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Monday, July 29, 2024
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.
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Sunday, July 7, 2024
Monday, July 1, 2024
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