Sermon Tone Analysis

When we visited my sister in Colorado this September, she took us to Estes Park.

It’s a beautiful resort town at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.

It has a grand vista around every turn, a quaint downtown filled with cute shops, and the world’s biggest outdoor playground for a back yard.

But the thing that caught my attention was the number of mountainside houses.

These homes were built right on the sides of some of the steepest Rocky Mountains all around town.

Why would someone build a house on a mountain?

There are beautiful views, but there is also solitude.

It’s a great way to keep out certain people.

It requires a true seeker with some bravery and a willingness to come to you on your terms.

This might be why so many temples are built on mountain tops.

Only the initiated are allowed to ascend.

Just the situation of the house itself is a message, “outsiders are not welcome.”

The temple for Yahweh in Jerusalem was no different.

It was built on the highest mountain in the region, Mount Zion, with steep ascents.

Those from outside the nation of Israel were not allowed in.

In Isaiah’s day, a stone dividing wall surrounded the house of God to keep out anyone who did not belong to the nation of Israel, or those who were unclean through some infirmity.

In the time of King Herod, the temple Jesus entered had friendly warnings carved in the stone wall stating, “No foreigner is to enter the barriers around the sanctuary and enclosure.

Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.”

This was to protect the person who did not come to God on His terms and had not been brought into covenant with God from being destroyed upon entering His presence.

But we know God’s intention all along was that all nations would ascend the Mountain of the LORD to worship Him and learn from Him (Isaiah 2:2-5).

But the law of Moses excluded from inheriting in the promised land, anywhere near the holy mountain of the LORD, any foreigner.

All this is important if we are to understand our passage today.

The message of today’s passage is the gospel (good news) of welcome, belonging, and peace for outcasts and outsiders in God’s house.

How do we treat those people?

Are we walking with God and others in humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with others in love, and eager to maintain unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace with everyone God has welcomed home in Christ?

Isaiah 53 and 54 told us that God has established a covenant of peace

God’s House is a Home for Outcasts

Men have created many religions as a way to God.

Isaiah 56:1-8 redefine true religion and the kind of person welcome in God’s house.

The LORD (Yahweh) promises salvation, righteousness and blessing for the one who keeps justice, does righteousness, keeps the Sabbath and restrains evil.

This will become more clear next week, but this is the kind of religion that God truly desires.

No matter who you are or where you come from, these practices please God.

In fact, Yahweh addresses directly two classes of people that would have been considered outside the promises of God for a future fruitful life.

In verse 3, he says literally,

Isaiah 56:3 (ESV)

Let not the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,

“The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

Sons of foreigners and eunuchs ( people who have no sons) would have been left out of any inheritance in the promised land.

All the promises of a fruitful future with God and His people that we’ve been reading about in Isaiah’s prophecy would have rung hollow to these people.

Are the promises of God for fruitful life for all of us, or the chosen people, Israel only?

Yahweh makes this promise,

Isaiah 56:4 (ESV)

For thus says the Lord:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant,

Isaiah 56:5 (ESV)

I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

This “monument” is a strange word.

It literally means “hand”.

But it’s a clue that leads us into the Temple, the house of Yahweh, also known as Solomon’s Temple.

We find out in 1 Kings 7 that Solomon erected pillars all around the courtyard.

The pillars were made to look like lilies with pomegranates growing out the tops.

Someone entering the temple of Yahweh would feel like they were walking into a garden.

And Solomon had two special pillars built, 27 feet tall, and at the top, two rows of 4 foot tall pomegranates.

The word used for these pillars was the same word used for monument in Isaiah 56:5, also translated “hand”.

They were known as Solomon’s hands.

And he gave them names, which is why they are also called monuments.

Yahweh is telling fatherless men, if you rest in me and hold fast my covenant, I will make you fruitful pillars in my house.

Then he promises to the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD and serve Him, again, keeping Sabbath rest in Him, holding fast His covenant,

Isaiah 56:7 (ESV)

these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar;

for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

He concludes this section by saying,

Isaiah 56:8 (ESV)

The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,

“I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”

As we saw last week, our lives are signs to others that point to the God we proclaim and demonstrate with our lives.

Are we pointing outsiders and outcasts, and those the world labels “others” to the joy of God’s presence?

Are we a sign that outsiders and outcasts are welcome, they have a fruitful future in God’s house?

He wants them there.

Do we?

The problem we have is that too many religious people have also labeled outsiders as “other”, and we have found ways to keep them out of God’s house, either intentionally or by neglect, and this is a problem Yahweh addresses in 56:9-57:13.

There is No Refuge Outside of God

The chosen people had corrupted themselves in their idolatry and created an unjust society.

There was no light for the foreigners to follow to find God.

And worse, there was no room for the righteous person.

Yahweh labels the leaders of Israel, who should have been watchmen and shepherds, drunk dogs.

So,

Isaiah 57:1–2 (ESV)

The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands.

For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness.

God is having to rescue righteous people from evil among their own people.

There is no place for them in their own society.

But God promises they can find their rest in Him.

In fact, there is rest nowhere else.

Yahweh tells His people who were chasing idols,

Isaiah 57:10 (ESV)

You were wearied with the length of your way, but you did not say, “It is hopeless”;

you found new life for your strength, and so you were not faint.

There is no peace for those who worship idols.

It’s an endlessly exhausting and unsatisfying pursuit.

And when they reaped what they had sewn, and needed deliverance, Yahweh says,

Isaiah 57:13 (ESV)

When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you!

The wind will carry them all off, a breath will take them away.

But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.

We’ve probably talked about this ad nauseam, but we all have idols of our own creation from which wee seek hope, happiness, significance, and security.

They aren’t substantial enough to ultimately satisfy us.

But worse, while they demand our time and attention, they won’t pay us back with refuge in times of trouble.

But, and this would be a big but for Isaiah’s audience - they would have assumed only Israelites would inherit the promised land, and the temple mount belonged to no one but God alone - Yahweh promises that those who take refuge in the LORD God not only possess the land, but inherit His holy mountain.