Sunday, July 21, 2024

The Remnant Returns; Isaiah 10:20-34, 11:11-16, Romans 9:14-32

 

            4th of July weekend, Jim and I went to see the movie Sound of Hope.  We recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to see it.  It’s the true story of the small, lower income, mostly black community of Possum Trot, TX that adopted 77 children out of the foster care system in the late 1990’s so that no children remained in the system for 100 mile radius.  The movement to adopt was spearheaded by the pastor’s wife.  Last week, we heard that God can use anyone or anything as a tool in His toolbox.  It doesn’t matter if the person realizes or even believes in God.  It is God who is the Master Craftsman, and it is God alone who deserves all the honor and glory for the things He has done.  We saw that when the tool starts bragging and being prideful, sometimes, it gets destroyed or discarded.  God likes to use willing tools.  God likes to use faithful tools.  And there are other particular tools that God likes to use.  We like the shiny tools, the tools with, as Tim the Toolman Taylor liked to say from the old sit-com “Home Improvement” used to say, “more power!”  But if you watched that show, you remember that often adding more power resulted in disastrous, albeit comical, consequences.  God uses the little tools, the ones that aren’t so shiny, the ones that are often overlooked.  God uses the small, not the big, the few, not the many.  God uses the remnant. 

            I remember from my studies in church history thinking that it is truly a miracle that the church has survived to this day.  Between heresies, schisms, and persecutions, it seemed as if the church would eventually cease to exist.  There are times in history where the Church has had to go deep underground, meeting in secret, with only handfuls of believers.  Certainly, there are places in the world that used to be largely Christian that are barely Christian today.  We see the decline of the Church in our own country.  We see certain branches of the church, including our own denomination, embracing more and more heresy, looking more and more like the culture around us everyday.  And truly, it is a miracle that the Church has survived.  The true church is miraculous!  It is God’s design, with Jesus as its head.  But God has promised that it would always continue.  It can never be snuffed out.  The gates of hell cannot and will not prevail against it. 

 In our Scripture readings today, we see that God does have a remnant.  The remnant are the people who remain faithful to God despite all the craziness around them.  Whether in a state of prosperity or suffering, they remain true, not that they are perfect, because only Jesus is perfect, but that the arc of their lives is to love, trust, and obey God.  In fact, the word return in today’s passage is the same Hebrew word for repent.  To return is to repent.  To repent is to return to God.  The remnant are always the few, never the majority.  In today’s readings we have two returns of the remnant promised by God.  The first return is one has happened, and the second is yet to come.  The first return happened after the defeat of the Assyrian Emperor Sennacherib sometime after 681 BC.  Isaiah said it would be made up of those who relied on Yahweh, and it would be a relatively small number of people.  Before the return would come more destruction by Assyria, whom the Lord would ultimately also bring to ruin because of their pride, as we saw last week.  Things get worse before they better.  Hard things come to test our faith, but we are not left without hope.  God doesn’t want us to be afraid, just as God didn’t want the people of Isaiah’s day to be afraid.  Assyria would threaten, but not defeat Judah. We don’t need to make alliances with the powers of this world so that our lives will be easier.  We are to trust in God no matter what.  We don’t have to capitulate to the culture, to go along to get along.  We must be true to what God commands, even though God’s ways are difficult at times, even though the world scoffs at us and even marginalizes and punishes us for following God. 

The apostle Paul saw this first return as ongoing in his day and beyond as we read in our Romans passage this morning, where Paul quotes Isaiah 10:22-23 along with some verses from Hosea and other verses from Isaiah, some of which we have seen before.  Paul declares that the remnant is not just people from Israel or even Israel and Judah, now called “the Jews” in Paul’s day, but also from among the Gentiles, those who become righteous in Christ by faith.  And Paul says pursing the Law of righteousness, Israel didn’t attain it because they pursued it by works and not by faith.  One cannot work his/her way into the kingdom, but must enter by trusting in God.  In the Old Testament, we see it was by faith in who God was—depending on God alone for salvation.  In the New Testament, it is depending on God alone for salvation in Jesus Christ. 

The second return will happen when Christ returns.  The people of God from all the nations will be gathered together.  Judah and Ephraim will be reconciled. God’s people will be brought in from the farthest reaches of the earth from all the nations.  We know this second return is when Christ returns because of verse 10.  Jesus is the root of Jesse whose resting place is glorious.  Note that even though this is a remnant, the number exceeds the sands on the seashore, just as was promised to Abraham, and yet it is a remnant.  Even to the last, there will be those who reject God.  We see this in the book of Revelation.  Revelation 16:12-16

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East.  Then I saw three impure spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet.  They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.   “Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.”  Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.”

This passage echoes Isaiah 11:15, “And Yahweh will dry up the tongue of the Sea of Egypt, the Red Sea, and He will wave His hand over the river (Euphrates) with His scorching wind, and he will strike it into seven streams, and make people walk over in sandals—they won’t get their feet wet.”  Yahweh is the one who makes it possible not only for the remnant to return, but also for the rebellious political powers to gather with their armies.  They gather in Har-Magedon—beneath the mountain of Megiddo prepared for war, but no battle will actually take place.  The victories brought about through the remnant will be just as improbable as the crossing of the Red Sea when the Israelites came out of Egypt and Gideon’s defeat of the Midianites with his 300 men.  Neither of those were accomplished by human effort.  It was God who parted the sea, and it was God who struck the Midianites with confusion.  Ini this final battle, God’s people will see victory over their enemies, but it won’t happen in a war. Jesus will destroy them with His Word. 

            God always has a faithful remnant, and it is intentional on God’s part.  I Corinthians 1:26-31:

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

 

God uses the small, the unassuming, the fragile—those who know most that they must be dependent upon God, so that God gets the glory.  When you start to wonder what difference you can make, when you start to doubt what God can do through a small church like ours, know that in God’s economy size, status, and wealth don’t matter.  What matters is one’s faithfulness to God.  Do we trust God?  Will we walk by faith, and not by sight?  Are we humble?  Are we characterized by prayer and repentance?  Don’t be discouraged when you see decline if you are being faithful and you know others who are being faithful.