to be rescuers of others.  Let’s ask God for this promise each and every day.  Let’s seek the help of the Holy Spirit for our battles both internal and external.

Promise of the Father audio

The Promise of the Father

Isaiah 59:19-21.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on May 21, 2017.

In Acts 1:4 it says of Jesus and his disciples, “And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’”  We are going to take some time to answer the question, “What promise from the Father is He talking about?”  There are many promises throughout the Old Testament of the Bible, some of them promise blessing, and some of them promise judgment.  But Jesus is clearly referring to the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Throughout the Old Testament we see at first hints of this promised giving of the Holy Spirit.  However several places in the prophets make a clear promise from God that this day was coming.  Just as people were baptized in water by John to point to a spiritual inward act of repentance, so at a higher level would be the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Repentance is good.  But, if the Holy Spirit does not take up residence in our heart and then also fill us with His enabling power, moment by moment, then the repentance will fall short and our faith will wither.  This baptism takes that initial connection to the Spirit of God and makes it a continual, empowering presence.

Now it is easy in this world to lose sight of the reality that God promises to place His Spirit upon us, and within us.  If we try merely to be righteous without a real, abiding presence of the Lord, we will find ourselves drained of any spiritual strength, and without a sustaining hope.  So let’s beware the trap of only living righteously in the natural.  But, let us live out that righteousness with the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

He promises to deliver

It would be good to read the whole chapter in order to get the context of these verses.  You will find two things in this passage.  First, you will see that Israel had turned from God and towards unrighteousness.  They had become such a wicked society that those who tried to follow the Lord made “themselves a prey” (vs. 15).  It was a dangerous time to be a person who followed the ways of the Lord.  The situation is so dire that the Lord is pictured in vs. 16 amazed that they had been taken captive by sin and there was no one who could step in and deliver them.  We could think that surely Isaiah could be the answer.  But, it takes more than a prophet to speak on behalf of God to save people from their sins.  Even Isaiah himself testified that, “I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”  Thus it transitions by saying that the Lord would bring forth salvation and deliverance by His own right arm.

This deliverance is described in verses 16-18.  There we see a dual deliverance.  Israel would be delivered from the wicked of the nations that surrounded them.  However, God would also judge Israel and deliver the righteous from the unrighteous within the land.  God recognized that not all Israel was righteous.  In fact, though it is true that the nations persecuted and oppressed Israel, the righteous of the land were even more oppressed by the wicked that rose up from within the nation.  This was not a national problem that could be fixed with a war to end all wars.  It was a problem that started in the heart of every man, woman, boy, and girl.  So what is a person who wants to serve God supposed to do?  They need to recognize the reality that we can easily see the sins of others and blame them for our struggle.  But, we rarely recognize the truth that our greatest persecution comes from with our own sinful nature.  Our hearts betray us and long for paths that lead to pain and destruction.  Ultimately the Bible makes it clear that God is giving people a choice.  You can either let God deliver you from your own sins, or you can reject him and join ranks with the rebels, both the heavenly ones (the devil and his angels) and the earthly ones (wicked humans).  This promise to deliver from our external enemies and our internal threat, both foreign and domestic threats, brings us to verse 19 where the whole earth will fear the Lord when He accomplishes this deliverance.  In some ways our Lord accomplished this deliverance at the cross.  He made provision for our own sins to be forgiven, and He secured for us an eternal inheritance that overcomes anything the wicked of this world could do to us (including kill us).  However, at our Lord’s Second Coming, the Scriptures are clear that he will remove the heavenly and earthly rebels and hand the administration of the earth over to the righteous.  So in a sense we are still waiting for this to be fulfilled, all the while enjoying the benefits of our Lord’s deliverance begun at the cross.

The second part of verse 19 has a grammar issue.  It is not clear just what is coming like a flood.  If it is the enemy then the clause states this, “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will raise up against it.”  However, it is possible that it is the Spirit of the Lord itself that comes like a flood.  And thus it would read, “The Spirit will come like a violent river against it.”  In the end both options leave us with the sense that no matter what the enemy does, God has a day in which He will judge them and remove them out of the way.  That day will leave the whole earth trembling in fear at His great power.  We must not forget, in these days when it seems that wickedness reigns in every nation on earth, and holds the reins of power in every aspect of our societies, that God has not forsaken us.  Through Jesus, He has taken up the task of delivering us as our representative champion.

However, verse 20, uses the title of this champion, The Redeemer.  The word could be translated “Kinsman Redeemer,” like it is used in the book of Ruth.  The idea of the Kinsman redeemer was that close relatives were to safeguard the person, property, and posterity of their extended family.  Thus if someone was murdered then a close relative was to take up the role of Kinsman Redeemer.  They would take on the duty of seeking out who did it and getting justice.  In Ruth the issue is more about property and posterity.  Ruth had married an Israelite who had sold his land and moved to Moab because of famine.  When she comes to Israel, she is technically heir to his property, but doesn’t have the money to redeem it (buy it back).  Not only this but, they had no children before her husband died.  Thus his name or lineage was in danger of dying out.  Thus the story is about Ruth asking Boaz to be a Kinsman Redeemer to her.  He does this by marrying Ruth and restoring both her property and her posterity.  This gives us background to why Jesus becomes a human.  It is so that he can be our Kinsman redeemer.  He is one of us.  We are all under the threat of death due to our sins.  We have been plundered of all our inheritance that God has intended for us and are spiritually childless.  However, Jesus steps in and takes those who turn from transgression (vs. 20) as a bride.  In Him we now have eternal life, an eternal inheritance and an eternal posterity.  The deliverance is not just from external enemies, but also from a plight of powerlessness that have brought upon our self through sin.  In Jesus, all that the devil has done to spoil God’s kingdom is overturned for those who “turn from transgression.”  So the promise of deliverance is not to the wicked, but to those who are like Ruth.  They long to take their place in God’s kingdom but are powerless to do so.  These he buys back from their sin and its consequence of death.  These He redeems.

He promises a covenant with the redeemed

Verse 21 states that the Lord will make a covenant with those who are being redeemed.  This is clearly a covenant that is different from the covenant that God made through Moses.  This is why the Bible is divided into the Old Testament (or Covenant) and a New Testament (or Covenant).  The promise/covenant is basically God’s Holy Spirit.  The same Spirit, that was upon Isaiah in order to reveal to Israel the Word of God, would be upon all those who are spiritually descended from him, or have the same faith as him.  I say this because Jesus points out this line of argument in John 8, where the crowd in Jerusalem thought they were protected because they were Abraham’s children.  Jesus challenges this assertion and points out that they are nothing like Abraham.  If they were truly Abraham’s children then they would have rejoiced to see Jesus and embraced him.  But, they were nothing like Abraham.  They were like their true father the devil.  The point is not that Jesus thinks that they are biologically from the devil.  Rather, they may be biologically children of Abraham, but they are spiritually children of the devil.  They have turned their back on their earthly and heavenly father, and chosen to identify with an evil, fallen father.  So too in this passage, the descendants are not just biological descendants.  Yes, parents must endeavor to raise up their biological children to also become their spiritual children.  But, what is God’s promise to these descendants?  The Spirit of God will be upon them and fill their mouths with God’s Word.

It is important to recognize both aspects.  We are intended to walk daily with the Holy Spirit upon our life and filling our mouth with God’s Word.  This daily communion with the Spirit and this daily filling of our heart and mind with God’s thoughts and decrees is a promise that God has made available for us.  So the question is, “Are you spiritually a descendant of those who believed on Jesus, and if so, are you walking in harmony with God’s Spirit?”  May God help us to reject this world’s encouragement to pursue the things of the flesh and thereby losing the precious communion and empowering that He has for us.

Not only would the Spirit be in their life, but it would not be a momentary thing.  In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit only came upon certain individuals and only at certain times.  Thus the Holy Spirit’s presence was an uncommon event that came upon uncommon people at uncommon times.  This promise is that the Holy Spirit would become the common experience of the common, righteous person, without end.  It is this promise that enables us to live in a world surrounded by the unrighteous (both spiritual and natural), wrestle with our internal, fleshly nature, and be victorious.  Jesus not only overcame the world, but He enables us to overcome the world.  By the Holy Spirit we can go into our heart and mind and recognize the areas that need to be let go and the areas that need to be built up.  He can free us even from that inner unrighteousness that seeks to overcome us.  In Christ we are more than victorious over our own sin-problem.  We are enabled to be rescuers of others.  Let’s ask God for this promise each and every day.  Let’s seek the help of the Holy Spirit for our battles both internal and external.