Sermon Tone Analysis
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Forty years ago Paul Simon recorded a song called /I Am a Rock/.
The title would suggest that he saw himself as a rock — strong, invincible and enduring.
But actually the song says exactly the opposite.
It’s about a man who has been hurt so often and so deeply by those that he loves that he just wants to be alone and hide from everyone and everything that might injure him.
Part of the song goes like this:
I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship;
Friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain.
I am a rock, I am an island.
\\ And the song ends with these words:
And a rock can feel no pain;
And an island never cries.
Most of us have probably felt like this at one time or another.
The prophet Jeremiah did.
Although God had told him at the very beginning of his ministry that the Jews would reject his message, their mistreatment of them scarred him deeply.
He even felt as though God had forsaken him.
He wrote, /O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.
For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.
Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name/ (Jer.
20:7–9).
Thankfully, the prophet soon abandoned these thoughts and continued in his ministry.
Isaiah could have written much the same thing, for he prophesied about the days in which Jeremiah would live.
But instead he wrote the words of our text.
He not only spoke of better days to come, but of one who is our “Rock of Ages.”
This is the rock to whom we must flee when the storms of life assail us and there is no other hope.
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Bygone Days
Isaiah message begins, /In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah/.
The day that the prophet wrote about was still future from his perspective, and it seems that Judah’s song would not be sung until that day.
That’s because the intervening days were dark, dreary and hopeless.
But what is all of this about?
To answer this we have to look at what Isaiah wrote in chapters 24 and 25.
If you’ve read this section recently, you might have noticed that the prophet said a lot about the earth, a city or cities, and kings, but did not identify exactly what people he had in mind.
Only Moab is mentioned briefly at the end of chapter 25.
While this may seem odd, there is a good reason for it.
These chapters are not about any specific nation or people, but about all nations and peoples.
It’s a summary of all the judgments mentioned in the preceding ten chapters.
We might say that it’s a universal judgment.
The nations of the earth have broken God’s covenant.
That this is so can be seen in several of the prophet’s statements.
For example, look at the first verse of chapter 24.
Isaiah wrote, /Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof/.
Note also versus 19 through 23 in the same chapter: /The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously/.
Even Judah would not be spared in this great devastation.
Its kings and its priests would be taken away, and its cities laid waste.
Judah, you see, had also dealt most treacherously with the Lord, since the Lord had shown her many special favors.
Some of her kings (Manasseh in particular) were so evil that the Lord visited the entire kingdom with his wrath.
Even the godly reforms that took place under Josiah could not assuage the Lord’s displeasure (II Kings 23:26).
But the good news is that there would come a day in which the people of God would sing a song of great praise to the Lord God once again.
Most of chapter 26 tells us what that song is.
Due to time limitations we will consider only the first four verses, but I would encourage you throughout the coming week to meditate on the entire chapter.
It is one of the most glorious passages in all of Isaiah, if not in all of Scripture.
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Walls, Bulwarks and Gates
Judah’s song celebrates a well protected and fortified city, i.e., a city that stands in stark contrast to the nations of the earth that lie under God’s judgment.
This city is a strong city, according to verse one.
It resists the onslaught of every evil.
The description of the city reminds us of Jerusalem.
Psalm 46, which describes Jerusalem in David’s day, says, There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early (vv.
4–5).
Yet, although the language here is similar, Isaiah must have had another city in mind.
Isaiah’s city does not have stone walls to protect it or high bulwarks to serve as barriers against enemy attacks.
Instead, God has established that his salvation would be the walls and the bulwarks of the city.
In other words, the city is a spiritual city — the city of the redeemed.
This is especially clear in verse 2, where we read that only the righteous nation that keeps the truth enters into it.
It is the church of God’s people.
The church’s song begins in verse one with these words: /We have a strong city/.
Here I am emphasizing that the city belongs to God’s people.
We have it.
Have you ever thought about what a blessing it is to have this city?
In some ways, the city summarizes the entire scope of God’s redemptive plan.
In the Bible, God is constantly moving his church toward the city.
The Bible begins with man in a garden.
After he sinned, God cast him out into an unknown and dangerous wilderness.
The patriarchs remained in the wilderness until the Lord in his mercy put them under the care of the king of Egypt.
They returned to the wilderness under Moses.
Under Joshua they entered the promised land and became an agrarian society, i.e., most country folk.
It was not until David conquered most of the warring occupiers of the land that we start to see a shift to a city.
At this point, Jerusalem becomes prominent.
But even then, the city did not enjoy complete deliverance, for Jerusalem continued to be a city of bloodshed and, in fact, remains so to this day.
Jesus, likewise, began his ministry in the wilderness with John’s baptism and the temptation.
Then he preached mostly in small towns and villages, until he ended his ministry in the city of Jerusalem.
And in the book of Acts, the cities, beginning with Jerusalem, become the focal point of apostolic ministry.
Ironically, the patriarchs, who still lived in the wilderness period of Old Testament history, understood the importance of the city better than we do.
Living in one of the richest areas of the entire world, we are not as impressed by the city.
But Hebrews 11:9–10 reports that Abraham embraced the land of promise as if it were a foreign country because /he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God/.
Now, what could this city possibly be?
Again, the book of Hebrews, which says that Abraham looked for a city, tells us what that city was.
It was the heavenly Jerusalem.
The earthly Jerusalem was never more than faint representation of the heavenly Jerusalem.
The heavenly Jerusalem is the real thing!
But what is the heavenly Jerusalem?
Hebrews 12:22 says, /But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels/.
Here the heavenly Jerusalem is where we already are.
This verse clearly says that we have come to this city.
It’s already a reality in the lives of God’s people.
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