“God’s Word Does what He Sends it Out to Do”

Isaiah 55:10-13

7/13/08


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    As the general election draws closer, we continue to hear the presidential candidates promising us many things.  Some of those promises include lowering the gas prices, lowering taxes, getting us out of Iraq, strengthening our economy, improving education, creating new jobs, improving health care, and securing our borders.  From the way these politicians talk, it’s almost as if they’re promising us a perfect society, and that if you elect them, all your societal woes will be resolved.  And yet, for some reason we tend to doubt the word of a politician.  By way of experience we know that politicians promise many things in order to get elected, but once in office they rarely keep those promises.  We trust politicians about as far as we can throw them.  
    But it’s not just politicians that have let us down by not keeping their word.  Parents, family members, co-workers, and friends have also let us down in the past by not keeping all the promises they’ve made to us.  As a result, we tend to be on our guard when someone promises us something, and we’re very skeptical as to whether they’ll keep their word or not.  It’s a way of protecting ourselves, so that we’re not hurt when they don’t come through for us.
    Unfortunately, this attitude towards the promises of men has jaundiced our attitude towards the promises of God, to the point where we sometimes doubt whether He can or wills to keep the promises He makes to us.  We hear God’s promises clearly enough in the Scriptures, but the circumstances around us often cause us to wonder whether He will really come through for us or not.  What we see with our eyes often gets us to question the Word that we hear with our ears.
    But this is why God gives His people the words from today’s O.T. lesson.  With these words He promises that His Word will do what He sends it out to do.  He gives His people this assurance, so that they might be comforted in knowing that God will do what He says He’ll do, in spite of any circumstances that might suggest otherwise.  For the Jewish people whom He was addressing through the prophet Isaiah at that time this meant that even though God was going to exile them to Babylon for 70 years on account of their sin of abandoning Him and going after other gods, God was not going to abandon them.  Instead, after their 70 years of captivity He was going to free them from their bondage in Babylon, just as He had once freed them from their slavery in Egypt, and bring them back into the promised land.  God was promising His people a rebirth and renewal as a nation, something which even creation itself would rejoice in, something that the people could cling to and look forward to in hope during their captivity, because it was a sure thing:  God would keep His Word.  He would do what He promised.  And 70 years later, the promise came true:  Cyrus king of Persia, having conquered Babylon, issued a decree that any Jews wishing to return to Jerusalem could do so and rebuild the temple of the Lord.  Then it was as the writer of Psalm 126 sings, “When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.  Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.”
    Today, we, the people of God by way of our Baptism into Christ, have through that Baptism been saved from our slavery under sin, death, the devil, and the Law.  Like the exodus of the Israelites fromIsaiah 55:10-13
“God’s Word Does what He Sends it Out to Do”
    As the general election draws closer, we continue to hear the presidential candidates promising us many things.  Some of those promises include lowering the gas prices, lowering taxes, getting us out of Iraq, strengthening our economy, improving education, creating new jobs, improving health care, and securing our borders.  From the way these politicians talk, it’s almost as if they’re promising us a perfect society, and that if you elect them, all your societal woes will be resolved.  And yet, for some reason we tend to doubt the word of a politician.  By way of experience we know that politicians promise many things in order to get elected, but once in office they rarely keep those promises.  We trust politicians about as far as we can throw them.  
    But it’s not just politicians that have let us down by not keeping their word.  Parents, family members, co-workers, and friends have also let us down in the past by not keeping all the promises they’ve made to us.  As a result, we tend to be on our guard when someone promises us something, and we’re very skeptical as to whether they’ll keep their word or not.  It’s a way of protecting ourselves, so that we’re not hurt when they don’t come through for us.
    Unfortunately, this attitude towards the promises of men has jaundiced our attitude towards the promises of God, to the point where we sometimes doubt whether He can or wills to keep the promises He makes to us.  We hear God’s promises clearly enough in the Scriptures, but the circumstances around us often cause us to wonder whether He will really come through for us or not.  What we see with our eyes often gets us to question the Word that we hear with our ears.
    But this is why God gives His people the words from today’s O.T. lesson.  With these words He promises that His Word will do what He sends it out to do.  He gives His people this assurance, so that they might be comforted in knowing that God will do what He says He’ll do, in spite of any circumstances that might suggest otherwise.  For the Jewish people whom He was addressing through the prophet Isaiah at that time this meant that even though God was going to exile them to Babylon for 70 years on account of their sin of abandoning Him and going after other gods, God was not going to abandon them.  Instead, after their 70 years of captivity He was going to free them from their bondage in Babylon, just as He had once freed them from their slavery in Egypt, and bring them back into the promised land.  God was promising His people a rebirth and renewal as a nation, something which even creation itself would rejoice in, something that the people could cling to and look forward to in hope during their captivity, because it was a sure thing:  God would keep His Word.  He would do what He promised.  And 70 years later, the promise came true:  Cyrus king of Persia, having conquered Babylon, issued a decree that any Jews wishing to return to Jerusalem could do so and rebuild the temple of the Lord.  Then it was as the writer of Psalm 126 sings, “When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.  Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.”
    Today, we, the people of God by way of our Baptism into Christ, have through that Baptism been saved from our slavery under sin, death, the devil, and the Law.  Like the exodus of the Israelites from the land of Egypt, the Church of Christ has been granted her own exodus from the things which held her captive.  Jesus, God’s Word in the flesh, did what God sent Him to do in redeeming us with His blood shed at Calvary.  Through Baptism this redemption was applied to us; we were cleansed from all sin, we were freed from our enemies, we were made children of God.  And yet, we don’t see any of these promises of God with our eyes.  All we have is His Word.  In fact, what our eyes see seems to suggest that we are still captive to these things.  We still sin.  We’re still oppressed by the devil.  We still hear the Law threatening us.  We still die.  Not only that, but it’s like we’re living in a kind of Babylonian captivity of our own.  We live in an evil age, when people hate Christ and His Church and when false christ’s, false gods, and false gospels are being proclaimed.  We live in this world among the wicked like Lot lived among the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, where living in sin was not only practiced and tolerated, but it was also encouraged.  Besides all this, we have to live with our own sinful nature and its lusts, which constantly fight against our desire to live as God’s free people in Jesus.  If we had to judge based solely on what we see whether God has kept His Word to us or not, we might seriously have to conclude that, no, He hasn’t.  What, then, is our justification for believing His Word?  How do we know that God keeps His promises and does what He says, when our experience suggests otherwise?
    Fortunately, the faith in His Word that God requires isn’t blind faith.  It’s not a leap of faith, where we’re expected to jump off of a cliff and trust that God will catch us, even though we have no evidence or promise suggesting that He will.  Faith in God’s Word is founded on fact, the historical facts of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven recorded in the N.T. documents by reliable eye-witnesses, who paid for their testimony with their own blood.  It’s the historic fact of God’s work of salvation through Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead that shows us that God has kept all the promises He made in the past and that He therefore will keep all the promises He makes to us today in Jesus Christ.  
    The bodily resurrection of Christ is God’s seal par excellence that God keeps His Word.  It is the sure sign that God does what His Word says and that you can therefore believe it and trust in it.  If anyone’s Word can be believed it’s the Word of Jesus Christ, who proved that He could be believed by rising from the dead.  With such a sign He confirmed not only that He was God in the flesh, just as He claimed to be, but that He perfectly fulfilled all the promises that God had made in the O.T.  Jesus says that the entire O.T. speaks of and points to Him, and the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians that “all the promises of God find their Yes in [Jesus Christ].”  And so, to believe in Jesus Christ is to say that God does what He promises.  In Jesus we see that God has a 100% track record of keeping His Word.  
    And because Jesus is proof that God has kept all the promises He’s made in the past, you can trust that He will keep all the promises He makes to you today as well.  Even though you don’t see them with your eyes, you can know for certainty that you have the things that God has promised to you in Jesus.  You have the forgiveness of all your sins, even though you still sin.  You have eternal life and salvation, even though you still die.  You are free from your slavery under the devil and the world, even though they still oppress and accuse you.  You have been declared righteous, even though the Law still convicts you.  And even though it feels like you’re captive to this present evil age, a new age is coming.  It will be an age of joy and peace, an age which even creation itself longs for now and will rejoice in when the Lord ushers it in at His coming.  The Apostle Paul talks about that new age in the book of Romans.  He says that “creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”  
    Not only do we, then, have a restoration and renewal to look forward to in the new age, but so also does the rest of God’s creation.  Israel’s return to the promised land after their 70 years of captivity was to be a preview of this.  So Isaiah here talks about the mountains and hills breaking forth into singing and the trees of the field clapping their hands on that day.  Well, mountains and hills don’t literally sing, do they?  And trees don’t have any hands to clap with.  And yet when the Pharisees told Jesus to rebuke His disciples for praising Him upon His entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Jesus said, “I tell you , if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”  And David writes, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.  Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.”  Somehow, creation itself rejoiced when Israel returned to the promised land, and it will rejoice with us on the day that our Lord makes all things new and ushers us into the new age.
    Isaiah continues by saying that cypress trees and myrtle will replace thorn bushes and briers in the new age, and that all of this will “make a Name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”  There’s both a present and a future reality promised here.  We have the firstfruits of this renewal in our Baptism, where what was once dead has been given new life in Christ.  In Baptism the new creation has already begun as we have been united with Him who was once buried in the earth like a grain of wheat, but came to life and produced much fruit.  In Baptism the Word of God did what He sent it out to do, applying the water of life to us, so that we might sprout and bring forth good fruit - the fruit of faith towards God and works of love towards our neighbor.  In the new age to come, however, Baptism will have its final way with us when we ourselves come out of the ground just as Jesus did with new bodies like His to live and reign with Him for all eternity in the new heavens and the new earth.  That’s when we’ll see with our eyes what we now have by faith in God’s Word.  That’s when we’ll see what God promises us here through Isaiah:  We will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will break forth into singing, and the trees of the field will clap their hands.  Cypresses will come instead of thorns and myrtle instead of briers.  All of creation will rejoice that God has kept His promises, that His Word will have done what He sent it out to do.
    It’s to God and His Word alone that all the glory and praise go for our salvation and the new creation.  We can take credit for none of it.  The fact that God keeps His Word, causing it to do what He sends it out to do, brings glory and honor to His Name.  With the mention of God’s Name here, Isaiah means to say that God’s reputation is at stake when He promises something.  Does God have a reputation of keeping His Word or breaking His Word?  Again, we go back to Jesus, in whom all the promises of God are Yes.  In Jesus we see that God does keep His Word; God’s Word does do what He sends it out to do; God does what He promises, and this gives us hope when we feel like we’re still in a state of captivity in this present evil age.  God’s Word is the everlasting sign that Isaiah’s talking about here that will never be cut off.  It endures forever; it will never pass away; it has never and will never fail.  It’s backed by God’s Name.  It’s backed by Jesus.
    Unlike fallen human beings, then, God keeps His Word.  His Word does what He sends it out to do.  By His Word He created you in the womb.  By His Word through the washing of Baptism He recreated you and gave you new life in Jesus.  By His Word He continues to forgive your sins for Christ’s sake.  By His Word He feeds you on the body and blood of Jesus, the food of immortality in the Lord’s Supper, assuring you of the resurrection of your body on the Last Day.  By His Word He helps you to grow in the grace and knowledge of your Savior and gives you the strength and help you need to stand firm in the faith until the end.  And by His Word He will bring about what He promises on the Last Day, sending Jesus to raise you from the dead, to give you a new body fit for eternity, and to usher you into the new heavens and the new earth that He’s going to create for you.  You can trust God’s Word.  It does what it says and delivers what it promises.  It will not return to God void.  It has accomplished and will accomplish what God sends it out to do.  It’s been sealed with Christ’s blood and confirmed by His resurrection from the dead.  In Jesus all God’s promises to you are ‘Yes.’  Amen.
 the land of Egypt, the Church of Christ has been granted her own exodus from the things which held her captive.  Jesus, God’s Word in the flesh, did what God sent Him to do in redeeming us with His blood shed at Calvary.  Through Baptism this redemption was applied to us; we were cleansed from all sin, we were freed from our enemies, we were made children of God.  And yet, we don’t see any of these promises of God with our eyes.  All we have is His Word.  In fact, what our eyes see seems to suggest that we are still captive to these things.  We still sin.  We’re still oppressed by the devil.  We still hear the Law threatening us.  We still die.  Not only that, but it’s like we’re living in a kind of Babylonian captivity of our own.  We live in an evil age, when people hate Christ and His Church and when false christ’s, false gods, and false gospels are being proclaimed.  We live in this world among the wicked like Lot lived among the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, where living in sin was not only practiced and tolerated, but it was also encouraged.  Besides all this, we have to live with our own sinful nature and its lusts, which constantly fight against our desire to live as God’s free people in Jesus.  If we had to judge based solely on what we see whether God has kept His Word to us or not, we might seriously have to conclude that, no, He hasn’t.  What, then, is our justification for believing His Word?  How do we know that God keeps His promises and does what He says, when our experience suggests otherwise?
    Fortunately, the faith in His Word that God requires isn’t blind faith.  It’s not a leap of faith, where we’re expected to jump off of a cliff and trust that God will catch us, even though we have no evidence or promise suggesting that He will.  Faith in God’s Word is founded on fact, the historical facts of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven recorded in the N.T. documents by reliable eye-witnesses, who paid for their testimony with their own blood.  It’s the historic fact of God’s work of salvation through Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead that shows us that God has kept all the promises He made in the past and that He therefore will keep all the promises He makes to us today in Jesus Christ.  
    The bodily resurrection of Christ is God’s seal par excellence that God keeps His Word.  It is the sure sign that God does what His Word says and that you can therefore believe it and trust in it.  If anyone’s Word can be believed it’s the Word of Jesus Christ, who proved that He could be believed by rising from the dead.  With such a sign He confirmed not only that He was God in the flesh, just as He claimed to be, but that He perfectly fulfilled all the promises that God had made in the O.T.  Jesus says that the entire O.T. speaks of and points to Him, and the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians that “all the promises of God find their Yes in [Jesus Christ].”  And so, to believe in Jesus Christ is to say that God does what He promises.  In Jesus we see that God has a 100% track record of keeping His Word.  
    And because Jesus is proof that God has kept all the promises He’s made in the past, you can trust that He will keep all the promises He makes to you today as well.  Even though you don’t see them with your eyes, you can know for certainty that you have the things that God has promised to you in Jesus.  You have the forgiveness of all your sins, even though you still sin.  You have eternal life and salvation, even though you still die.  You are free from your slavery under the devil and the world, even though they still oppress and accuse you.  You have been declared righteous, even though the Law still convicts you.  And even though it feels like you’re captive to this present evil age, a new age is coming.  It will be an age of joy and peace, an age which even creation itself longs for now and will rejoice in when the Lord ushers it in at His coming.  The Apostle Paul talks about that new age in the book of Romans.  He says that “creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”  
    Not only do we, then, have a restoration and renewal to look forward to in the new age, but so also does the rest of God’s creation.  Israel’s return to the promised land after their 70 years of captivity was to be a preview of this.  So Isaiah here talks about the mountains and hills breaking forth into singing and the trees of the field clapping their hands on that day.  Well, mountains and hills don’t literally sing, do they?  And trees don’t have any hands to clap with.  And yet when the Pharisees told Jesus to rebuke His disciples for praising Him upon His entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Jesus said, “I tell you , if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”  And David writes, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.  Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.”  Somehow, creation itself rejoiced when Israel returned to the promised land, and it will rejoice with us on the day that our Lord makes all things new and ushers us into the new age.
    Isaiah continues by saying that cypress trees and myrtle will replace thorn bushes and briers in the new age, and that all of this will “make a Name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”  There’s both a present and a future reality promised here.  We have the firstfruits of this renewal in our Baptism, where what was once dead has been given new life in Christ.  In Baptism the new creation has already begun as we have been united with Him who was once buried in the earth like a grain of wheat, but came to life and produced much fruit.  In Baptism the Word of God did what He sent it out to do, applying the water of life to us, so that we might sprout and bring forth good fruit - the fruit of faith towards God and works of love towards our neighbor.  In the new age to come, however, Baptism will have its final way with us when we ourselves come out of the ground just as Jesus did with new bodies like His to live and reign with Him for all eternity in the new heavens and the new earth.  That’s when we’ll see with our eyes what we now have by faith in God’s Word.  That’s when we’ll see what God promises us here through Isaiah:  We will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will break forth into singing, and the trees of the field will clap their hands.  Cypresses will come instead of thorns and myrtle instead of briers.  All of creation will rejoice that God has kept His promises, that His Word will have done what He sent it out to do.
    It’s to God and His Word alone that all the glory and praise go for our salvation and the new creation.  We can take credit for none of it.  The fact that God keeps His Word, causing it to do what He sends it out to do, brings glory and honor to His Name.  With the mention of God’s Name here, Isaiah means to say that God’s reputation is at stake when He promises something.  Does God have a reputation of keeping His Word or breaking His Word?  Again, we go back to Jesus, in whom all the promises of God are Yes.  In Jesus we see that God does keep His Word; God’s Word does do what He sends it out to do; God does what He promises, and this gives us hope when we feel like we’re still in a state of captivity in this present evil age.  God’s Word is the everlasting sign that Isaiah’s talking about here that will never be cut off.  It endures forever; it will never pass away; it has never and will never fail.  It’s backed by God’s Name.  It’s backed by Jesus.
    Unlike fallen human beings, then, God keeps His Word.  His Word does what He sends it out to do.  By His Word He created you in the womb.  By His Word through the washing of Baptism He recreated you and gave you new life in Jesus.  By His Word He continues to forgive your sins for Christ’s sake.  By His Word He feeds you on the body and blood of Jesus, the food of immortality in the Lord’s Supper, assuring you of the resurrection of your body on the Last Day.  By His Word He helps you to grow in the grace and knowledge of your Savior and gives you the strength and help you need to stand firm in the faith until the end.  And by His Word He will bring about what He promises on the Last Day, sending Jesus to raise you from the dead, to give you a new body fit for eternity, and to usher you into the new heavens and the new earth that He’s going to create for you.  You can trust God’s Word.  It does what it says and delivers what it promises.  It will not return to God void.  It has accomplished and will accomplish what God sends it out to do.  It’s been sealed with Christ’s blood and confirmed by His resurrection from the dead.  In Jesus all God’s promises to you are ‘Yes.’  Amen.

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