Sermon Tone Analysis

The Great Invitation: God's Triumphant Word

----

By John Piper August 21, 1988

----

*Isaiah 55:10-11*

This morning's text is like a booster rocket underneath the payload in the last three messages.

What has helped me most in my own fight of faith this week has been the connections that I have seen between these two verses and what has gone before in Isaiah 55.

My prayer is that the same thing will be true for you.

There is no doubt what these two verses are about.

They are about the Word of God.

In verse 11 God says: "So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth . . .

" To be faithful to this text we must talk about the Word of God.

Three Insights About the Word of God 

So I want to focus our attention on three things this text teaches us about the Word of God.

And all along we must be asking: why does it teach us these things right here in Isaiah 55? What is the connection between what these verses say about the Word of God and what we have seen already in this chapter?

1.

The first thing I see about the Word of God in these verses is that it is a SPAN FROM HEAVEN TO EARTH.

2.     Second, I see that it is a SEED OF LIFE.

3.     Third, I see that it is SOVEREIGN and triumphant.

Three "S's": a SPAN, a SEED, and SOVEREIGN.

Let me try to guide you into these three insights from the text.

And if you are a believer, I ask you to pray that in these next 25 minutes this very message would span heaven and earth for some that are cut off from heaven in this room, and that it would be the seed of life for some that are spiritually dead, and that it would overcome every obstacle to faith by its sovereign power.

1.

A Span from Heaven to Earth

The Word of God is a SPAN FROM HEAVEN TO EARTH.

Let's go back to verse 7 to get the flow of thought here and see the connection between the Word of God and our predicament.

*Our Predicament*

In verse 7 God says that the wicked person should forsake his ways and that the unrighteous man should forsake his thoughts.

So our predicament is that our ways and our thoughts are getting us in trouble.

Why are they?

Why do they need to be forsaken?

The answer is given in verse 8. God says that the reason we need to forsake our thoughts and our ways is that they fall so far short of his thoughts and ways.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord."

This is why our thoughts and ways are getting us in trouble.

They are not God's.

God's thoughts are pure and ours are impure.

God's ways are righteous and ours are unrighteous.

But are we really that bad off?

Isn't there some truth in Shirley MacLaine and Scorsese's Jesus when they say, "Everything is part of God."

If everything is part of God, then we are part of God and a little unrighteousness or a little impurity doesn't separate us from him very much.

That may be the vision of Shirley MacLaine, the New Age, and Martin Scorsese, but it is not the vision of God recorded in verse 9.

If our ways are unrighteous and our thoughts are impure, as verse 7 says; and if they are therefore not God's ways and God's thoughts, as verse 8 says, then the conclusion is that there is a mammoth separation between us and God.

Verse 9: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

*The Infinite Chasm Between God and Us*

Before there were telescopes if you wanted to illustrate the farthest distance imaginable, what would you say?

You might look down and say, "Between here and the depth of the sea."

Because no one had ever been to the bottom of the sea, and who knows how far it may go on down there beneath the surface of the water.

Or you might look out and say, "As far as the East is from the West."

Because you could go forever in opposite directions.

Or you might look up and say, "Between the earth and the heavens."

The utterly inaccessible heavens, where the sun and moon and stars move outside the reach of man.

When God says that his holy thoughts are that far above our unholy thoughts and his righteous ways are that far above our selfish ways, he means that there is an infinite chasm between him in his holiness and us in our sin.

Every time you hear the vague, pantheistic talk of New Age thinking, ask this question: Is there in this talk a clear conviction that man in his sin and God in his holiness are separated and alienated from each other as far as the earth is from the heavens?

This is one of the biblical tuning rods to test whether the tones of the New Age are in harmony with God.

The biblical doctrine is that God is high and holy and unimpeachable in his purity, but that man—every man and woman and child—has sinned and fallen short of this high God.

There is alienation between us.

We are estranged from God.

And there is no hope of reconciliation from our side because we love our sin too much and we could never make up for all the wrongs we have done even if we could change ourselves.

That is where we are when verse 9 ends.

He is in a holy heaven and we are on a sinful earth and the chasm between is infinite.

*God Spans the Infinite Chasm Through His Word*

Now notice very carefully what words from verse 9 are picked up in verse 10 as God begins to tell us about his Word.

"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return not thither but water the earth . . .

" Stop right there.

Do you see where God is heading in these words?

In verse 9 he was stressing the distance between heaven and earth to show us how hopeless our separation is from God.

But now in verse 10 he opens a door of hope.

Even though the heavens are high above the earth, there is a coming down from heaven to the earth.

The rain and the snow come down.

The heaven does not always stand off from the earth with brilliant, distant, unattainable glory.

Sometimes it grows soft with clouds, it draws near, it covers the blinding glory of the sun, and stoops to water the earth.

And then verse 11 says, that's the way God is.

He does not stand aloof, in his distance.

His heart grows warm and tender.

He puts a veil over his consuming glory.

He draws near with clouds full of compassion for sinners; and He spans the infinite separation between heaven and earth.

*Jesus Christ: The All-Sufficient Span*

"So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth."

The Word of God is a SPAN FROM HEAVEN TO EARTH.

This was true every time a prophet spoke of old.

And it became true in the most wonderful form in Jesus Christ.

In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.

(Hebrews 1:1–2)

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . .

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.

(John 1:1, 14)

Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is the all-sufficient span between heaven and earth.

The rain and the snow have come down from heaven.

*A Saving Span*

And O how gently they have come.

Not with thunder and lightning.

Not with hailstones or sleet that breaks bruised reeds and quenches smoldering wicks (Matthew 12:20).

Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

(Matthew 11:28–30)

God is not a standoffish God.

And though his Word can be a hammer that crushes and a fire that consumes (Jeremiah 23:29), it is not first or primarily a word of judgment.

"God sent not the Son [the Word!] into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:17).

The Word of God is a span—a saving span—between heaven and earth.

*How God Comes Near (Verse 6)*

Look at the light this sheds on verse 6. "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near."

How is it that God comes near?

He comes near in his Word!