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His Unfailing Love and Peace Remain, Always Based on Isaiah 54:1-10 and especially 10 “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you.” - Isaiah 54:10 By Pastor Jim Beyer for St Mark Lutheran Church, Santa Rosa, CA Sunday, August 23, 20020 – Sunday School Rally and Kick Off Day Final Draft but unedited and uncited. Acknowledging Anita Jabastion as a resource.
Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, Who with the Holy Spirit, we give all honor, praise and glory to, now and always. AMEN Our key verse for this morning which serves as the basis and springboard fo this message is taken from our Old Testament lesson appointed for today, Isaiah 54:10. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you. This is a wonderful promise that the Lord gave to His church in a time of great turmoil and facing dire circumstances. It is a promise that still holds true for each one of us who are part of the church, today. To understand the magnitude of this promise better, we need to know a little bit about the background. The book of Isaiah was written by the prophet Isaiah who lived before and after the year 700 BC. And God, through Isaiah, speaks words that both address the events and issues of his day, happening right then and there; as well, interestingly, the events that would occur in the future, that would happen in our day, and even of our future when Christ will return and usher in a new heaven and a new earth. Isaiah is also living at a time when the land in which God’s church was living was divided in two. The land to the north was called the Kingdom of Israel. The Kingdom to the south was called the Kingdom of Judah and it included the capital city of Jerusalem By the time Isaiah is on the scene speaking God’s Word, prophecies and promises, the northern Kingdom of Israel has already been conquered and to the most part, destroyed and the people deported and scattered by the brutal Assyrian army. And also by this time, the church in the southern Kingdom of Judah had turned their worship and attention to worshipping false and foreign gods had backslidden and began to worship foreign Gods. (Isaiah 1:3). And just like God brought in the Assyrian army in order turn the people around the people if Israel, to call them to repentance, and to drive them to leave their idols and false gods and return to worshipping and serving Him; He
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would also allow the Babylonians, 130 years later, to conquer and scatter the church of the southern Kingdom of Judah. God speaks through Isaiah and foretells of the judgement that was coming as a corrective measure to turn the hearts of the members of His church back to loving and serving Him and being the recipients of His lavish mercy and blessings. God’s corrective measure to bring them back from worshipping and service false idols is going to create extreme difficulties and unpleasantries. However, God speaks words to the church through Isaiah, of hope to his people. These include promise of return from captivity, a restoration of blessings, and the gift of eternal redemption through Messiah. Among these promises of hope, we find this beautiful verse, Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10 If we break down this promise, we can find that things happened exactly so in the life of the Israelites – God’s church of Isaiah’s day. The first part of the verse says, Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, Mountains and hills are known for their stability. It is very unlikely that mountains and hills be departed or removed. Likewise, the Israelites had their own strongholds which gave them a great sense of security. They believed in their kings. They believe in their false prophets who proclaimed false peace. And they believed in their neighboring allies. But those mountains and hills were shaken. They crumbled. Their kings in whom they trusted were taken as captives. The words of the false prophets failed. And their trusted allies abandoned them. The northern kingdom fell into the hands of the Assyrians. And the southern kingdom of Judah would fall into the hands of the Babylonians. Similarly, in our lives too, there are mountains and hills in which we trust. What is it that we trust in to help us, sustain us, care for us, protect us, and bring to us a life that is full of purpose and happiness and joy? It is our jobs, our spouses, our children, our parents, or our friends. Is it our government, our country, or our fellow citizens? Is it our constitution and the wisdom of guidelines of our founding fathers or todays political leaders? It is science and technology and medical advancement?
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All of those things can be wonderful, supportive agents in our lives. But they can also become false gods, and powerless forces. They can be shaken and toppled. And if they distract us from the trusting and depending on God, or become a replacement for the first love of our lives – God Himself, - they become idols. There are times in our lives when those support systems are shaken, and times when they tumble and fall and are useless to us. And there are times, when if our hearts are captured by the love of things so that they distract us from loving and serving our true God, - our Maker, - who in verse 5 of this section from Isaiah, describes Himself to be the “husband” of the church – which makes us His first and true love, and His “wife,” then, He will rattled and shake those support systems so that they crumble and are no more. It’s His way of correcting us, of bringing us back into the fullness of relationship; and where experience His grace and mercy and kind love. The next part of the verse says, “yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken “ The word, “‘Yet” here conveys a lot. Our Lord, who describes Himself as a faithful, loving husband, and who is also our Mighty Maker, and who is Holy – meaning, He always does what is right, and just, and good – and Who is our redeemer – who is always working to keep us His beloved – even to the extent of doing whatever is necessary to bring us back - - says that though mountains depart, and the hills be moved… His unfailing love for you will not be moved, will not depart, will not be broken. “Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. That was a great promise of hope to the family of God – the believers back in Isaiah’s day. Very dire times were coming. Things would become so difficult that they would feel like they had been abandoned by God, and no longer loved by their Mighty Maker and faithful Husband. They would fall into severely unpleasant circumstances. But the Lord promised He would restore them as His beloved wife. That He would forgive them, and with great desire and compassion, welcome them back into a relationship with Him where again they would experience the fullness of His kindness and blessing. The Lord would bring them back from their land of captivity For me, one of the most heartwarming and hope-creating verses in this section of Isaiah is found in verses 8 and 9:
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. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you," says the LORD your Redeemer. "To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Isaiah 54:8-9 How is it possible that the Lord can promise so clearly, so concretely, so that again? How is that possible, especially since His bride, which is us, still follow idols, still at times fall far short of keeping Him our first and only love? It is because of Christ! It is because of Jesus Christ. When something is broken – whether a chair, or a relationship – to make it right, someone pays the price for restoration. And on the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ paid the price. He purchased forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration when He shed His blood. We deserved to pay the price of our coming back and our coming to Him. We should have made right all our wrongs. But we couldn’t. It’s too much. We could never make amends. We could never pay enough to move our Holy and Just God, our Maker, our Husband, to freely, willingly, welcome us back. His justice and holiness require that someone pay the price for our redemption. And so, He does it Himself. In love, in mercy, in compassion, He pays the price Himself. And because the price has been paid, He vows He will never again hide His face from His bride. He swears never to be angry with His people, and He vows on His own character and because of what He did with His Son, Jesus at the cross, to never rebuke His believing church. As we face the distressful, discombobulating, unpleasant even dire circumstances of life and culture and the world around us today, we have in God a loving, forgiving, Caring, Almighty, Holy and Redeeming God who loves us with the passion of Husband deeply and desperately in love with His wife. And He will shelter us in His strong arms in the times of storms. He will protect us from being crushed by our enemies. He will provide for our needs. He will give us rest and contentment in His covenant of peace. And finally, He will take us with Him, when our journey on earth is done, to live with Him in the home of the redeemed, in the beauty and glory of His presence in heaven itself; and in His perfect love and peace.
Acknowledgement: Borrowed freely from the writing of Anitha Jabastion, Apostolic Church, India. Jul 17, 2020
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