The Message and the Mission (Part 2 of 2)

Music playing Like all good news, God has given us a perfect solution. And like all good news, this is not something we keep quiet. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg urges us to join God in His mission and to proclaim God's message of the Gospel.

Our study continues in Isaiah chapter 40 verses 6 to 11. It's going to be a great year. Believe it. Believe it. Are you believing it?

People say, What's he talking about? I was getting a coffee three weeks ago, and there was a sign in the window that just said, Believe! Well, because the shop is closed, I want to go in and put next to it, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. But believe doesn't work. That's what God says. Don't listen to the words of the prophets who tell you, Believe, fill you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds. They're not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, It will be well with you. And to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say to them, No disaster shall come upon you.

Well, they haven't gone very far beyond Genesis 3, have they? And then the devil says, No, it's not a problem. It's not a problem. Go ahead.

Who are you going to listen to? What's the basis of the message? Later on, in the same chapter, he says, Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream.

That's what he wants to do. But let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord. Now, what you have here is not simply the contrast between the frailty and brevity of life. You do have that contrast.

It is there, isn't it? The flesh is like grass. The beauty is like the flower of the field.

There are very few flowers out there at the moment. But I want you to notice that you can get this truth somewhere other than the Bible. I mean, you can get this truth just by existing. If your children are here this morning, you say, Goodness, my dad's starting to look a little old. My papa, he looks really old.

And my grandmother, what's happening? And then suddenly it dawns on the child. You know, as you progress, you begin to fade. Your mental powers fade.

Your abilities, your physical frame, and everything else that goes along. Anybody that just exists can understand that. Everybody in the world knows that. One out of one dies. But you see, there's a phrase here that is easily passed over, and it's the key phrase I suggest to you. The grass withers, the flower fades. Why does the grass wither and the flower fade? Well, when the breath of the Lord blows on it. It's the metaphor here, isn't it? You think of it as the winds in California, and in the morning you get up, and your yard looks very, very nice, and they blow, start to blow, blow through the whole day and the night and into the next day, and before you know where you are, all the beauty has been actually devastated.

Now, let me just pause with you on this for a moment, as I think I must. Turn, if you have a Bible there, to Psalm 90 for a moment, to cross-reference this. The flower fades, the grass withers, because the breath of the Lord blows on it. In other words, you see, the expression of the frailty and brevity of life is in the context of God's judgment. In the context of God's judgment. Now, Psalm 90 is usually regarded as the funeral psalm.

That's what people say. Well, they read this psalm at funerals, and you will have been at funerals where they do read it. But as I've pointed out to you before, almost inevitably they skip verses 7 to 12, which of course explains the human predicament. Look at verse 7. You won't get this at most funerals, for we are brought to an end by your anger.

Now, we're gonna have to do something with that then, aren't we? We say, Lord, you have been our dwelling place through all generations. It's been a wonderful time. Old Bill was a fine fellow.

I remember we golfed frequently and so on. And in the run of events, eventually it all comes to an end, and here we are today to celebrate his life. Not a word given to why in the world it was he died in the first place or why anybody dies. We are brought to an end by your anger. By your wrath we are dismayed. Death is not the intended lot of God's creation. Death is God's judgment upon sin. In the day that you shall eat of this, you will surely die. And so, verses 9 and 10, if your Bible is open, all our days pass away under your wrath, we bring our years to an end like a sigh, the years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty, yet their span is but toil and trouble, they're soon gone, and we all fly away. But who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to their fear of you? You see, verses 9 and 10, that experience of the demise of our lives, we will never come to, without the revealing power of God the Holy Spirit.

We are resistant to this. Romans chapter 8 says that the natural mind is at enmity with God, is actually opposed to God. The idea that as we go amongst our friends, they're all living in some neutral zone—if they want to opt into the believing idea of the Bible, that's possible, but if they want just to remain in the neutral zone in which they find themselves, that is equally possible. The Bible says you're not in a neutral zone. By nature, we have no interest in God. By nature, we're at enmity with God, and we're hastening towards the judgment of God. You see, sin has affected our thinking, all of our thinking, in such a way that we are unwilling to or unable to acknowledge the truth that is plain to see both in creation and in Scripture.

You've thought about this, haven't you? I know you have, because people say to me all the time, but I told my friend, and they just don't see it. I mean, it's as obvious as the nose on your face, people will say things like that. Why is it, then, that things that are so obvious in creation…? I just said as a joke to my son the other day as he nursed our latest little grandchild, and his first son, he was pointing something out about the nature of the event, and I said, as I was just doing something else in class, I said, yeah, it's a wonderful thing, evolution, isn't it? And he said, Dad, you mean creation? I said, of course I mean creation. I was just testing you.

Now, why is that? Romans 1 explains it. The things that are obvious that God has revealed, put conscience in the human heart, revealed himself in this way. Why is it that that which is straightforward is then rebelled against, that is denied? Well, you see, although it is plain—plain enough to make us accountable—the message never registers until God brings it home to us. And they say, Well, that would take a miracle, wouldn't it?

That's exactly right. You see, one of the ways you can learn how to teach passages of the Old Testament is to find out what people have done with it in the New Testament. And we're wonderfully helped in this regard, because Peter quotes this exact section when, in his first chapter, he goes on to say, The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the LORD remains forever, and this word is the good news that was preached to you. The good news that was preached to you. The Word of God is not simply there as the contrast to human brevity and frailty but as the cure to our brevity and our frailty. You go back and read 1 Peter yourself. He says, I've been born again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

And this has been brought about not by perishable seed but by imperishable seed. This, my friends, was the message then, and it is the message now. Having spent fairly long on that, let's turn quickly and say something about the mission. Without a message, there is no mission.

That should be fairly straightforward. Everybody that I see, all the advertisements on the television, are all there. They have a message, and then they have a mission to convey it. And that's what is told here. They are heralds of good news. Zion, a herald of good news. Jerusalem, herald of good news. I take it that the word of comfort and tenderness that has come by the prophet to the people is then to be taken by those same people to, if you like, the outlying cities and territories of Judah.

If you're perceptive, which includes many of you, you'll realize what is happening here. I see he says to Jerusalem, Now you go and take this to Judah. Sounds a lot like the word of Jesus a little later on, and you shall take this from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the very ends of the earth. This is the mission. This is the mission.

And you say, Well, I've been tracking with you fairly well. I don't like the stuff about the anger of God, some of you are saying. I don't like the notion of the judgment of God and so on. Well, let me suggest to you that there is absolutely no benefit in hearing good news unless we have first understood the nature of the bad news. For the news that comes of salvation is because of the reality of sin. The news that comes of life and life eternal is because of the reality of death. The news that comes of a miraculous intervention is on account of the fact that we can't fix ourselves. And so, once you have received the message, then you'll want to do what we're told to do here.

And look at what we're told to do. First of all, go up on a high mountain. Go up on a high mountain. Well, are you supposed to go up on a high mountain?

I love it when people say, Well, I'd just like to take the Bible literally. I say, Okay, so where are you heading for? Everest? Or what's your plan? You could go to Ben Nevis.

That's a smaller one. I can point you in that direction. No, obviously, although the literal possibilities of a vantage point on a hillside are clear, it's straightforward. Make sure that you put yourself in a position where the message can be heard. Why don't you broadcast on the radio? That's quite a mountaintop.

Why don't you take it on the internet? That's quite a mountaintop. And so on. Go up. And then lift up. Lift up your voice. Lift up your voice.

Well, don't be going around just mumbling in your beard and whispering and saying, I'm sorry, I don't really like to mention this, but… No, no, no. It doesn't mean bravado. It doesn't mean shouting at people. It doesn't mean calling people down.

It doesn't mean anything like that at all. It means, like, it's a very, very hard day, and you found a van that was moving through the neighborhood, but its bell wasn't working, and you discovered that it was selling ice cream. And you got an ice cream, and you said, I gotta let the people know. There's a van around here that has ice cream.

You'll love this ice cream. Trust me, I've already had two. That's the spirit of it. I have discovered that there is comfort, there is joy, there is peace, there is salvation, there is restoration.

And I want you to know that there is, and I'd love for you to hear about it. That's the mission. Lift up your voice. And look, fear not. Fear not. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

Proclaim it fearlessly. We need, in our day, what was needed in Isaiah's day—people who were prepared to declare the Word of God in the power of the Spirit of God without fear. And part of the problem is that there is a loss of confidence in the pulpits of our churches, where the trumpet sounds somewhat uncertainly, and as a result, very few go out to battle. Now, you see, we don't look like much this morning. We don't look that much on any morning.

Not compared to the vast area of Cleveland, Akron, Kenton. How many out of a thousand are concerned about the Word of God, the gospel of God, the Son of God, in comparison to whether the Browns would beat the Steelers starting at twelve or one o'clock? There's no judgment in that. It makes perfect sense.

What am I living for? Let's watch the game. Of course.

It's fun. Then what? No, you see, we've got to realize that the message we have to proclaim is a straightforward message. Look. Behold your God.

This is what you're to say. In contrast, behold your God, in contrast to the gods of the nations, which were absolutely hopeless, as we saw last time. It's an old chestnut, but I like it, where the curate in the Anglican church is now going to be given the opportunity to preach for the first occasion in the absence of the vicar, and he's somewhat unsettled by it, and he sends a postcard to the local bishop, and he says to him, Dear bishop, what shall I preach about? And the bishop sent him a one-sentence reply, Dear curate, preach about God and preach about twenty minutes.

In other words, this is the message. Tell them about God. Tell them two things about God. Number one, his greatness. His greatness.

Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him. His reward is with him. His recompense is with him. He brings his children with him. He brings the fruits of his labors with him. He comes, and the redeemed of the Lord return and come with singing into Zion are the rewards of his work. He's great.

He has no need of support. The flock that he tends, he has worked for, and he now holds in his care. Well, so it goes from his greatness to his gentleness. And there you have it, in verse 11.

The same arm that rules is the arm that carries. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. Now, I want you to notice that verses 12 and following save verse 11—this is going to sound strange—from itself, and verse 11 saves the sort of transcendent view of God from making us think only of a God who is so far removed and is not involved with us at all. In the one respect, what happens is it all becomes very cozy, and we forget the greatness of God, that he presides over the nations of the world, that the nations of the world are like a drop in a bucket to him.

That's the same thing. You have to keep these two things in tension. God is great, and here is his gentleness. Look how he deals with us. He tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms. He actually carries them in his bosom, all wrapped up and close to his heart. And those who are fragile, he doesn't drive, but he leads. Well, of course, it's impossible to read this without coming immediately to Jesus as the good shepherd, as the one who seeks us in tenderness, as the one who puts us on his shoulders. Remember, he puts it on his shoulders. He found the sheep that was lost, and he came back, and there was great rejoicing.

What a wonder! So in actual fact, from verse 1 to verse 11, you get to verse 11, and you've gone full circle. Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God, all the way through that, and here we come back.

And what is this picture we have of him? Look upon his people, intending them in this way. Well, the message is God's Word and not our word. And the substance of it is the frailty of our lives, God's penalty for sin, and his provision for us in that predicament.

Our mission is to go up, to lift up, don't fold up, and be bold, and seize the opportunity of our day in a way that many of us are increasingly fearful to do. Let me just tell you a part of my reading this week. I was reading again J. C. Ryle in his book on what happened in eighteenth-century England, when England was at its absolute lowest point. And of course, it's the story of the people that God raised up—Whitfield and Wesley and so on. And J. C. Ryle, the bishop of Liverpool, is then writing in 1868. And in 1868, he's saying, Now, what are we going to do now? Is there any hope for us now? And then, essentially, his thesis is straightforward.

Yes. The remedy that was there in the eighteenth century is the remedy for us in the nineteenth. And he actually says, We want nothing new. No new systems. No new symbols of teaching. No new gospel. We want nothing but the old truths, mightily preached and rightly brought home to consciences, minds, and wills. There never has been good done to the world except by the preaching of evangelical truth.

So what has happened? Well, he says, I'm sad to announce that the preachers of our day—now, this is nineteenth-century England—the preachers of our day are neither so full nor so distinct nor so bold nor so uncompromising. They are afraid of strong statements. Let us then, he says, lay hold of the evangelical truth of God and never, never be ashamed to confess it. That is the message. And this is the mission.

And tomorrow is the future. The message is clear. It's a message God has given us. And our mission is to share that message.

That's Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. He's going to close today's program with prayer in just a minute, so please keep listening. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones once said the good news of the gospel is to be proclaimed loudly and fearlessly from the mountaintops. Lloyd-Jones' sermons on Isaiah chapter 40 squeeze every bit of truth out of this rich passage of scripture. They explain why salvation is only possible in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today we're recommending a book that contains nine Lloyd-Jones sermons from Isaiah 40. The book is titled The All-Sufficient God, and when you read through these chapters you'll gain a clearer description of the gospel and you'll be motivated to share the good news with others. Be sure to request your copy of The All-Sufficient God when you reach out with a gift of any amount. Visit us online at truthforlife.org slash donate or click the book image you see in the app. And if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for The All-Sufficient God, write to Truth for Life, P. O.

Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio, 44139. Now let's join together with Alistair in prayer. Father, thank you that in many ways what we're doing now is putting our foot in the door in order that the young men that come behind us will be so gripped by these truths, so convinced of the authority and sufficiency of the Bible, so stirred by the message of comfort in a world of weakness and of majesty in a world of individualism, so convinced that they are prepared to take this mission out, up onto the mountains, out onto the airwaves, lifting up their voices, fearing not, being bold. All raise them up, Lord, we pray, in our generation, in order that the children that sit around us now may be under the tutelage of such men, and that we will understand why it is that Jesus said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Hear us, O God, as we cry to you. In Christ's name. Amen.

I'm Bob Lapine. For you to grasp the enormity of the Grand Canyon, you have to see it with your own eyes. So how can we comprehend the immensity and majesty of God? Well, tomorrow, Alistair Begg gives us a unique perspective on God's incomparable greatness. I hope you can join us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.