Show Notes
Isaiah 25:6-9
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Amen.
[00:00:01] Our Heavenly Father, we give you all praise and glory and honor. We are your children, your people, the sheep of your pastor. Pastor. Guide us, O Lord, and we thank you and praise you for the ways in which you preserve our lives.
[00:00:19] We see in Christ that you did not fail to keep your promises of victory over death.
[00:00:28] You did not fail to secure salvation for a people condemned to death because of their sins and the sin inherited. But O Lord, he rose from the dead and all who belong to him are promised to rise as well.
[00:00:51] You've told us even now that as we put our trust in Jesus, we have been united to him in his death and in his resurrection. Your Word tells us that by your Spirit we are united to Christ and receive his life and are seated with him in the heavenly places. You tell us in your word that a glorious day is coming when the dead will rise.
[00:01:18] The dead will rise and your saints.
[00:01:22] Not just those particular people who have done good works or great works, but Lord, all those who have been redeemed in Christ, every single brother and sister, man, woman and child, rise from the dead, victorious in him to praise your name forever, to receive the fullness of joy, life everlasting, and pleasures forevermore. We thank you our God, for securing such a great hope for us. We ask that you would expand it and deepen it, that our lives might be lived according to it. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:06] If you're able to remain standing, please do. And let's turn our attention to Isaiah chapter 25.
[00:02:27] This morning when we read 1 Corinthians 15, we heard how Paul said there was a number of things that happened according to the Scriptures. According to the Scriptures and throughout the Gospels. This is one of the main arguments that the Gospel writers used to prove that Jesus was who he said he was and that he did what he did.
[00:02:50] He did them according to the Scriptures, according to the things that had been done. And this includes passages such as Isaiah 25, which we'll hear this evening. I'll read verses six through nine.
[00:03:02] On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of rich food, full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth. For the Lord has spoken. It will be Said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for Him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. Amen. You may be seated.
[00:04:05] So in Psalm 16 we heard these phrases, right? The fullness of joy at his right hand, pleasures forevermore.
[00:04:15] Those are very big statements.
[00:04:18] Those are very, very big claim and very good ones, right?
[00:04:26] The Lord has given us. He has made us in a certain way in which we are meant to be in his presence. We are meant to glorify Him. We are meant to enjoy Him. Part of our salvation is not just obedience, doing the right thing and grinding away at that, but it's doing the right thing and enjoying it. It's praising God and enjoying it. It's worshipping God and enjoying it. It's being in community and fellowship with him and other believers and enjoying it.
[00:05:01] Pleasure, pleasantness, safety, protection, all of these kind of things.
[00:05:08] Because we were made this way. And we were made this way to be in relationship with God this way.
[00:05:16] When brokenness comes into our hearts and into our lives and into our world, there's a disruption of that and we feel that. But those longings are still there.
[00:05:27] We have these longings in our hearts for things to be right even when they're not. And that can be really hard.
[00:05:36] Now, admittedly, some of the longings that go on in our lives are not so holy. Some of the desires and cravings that we have are things that we go.
[00:05:46] They're gross to us on the one hand, and yet we want them on the other hand. There's this way in which we can crave certain things and we can cry out to the Lord and say, oh, Lord, deliver me from this. I hate this. But I'm entrapped by it. I'm enticed by it. I'm tempted by it.
[00:06:04] I'm not talking about those kinds of longings.
[00:06:07] I'm talking about holy longings. Longings for good things. Longings for things that God has designed us for.
[00:06:17] As it gets hot right outside, you'll see certain animals kind of creep into the shade in the afternoon. They long to be in the cool or get the dirt on their belly. Or you'll see plants, some of them reaching out toward the sun, trying to get their positioned correctly so they can receive as much light as possible. Others doing all kinds of interesting things. There's this way in which we also, we have these longings in us and we drive toward that and we hunger for that and we want that. And that's a good thing.
[00:06:51] And that kind of longing will never be satisfied by anything except what?
[00:06:58] Except the Lord and what he gives. If you've ever been up late at night, just talking for myself maybe, but if you've ever been up late and you kind of are hungry for something and you go to the fridge, you look and you're like, no, you look again, no three, four times. You're looking for something. Maybe you're wanting something salty, maybe you're wanting something sweet. And you just don't have quite what you want, right? It's kind of like that, that longing for fellowship, that longing for connection, that longing for a deep and holy relationship with God, right? There's a way in which we try to find it in these things of the world, and it's just never going to work. You can even try eating other stuff, right? You can try these other things, but they won't satisfy because they can't. Because they're not God.
[00:07:49] The Lord tells us, though, that in Christ he provides for us this longing. He provides for us the satisfaction that he designed us to have. He didn't design us in such a way that we're supposed to go off and be our own gods and be independent. He designed us to be in fellowship with Him. That's a good thing. You're not weak for wanting God. You're not weak for wanting fellowship. You're not weak for wanting a worship. Weak in a bad way. But you were designed to. To be strong in these things. This is how you were made.
[00:08:25] And so we hunger after these things. And in Jesus, God provides them for us. He tells us, Jesus says, I am the bread of life.
[00:08:34] He says to the woman at the well, he promises her streams of living waters that well up to eternal life in Him.
[00:08:43] And these pictures of satisfaction and hope and. And peace and all of these kinds of things are pictured in this place here in Isaiah, chapter 25, verses 6 through 9.
[00:08:57] What I want to do this evening is walk through just a little bit, for just a little bit of time with you. These verses for this reason.
[00:09:04] When we think about the hope that we have in heaven, the hope that we have in Christ, sometimes, especially at the beginning of our faith, it's a little bit fuzzy what it is we're hoping in. Maybe it's not super specific. We know it's good. We know it's maybe even really good or the best thing. But if we say if, perhaps you ask yourself, well, name three things that you're hoping in in this larger hope. You know, would you be able to answer that question? Would you be able to answer some of the specifics of what you're really, really looking forward to, what we're longing for and what God promises to provide? If not, that's okay. But the scripture gives us instruction about these things, gives definition, allows us to go deeper and get more and more clarity about what God has promised.
[00:09:55] And it's good for us to understand that. Not just so that we can understand it, but it strengthens our hope.
[00:10:02] It strengthens our hope.
[00:10:04] If you're going to go on vacation somewhere to a place you've never seen, never heard of, know anything about, it might be hard to get a little bit excited about it. You know, somebody tells you it's good, I promise. Okay, but if they tell you how beautiful the beaches are and how gorgeous the trees and how the people are so hospitable and how everything's cheap and, you know, and on and on and on. Right? This is sounding really good.
[00:10:32] There's excitement that happens, there's joy that happens in the specifics. As we get clarity, it strengthens us, it builds our zeal. And God does this to encourage us to persevere, to fight, and to put our trust in Him.
[00:10:47] So what are some of the things that he says here? Well, he begins in verse 6 of chapter 25. On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, A feast of well aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
[00:11:07] Before we get to the feast, notice what he says about the peoples. It is on this mountain that the Lord Yahweh of hosts, this great mighty king with armies of angelic beings, he will make something, a feast for all peoples.
[00:11:26] Already we can stop and enjoy something here and, and, and, and be thankful for something, one of these specific things in our world. Ever since the Fall, we have had a people problem with people, right? Adam and Eve pointing fingers at each other. Cain and Abel, a murder right from the beginning and on and on and on. It got so bad in the world.
[00:11:56] So much murder, so much a trouble among mankind, so much bloodshed, so much violation of people and their rights and all these sort of things that God sent a flood to judge the whole world, leaving only Noah and his family. Problems from the very beginning, problems that continue to today. We love people, but we struggle with them too. And we protect ourselves from them and we watch out and we're on guard. And people do all kinds of hateful things to other people. And a lot of Times based on the places that they come from, the color of their skin, their education, their background, their language. And what the Lord promises in his salvation is to solve the people problem as I'm describing it, to create a body of people that come together from every tribe, tongue and nation, from all of his humanity, all of these from this one race that have descended from Adam, a body together to worship him.
[00:12:58] All of the fighting, all of the trouble, all of the wars now gone, and a people sitting down for a great big meal.
[00:13:10] Listen to a picture of this from Revelation.
[00:13:14] The apostle John is given this revelation by the Holy Spirit. And he records some of the things that he sees and he hears in Revelation, chapter five.
[00:13:27] We read this in verse nine.
[00:13:31] Actually, I'll start in eight.
[00:13:33] And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb. That's Jesus pictured as a lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, worthy are you to take the scrolls or to take the scroll and to open its seals. For you were slain and by your blood. You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. Then I looked, and around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels KN numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them, saying to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. And the four living creatures said, amen. And the elders fell down and worshiped.
[00:14:54] This is what we were designed for.
[00:14:57] This is what we were made for. And God has promised to do it and to do it in Christ.
[00:15:04] He describes this happening on this mountain, on Jerusalem, or on Zion, in this city, Jerusalem, which pictures forth Zion and the new Jerusalem heaven.
[00:15:19] He describes this, this picture of all the people coming together where the Lord of hosts makes for them a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, rich food full of marrow and aged wine full of well refined.
[00:15:36] I messed up the reading there. Right there. But do you hear the poetry of it?
[00:15:44] It's almost like the words are being spread out. So is the food. This banquet this feast.
[00:15:52] And what an amazing thing, we who owe God everything, He is spreading this feast for us.
[00:16:02] At the end of Psalm 23, one of the most famous psalms in all the psalms, in all the world, the. The psalm says, you prepare a table before me for me in the presence of my enemies. I always picture this, you know, this giant battle going on all around, and then people sitting down to eat, and they're all calm and talking with one another. Pass the bread. Oh, this is really good wine, right? Not caring about all of this trouble around them, all of the enemies that threaten them, because they don't threaten them, they're not afraid because they're watched over by the shepherd.
[00:16:43] This picture in Psalm 23 and here in many other places, including in Revelation, is a picture of what God does for us.
[00:16:51] You've heard me say this a number of times. It's a truth that's precious to me. You know, Jesus tells us to pray for our daily bread. And then he gives us this.
[00:17:02] Pray for your daily bread. Our Father who art in heaven, right? Give us this day our daily bread. And then he says, here's a feast.
[00:17:10] This is what our Lord does for us. He doesn't just give us these little things here and there. He provides for us so richly.
[00:17:20] I'm in this life, although sometimes it's hard to see because we sacrifice a lot, we give up a lot, sometimes we lose even our lives for him. But what does it compare to the great glory that's coming? What do our enemies compare to the great victory we have in Jesus?
[00:17:38] And so we have this feast of rich food, this feast of well aged wine. Remember too what Jesus said when he says to his disciples, that I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until I drink it with you new in my Father's kingdom. Here's the picture of that Jesus fulfilling these promises, us resting and eating with the Lord.
[00:18:04] This is likely not just a meal, a well provided meal, a joyous meal, but a covenant meal. A meal in which the covenant Lord and the covenant King sits down with his people and celebrates the relationship, right? When we have birthday parties for one another, this is partly what we're doing, right? We celebrate this person partly, partly because we love them and we have this meal together, right? To talk, to demonstrate our connection with them and with each other.
[00:18:36] This is what the Lord does in the Lord's Supper and in these meals that are pictured in the scriptures, things that we can anticipate in days to come.
[00:18:46] We should keep going. Verse 7. He will swallow up on this mountain, the covering that is cast over all people.
[00:18:54] Now, coverings, overall, people's coverings are sometimes a good thing, right? They are protecting, right? If you cover yourself with a, it's raining and you've put a fly over your tent, now you're protected from the rain. That's a good thing. But covering can also be a bad thing, right? A covering can be blindness. And that seems to be the case here. Blindness and confusion that is over all the nations. A way in which hearts are darkened throughout the world so that when they see Yahweh, when they see him working with his people, saving his people for a long time, only very few of them joined God's people, right? We have Rahab and Ruth and Naaman and a few others here and there.
[00:19:42] But nothing like what happened when Jesus came, when the Son of God came. When he rose from the dead, he sent his Holy Spirit and commanded his apostles to go to all the nations, baptizing them, teaching them everything that Jesus had commanded. Something really big changed. And the promise that God gave to Abraham and through him, a blessing to all the nations, all of a sudden went out to the whole world. And so that we know even today there are Christians worshiping here in Tucson, really far away from where Jesus first ministered.
[00:20:22] All the way, way far north and way far south and east and west from us and from where he first began today.
[00:20:32] It's an amazing thing. And sometimes we get to meet these people. We had people this morning here from Florida and Ohio.
[00:20:41] These are far away places. Maybe not by modern standards, but the Lord's Gospel has gone out to us and many other places. What a joyous thing it is.
[00:20:55] And many of us did not grow up with, like Paul did, with the heritage of Israel and the people and all the covenants that God had given to the Jews. Most of us, and our lineage descends from people who worshiped trees and the dead and poured out blood, sacrificed offerings to idols. This is most of our family history.
[00:21:22] And so when we hear about the covering being lifted from the nations and the veil being unlifted, we should jump up and down. That's me. That's me. I can see. I can see what a joyful, awesome thing that is.
[00:21:43] Verse 8.
[00:21:45] He will swallow up death forever swallowing death. What an image that is to take death, this thing that touches every single person, affects us all so deeply, so in such difficult and sad and mournful ways. And it, it becomes like an item of food that the Lord just consumes and it is gone.
[00:22:18] Something so massive so pervasive. And he just swallows it up and forever it's simply gone.
[00:22:33] First Corinthians 15 where we began. If you were with us this morning, it's good to go back there now and hear the end of that chapter.
[00:22:44] First Corinthians 15:50.
[00:22:48] I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed from this perishable body. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory.
[00:23:36] O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?
[00:23:42] The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:23:55] God gives us the victory.
[00:23:58] He gives us the victory because he swallows up death forever. And he swallows up death forever by taking care of the reason for debt. Death, sin.
[00:24:10] Evil came into the world because we did an evil thing.
[00:24:17] Evil came into the world not as this, sort of like a substance or something like that, but evil came into the world as that brokenness and that moral badness that comes from separating from the source of all good, from rebelling against the source of all good, our hope of good things.
[00:24:46] And with that, and with the sin problem taken care of, the death problem is taken care of and included in that is all the things that give us trouble.
[00:24:58] The Lord God will wipe away tears from our eyes or from our faces. Here it says, there's much in the world that brings us sadness.
[00:25:09] There are many things that rightfully cause us to mourn and long for and wish were better and hope for better days and pray for beloved, there is coming a day when you won't have to cry anymore.
[00:25:27] We battle right now. We contend right now. We fight right now against the flesh that wages war against us. Principalities and powers of darkness that are in in the world. The temptations, the lies, all of that. On top of that, the suffering that exists. We are contending, we are fighting. But that's not going to be forever. You need to remember this as part of the hope that you have. There's going to come a day when you won't have to fight anymore. And you can just rest.
[00:26:04] This is the promise the Lord gives to us. Now, of course, who could do that? I can't promise that to you. The world cannot promise that to you. But God, who made the world, God who sent his son, God who took care of sin, God who swallows up death, he can promise those things, and he has fulfilled them. We see that in the resurrection of Christ. We see that in people going from terrified and fearful to worshiping him and fulfilled, filled with great joy.
[00:26:34] It's Jesus. Can you imagine how exciting that would be?
[00:26:39] To be brokenhearted like these men on the road to Emmaus? Cleopas, I don't know what we're gonna do. And this we all. He said three days he was gonna. You know, it was hard.
[00:26:51] And now here he is.
[00:26:54] There he is, and he's still here.
[00:26:57] He. He ascended into heaven and he's ruling and reigning from there. But he is going to come again. And he continues to be with us and persevere us until that day.
[00:27:08] And when that day comes, he will wipe away every tear from our faces, as well as the reproach of his people.
[00:27:17] He will take away from all the earth all the things that people say, all the ways in which they fight against the Lord and persecute his people. It will be gone. The Lord will vindicate his day, vindicate his name.
[00:27:31] And notice this, for the Lord has spoken.
[00:27:35] He simply says it and it will happen.
[00:27:41] This is yet another demonstration of his great power. It will be said on that day. There will be a response to the Lord's speaking. Behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for Him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
[00:28:01] Well, there is a future day that is coming, as we've said, a day of judgment that is coming. A day of resurrection and the Lord's return that's coming. And we'll say things like this, but remember this. The resurrection from the dead has already started.
[00:28:20] It's already begun because Jesus rose from the dead. And he's the first fruits of that. That first little bud that comes out on a tree. And you say, oh, here comes all the rest of the fruit. The season has started. That's the season we're in. We're in resurrection season.
[00:28:44] And so that means we don't just have to wait until the Lord returns to say this, but we can say it.
[00:28:53] Behold, this is our God, we have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
[00:29:05] Let's pray.
[00:29:08] Our Heavenly Father, fill our hearts with joy this evening. And let us submit ourselves before you, our one and only hope. Put to death the pride that is in us. Put to death the arrogance that is in us that would seek to stand against you and say that we are the great ones, that we are the majestic ones, the mighty ones, the holy ones. O Lord, we have nothing to bring to you except our sin.
[00:29:33] Everything that we touch in our corruption and our brokenness is stained. Until you come along and change our lives and make us saints.
[00:29:44] Until you come along and begin to wipe away the tears from our eyes.
[00:29:50] Until you come along and lift the veil that is spread over the nations and even swallow up death so that we can think of ourselves and know ourselves to be those who have already died in Christ and are now living in him.
[00:30:06] Lord, when we die, until the Lord returns, we know from your word that we are just those who. As though we are those who are like those who are asleep.
[00:30:18] That you watch over our bodies even as you watch over us in our sleep. And one day you will raise us to immortality imperishability that we might worship and praise you forever.
[00:30:33] Lord, we celebrate the Day of Resurrection not only that first day, but all the days since this great season of resurrection in which we live every day of our lives. In light of what has happened and in light of what is coming.
[00:30:51] As we think about these various aspects of our hope, Lord of the mountain, for all peoples, of the feast of good food, of the covering that is lifted, the tears that are wiped away, the reproach that is taken away, all these things, Lord, we ask that you would help us when we long for them to remember that we have them in you and that we only need to persevere by your grace, by your power, by your strength to that last day. And so, Lord, we ask that you would persevere us and that you would bring to completion the work that you have begun. We pray all this in Jesus name, Amen.
