Sunday, March 6, 2022 AM

Welcome to Sunnyside Baptist Church. As you come in, we have a few announcements just to look at this morning. Our evening service is tonight at 5 .30. Come back for that. And then looking ahead, this Wednesday, March 9th, we'll have our meal at 5 .45 regular time.

Eat together, and then at 6 .30, we'll have prayer for the adults and then the TAG program for the kids after that. Looking ahead to the end of the month, we'll have the Lord's Supper together on Sunday, March 27th in the morning.

And then Truth Group in the evening. We do still need somebody, if you wouldn't mind volunteering to provide a meal for Truth Group this month in March. There's a sign-up link in the bulletin that you can use.

You'll be reimbursed by the church for anything that you spend towards that, but needs to feed 20 to 25 healthy young people and their family members that come. So if you could just drop a note in the offering plate at the back of the auditorium saying that you wouldn't mind doing that, we'd appreciate it.

Also, Operation Christmas Child Giving is still going on. Wanna remind you about that as well. We'll do that throughout the year just to ease kind of the burden of putting those shoeboxes together in November and December.

Any other announcements this morning? Well, before we have a time of just prayer and preparing our hearts for worship, wanna read this week's fighter verse. Comes from the Psalms, Psalm 103, verses 17 through 19.

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.

The Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all. After we pray, Randy will come and open us in prayer.

Father, we're just so thankful to be able to assemble here today and to hear your word. Father, we thank you for just the fellowship of the believers and coming together. I pray that you'd encourage our hearts today as we worship you.

And I pray that you will be honored in all that we do. Father, I pray that we would sing from our hearts and that you would receive glory and honor. And Father, I pray that throughout this week that you would encourage our hearts, that you would make us faithful witnesses in whatever we're doing.

I pray that you would comfort those that are going through deep trials. But Father, we're so thankful that we have you as a loving heavenly father to encourage, to support, to strengthen. And Father, we're just thankful that we can come to you with all of our needs and that you're a God of great compassion.

I pray that you would just encourage us as we hear your word. I pray that you'd give Michael freedom to speak what your Holy Spirit has put on his heart. And we just thank you for the gift of life itself.

And we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

Would you stand with me for our call to worship? Our passage this morning is in Psalms chapter 75. We'll be reading verses six through 10. Read with me together. For not from the East or from the West and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.

For in the hand of the Lord, there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. But I will declare it forever. I will sing praises to the God of Jacob and all the horns of the wicked I will cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up.

And our first song is in the Psalms for worship hymnal, page 75B. We'll sing all three verses. 52, help in ages past.

God's Judgment and Mercy in Isaiah 18

This morning comes from the prophet Isaiah. So if you have your Bible, I encourage you to turn to Isaiah chapter 18 and we'll be reading verses one through seven, which is the whole chapter. So Isaiah chapter 18, starting in verse one, an oracle concerning Cush.

Cush was the land, southern part of Egypt or near what we would call Ethiopia today. So it's that region. So an oracle concerning Cush. Ah, land of whoring wings that is beyond the rivers of Cush, which sends ambassadors by the sea in vessels of papyrus on the waters.

Go you swift messengers to a nation tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering whose land the rivers divide. All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, look.

When a trumpet is blown, hear. For thus the Lord said to me, I will quietly look from my dwelling like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. For before the harvest, when the blossom is over and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.

They shall all of them be left to the birds of prey on the mount of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth. And the birds of prey will summer on them and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

At that time, tribute will be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord of hosts.

This is the word of the Lord. Would you pray with me? Almighty God, we thank you this morning for your word, which is truth. And Lord, just as your judgment was certain and sure upon the land of Cush, a people who were feared near and far, and yet ultimately they were bowed down before you to bring tribute to the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

Lord, we are reminded of both your grace and mercy, but also your judgment and that you bring judgment upon the nations. Lord, we live today in uncertain times. We live in a world where there are nations that seek to extend their power to do so in fear, in an effort to cause people to bow down before earthly leaders.

You are Lord of all the earth. You are Lord of all the nations. Lord, would you reveal your glory, extend your power that you would be praised. Lord, we thank you for the one who sits enthroned on Mount Zion, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The one before whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Lord, we come to you today in Jesus' name, confessing our sin, seeking your mercy, your grace.

Lord, forgive our iniquity, make us a people for your possession, that we might sing your praises and declare your greatness to our neighbors and among the nations. May we hold out the name of Christ, the one who is worthy of all praise.

We give you thanks this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated.

The Promises of God and the Faithfulness of Christ

If you would, be turning in your black hymnal, Hymns, Modern and Ancient, to page 32. In God's, page 32 of HMA. In God's word, the Lord gives us many, many promises. And of course, he is holy, righteous, and faithful, and able to keep each one of his promises.

Just thinking on today's service, I was thinking of some verses that talks about the promises God has made to us. I thought of 1 John 1, 9. I think Brother Candice referenced that in his prayer. Philippians 1, 6, Philippians 4, 19, 2 Corinthians 6 -7, 2 Corinthians 9, 12, 1 Peter 5, 7.

Of course, in the book of James, chapters 1, 4, and 5, there's so many, many promises. But as we sing the song, Every Promise, look at the words, think about the words. Look about the promises God has made, and he is faithful and able to keep each one of these.

Thank you for gathering us here today.

We give you thanks for your provision in our lives. You have provided us this place to meet. You have given us, and poured out in us, your love through your Holy Spirit, that we may love you and love one another.

You have brought us together by the person and work of your Son, Jesus Christ, that in him we may know you and be right with you, that we may be right with one another. And we thank you for your word that you have provided for us, that it is true and everlastingly so, and perfect and good and trustworthy, and that it is living and active and more powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, that you cut right to the heart of the matter of our lives with your unchanging word.

And we thank you that you are a good God, that all that you do is good, that you never change, and that you have brought us here today to lead us to worship you, to have your way in our hearts, that as we learn about your will that has been declared forever in heaven, that we would desire to see it done here on earth, that we would be the amen of your word in this world.

We pray these things for the sake of Jesus Christ, the one with whom you are well-pleased, amen. I invite you to open your Bibles to Daniel chapter nine. We're reading verses 13 through 19 this morning.

Daniel chapter nine, reading verses 13 through 19. We come to this last portion of Daniel's prayer in which he has old covenant concerns. And he confesses the character and nature of God on the one side, and he confesses the sin and the shame of Israel on the other.

And he lays it all out according to God's measurements. He tells God how it is using God's vocabulary. And Daniel's prayer concerns the old covenant arrangements and shadows, and God promises that these are thoroughly resolved in the person of Messiah.

The structure of this chapter is telling. Daniel's supplications in the first section, verses one through 19, his desire is that the shadow temple will be rebuilt, the shadow city rebuilt, the shadow worship restored.

And then in the second portion of the chapter, verses 20 through 27, God does better than the restoration of the shadows. He promises the very substance. And so we find that God's covenant faithfulness manifests in Christ for all the saints.

I invite you to stand with me as I read, be reading verses 13 through 19. This is the word of the Lord. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us. Yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord, our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand your truth.

Therefore, the Lord has kept the disaster in mind and brought it upon us. For the Lord, our God is righteous in all the works which he does, though we have not obeyed his voice. And now, oh Lord, our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and made yourself a name as it is this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly.

Oh Lord, according to all your righteousness, I pray, let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy mountain, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people are a reproach to all those around us.

Now, therefore, our God, hear the prayer of your servant and the supplications, and for the Lord's sake, cause your face to shine on your sanctuary, which is desolate. Oh my God, incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by your name.

For we do not present our supplications before you because of our righteous deeds, but because of your great mercies. Oh Lord, hear. Oh Lord, forgive. Oh Lord, listen and act. Do not delay for your own sake, my God, for your city and your people are called by your name.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. In school, we are watching some American history and it is interesting, but it is interesting for more than the facts. It is interesting for the interpretation of the facts.

It is interesting to see the inclusion or exclusion of the facts. You see, a point is being made. Moral claims are being made. Preaching is going on and the altar calls are not always subtle. It has long been lamented, this phenomenon of revisionist history.

There was a book I read through a couple of times. It was printed a long time ago. Now that I'm 40, it's a long time ago that this book was printed and I read it. It was written by the syndicated humorist Dave Barry and it was titled, A Sort of History of the United States.

And he was going along and making snide comments about the history of the US and being very funny. And then all of a sudden he alerts his readers that he is on the verge of being canceled. He called it something else back then.

That the publisher was gonna refuse to publish his history book unless he began to acknowledge all of the major contributions of women in minority groups. And so he said, and I will resolve to do that now.

And so it became a runner throughout the text that every once in a while at the end of a chapter, he would say, and oh, by the way, women in minority groups made huge contributions to the formation of our country.

And then he would move on with what he wanted to say. And that mockery recognized what was going on at the time, a rather clunky attempt to append the current curricula with new values. And things were just being inserted in a very clunky and obvious fashion.

And of course, today it goes on with the LGBT groups and non-binary and so on. Who knows what will be next under the plus. But with everything now fully rewritten, the neo-pagan faith is completely enshrined.

Revisionist history is a retelling of the past in light of the present gods. Revisionist history is a retelling of the past in light of the present gods. It is not only about re-mythologizing culture, it is also about resetting trajectories and the moral horizons.

Now, Daniel has been telling some history in his prayer. We've been reading his confessions to the Lord and he's been telling how things have gone. He's not making a revisionist history, however, because he is telling it in light of God and he's using God's terms.

And so he's not telling a revisionist history, he is telling a true history because he's telling it the way that the God of all history saw it, how he viewed it. And although many of Daniel's statements, his facts and his moral claims would have contradicted the many contemporaries of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and how they saw history, lofty speculations raised up against the knowledge of God are to be torn down.

In all things, Christ must have the preeminence. So we're going to finish looking at Daniel's praise for God's covenant faithfulness here in his prayer, that not only is God true to his word, but he also is just in his work.

And then we're gonna look at the fourth portion of this old covenant prayer and see how Daniel prays for covenant renewal, his supplications for covenant renewal. And in all of this, by the light of Christ, we are instructed in our faith and helped in our prayers.

Look at verses 13 through 15. Daniel praises God for his covenant faithfulness because he is just in his work. He is righteous in his work. Verses 13 through 15 again. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord, our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand your truth.

Therefore, the Lord has kept the disaster in mind and brought it upon us. The Lord, our God is righteous in all the works which he does, that we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord, our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and made yourself a name, as it is this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly.

So as Daniel gives praise to God, as he confesses the righteousness of God's work, he is also compelled along the way to say, we have not been righteous in what we have done. He basically frames his praise this way.

He says, God is right and Israel is wrong. And that's how he praises the Lord. He says, God is right, Israel is wrong. Daniel acknowledges that as God is worthy of praise, Israel is worthy of shame. And praising God brings that to light.

Daniel says, God has acted perfectly according to all that he said through Moses. He's keeping his word, but he is righteous in his work. All of his works are righteous. He did exactly what he was supposed to.

Daniel confesses God's truth as the standard. It was according to the law of Moses. And God's actions are the rule by which everything else is measured. God's works are righteous. The problem, as Daniel states it, is that Israel, when she had opportunity, did not return to the Lord confessing his truth.

They were given the truth. They were shown the error of their ways, but they did not repent. They did not go back to God and say things the way he saw them. They were asleep to God's holiness and to their shame.

They were comfortable and at peace with their perversities. But God sleeplessly watched over them and he brought the promised disaster upon them. And Daniel says it was right that God did this. God is just and lawful and right in all that he does.

He is the very definition of righteousness. It is impossible for him to do otherwise than what is right. God's works are so thoroughly right, just as just and as good as light is bright. That's how right God is in all that he does.

In all that he does, he brings glory to his own name. Daniel knows this to be true. He confesses it to be true and he praises God because of it. And he also says Israel is wrong. Daniel is still confessing Israel's sin in light of the Lord's righteousness.

He says, we have committed iniquity. We have not obeyed. We have sinned. We have done wickedly. In other words, Israel's perverse wandering and her rebellion against God's voice, her abandonment of all of her vows have been exposed all the more clearly in God's righteous actions.

The brightness of his actions exposes the filth and the darkness of Israel's sin. So Israel's sin is laid bare. God is right. Israel is wrong. That's his confession. That's Daniel's praise of the Lord.

And that kind of praise may seem a little odd to us. It may seem like a kind of foreign food. Oh, that's interesting. I'll try that. But perhaps it fails to satisfy, perhaps it fails to comfort. We have been conditioned to think of praising God as that which uplifts us, that which excites us, that which pleases us.

And of course it is true that the saints are uplifted as they praise. And we see many saints excited as they praise and that many saints are pleased to praise the Lord. But when we have these as our parameters, these man-focused limitations deny to us the breadth of the praise of God that we see throughout scripture.

You see, there are many statements that God has made, many conditions that God has made, many warnings that God has offered which are deeply offensive, deeply offensive to those who are committed to human flourishing as the highest good.

It doesn't make any sense. God has done many great and powerful deeds which are celebrated by the saints in the scriptures but are no longer celebrated today. And to celebrate them somehow seems wrong.

To praise God for what we see as harsh, violent, to name his works as right and just in the face of our own discomfort, that is foreign food to our palates. We must confess, however, that our failure to understand, appreciate, or endorse the actions of God does not take away from their righteousness in the very least.

We must reckon with the difficulty of praising and honoring God in that it so very often humbles us. What is Daniel doing here? He's praising the rightness of God's actions in destroying Jerusalem. Daniel himself is in exile and has been in exile for decades because of the judgment of God upon his people.

Daniel is in this lowly estate. Israel is in this miserable condition because of the actions of God and Daniel is praising God and saying, you are right. This is the kind of praise we are called to. God is right.

We are wrong. When we do not fear God, we forget that he is the standard. He is the standard. Human flourishing is not the standard. God is the standard. Our feelings are not the standard. God is the standard.

His works are righteous, even when they expose our shame and our sin. And so praising and honoring God humbles us. The most important of all God's righteous works, the most important thing he's ever done in all of his covenant keeping is that of giving us his son.

Him sending his son to take upon our humanity and save his people from their sins. And there's no more clear and bright work of God, no more praiseworthy work of God than this. The light of the world has shown and the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 3, 18 through 21 says, he who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God, Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world.

And this is the condemnation, verse 19 says, that the light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and has not come to the light lest his deeds should be exposed.

But he who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen that they have been done in God. As with Daniel, when we consider the righteous works of God and we praise him for the light that he has shown through Christ, we must come humbly, not trying to hide the fact that we have sinned, hiding the fact that we have done wrong, hiding the fact that we have failed, but to come to the light in the truth and to say things the way God sees them and say, I have sinned.

I have done wrong, but my hope is in Christ. When we make confession, when we make confession in our prayers, repentance is accompanied with praise. Praise for God's rightness, repentance for our wrongness, our confession saying the same things that God has to say about us and our condition.

So Daniel is praising the Lord saying, look, you keep your word. We're the ones who broke our promises. You do what is right. We're the ones who did what was wrong. And acknowledging all of this, now Daniel begins to offer supplications.

He begins to ask the Lord to intervene on their behalf in verses 16 through 19. There are three themes here in these verses. And the first is, I think, a theme we need help understanding that we would really grab hold of the misery of these covenant breakers.

The Misery of Covenant Breakers

To grab hold of the misery of the covenant breakers. And this will help us understand why Daniel prays in the way that he prays and what he asks for and then the significance of what God particularly promises.

If we could just understand the misery of the covenant breakers. Verses 16 to 17, let's listen to this again. Oh Lord, according to all your righteousness, I pray, let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy mountain.

Because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people are a reproach to all those around us. Now, therefore, our God, hear the prayer of your servant and his supplications.

And for the Lord's sake, cause your face to shine on your sanctuary, which is desolate. In these two verses, we hear of the misery of the covenant breakers. Now, to understand what goes on here, it is best to use God's own description of his relationship with Israel.

Daniel prays for the covenant to be renewed, for God to have mercy upon the lowly and miserable state of his people. And he acknowledges how angry God has been these many years. And this anger is fully justified.

Israel is likened elsewhere to the unfaithful wife of God. That is a helpful metaphor as Israel is in covenant relationship with God. This was an arranged marriage that God set up with Abraham. And the dowry was certainly provided already on Mount Moriah.

And we could also count the redemption out of Egypt. When we remember this, we will better understand the misery of the covenant breaking Israel as an unfaithful wife. Israel was an insufferable harlot.

Hosea and Ezekiel prophesied to this. Not only did she unnecessarily go hunt up foreign gods to mess around with, but by the end she wasn't even taking payment. She was so filthy. God's patience and long suffering with Israel is unmatched in the chronicles of history.

But finally he had enough. She had gotten to the point where she didn't even hide her whoredoms in the valleys or under the trees. She exposed herself out in the open, in the high places and at the crossroads, on top of the houses, in the marketplaces of Jerusalem, and even in her and her husband's own house, the temple.

She broke her vows, the 10 commandments again and again, until she forgot even how to blush. And consider that as she broke the first two commandments, she also broke the third. She was called by the name of the Lord, remember.

Every time she worshiped other gods and created new idols to venerate, she bore God's name in vain. She bore it lightly as if it didn't matter. She declared the worthlessness of God Almighty as she drank from dry cisterns and ate chaff.

Finally, God turned her over to her abominable lusts. She wanted the pagans and their God so much, he kicked her out of their house. She was no longer welcome to come dragging herself back in after an all-nighter.

She had found security, great security in the temple. Well, he sent her away and then burned down the house behind her so that there was no place for her to come back. He would make no provision for her from that estate.

Jerusalem and Zion were now laid waste. The walls of the courtyard and the vineyard and the garden were all broken down, overgrown, abandoned. And he did that in his anger and in his fury, Daniel confesses.

This was how that God expressed his holy indignation toward his harlotrous wife. Consider his response to that profaned and desecrated place so full of the memories of his wife's adulteries. What did he do to Jerusalem, to Mount Zion, to the temple?

By the smoke of his nostrils and the flame of his breath, he laid that household to waste. One only had to survey the scene to know the effect of God's snarl and rage. And was he not justified in this?

Has not Daniel declared God righteous in all of his works? God is not reckless in any of his works. He is righteous in all of his works. God acted perfectly and perfectly just after a prolonged season of patience and mercy.

Now, where is God's wife? Where are these miserable covenant breakers? Well, she is without a home. And she has no husband to go to at night, no protector, no provider that she was used to having. She is a reproach to all who see her, had she not brought it upon herself.

Indeed, all those previous generations had acted in ways that God had particularly cursed, undeterred, they continued, and then their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren paid the price of covenant curses.

This was the arrangement God had made with Israel in the old covenant. So now Israel is spread throughout the Medo-Persian empire. She's a homeless hag from which folks avert their eyes or stare at in revulsion.

She is a reproach. She's in the cold with no cloak. She begs through the winter with no store of food. The fact that she's out and about, rather in a rightful home, exposes her to shame and reproach without end.

She's not where she's supposed to be. And it's her fault. Collectively. Israel is a wife estranged from her husband, kicked out of her own home for her slovenliness, drunkenness, and her prolific whoredoms.

She does not belong in all these places where she is now, and she needs to change her ways, and she needs to be brought back home, but she has no home to which to go. She can't go home. It was burned down.

It's not there anymore. And what of her husband? Her face, his face no longer shines on that place anymore. He doesn't look upon it with favor anymore. Behold the miseries of the covenant breakers. This is why Daniel is fasting.

This is why Daniel is in sackcloth and ashes, saying, we have no food. We have no clothes. We have no shelter. This is why he is begging before the Lord, laying out all of their sins and shame, declaring God to be right and just, and entreating God to act.

He pleads with God to honor his promise of the 70 years. The prodigal wife, you see, has come to her senses amid the pig slop. But the only way home is gonna be by the mercies of God. Now that is, of course, the situation of all sinners, made in God's image, profaning his holy name with our idolatries, wearing his uniform but AWOL every day.

Adam's guilt has damned all of us. Each one's sin has damned each one. But the way home, the way home, for all those exiled in Adam, is the same way home for those exiled in Israel. The new Adam is the better mediator.

Consider well, if you are in the miseries of sin, does the wrath of God abide on you? You live in the reproach of one who is made in God's image, yet ever profaning his name. Are you homeless and pretending to be proud about it?

The only house wherein we may meet God is the one that Christ built. The temple of his own incarnation, destroyed but raised the third day. The only mercies which will wash us clean and make us whole and deliver us from the anger and the fury, the righteous anger and righteous fury of God are those which are full and free in Christ, who took our deserved curse and wrath and exile upon him on the cross.

Why would God take Israel back? Daniel says, there's nothing in us. It's not what we can do, not what we can promise, not what has been. Why would God redeem any sinful creature? Because he has invested his own glorious name.

He put his own name upon Israel. He put his own name in making us in his very own image. This is the motives of, consider the motives of the covenant maker in verses 17 through 19. Let's listen to this again.

Now, therefore our God, hear the prayer of your servant and his supplications and for the Lord's sake, cause your face to shine on your sanctuary, which is desolate. He's praying to God and he says, for the Lord's sake, shine your face on your sanctuary.

Verse 18, oh my God, incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see our desolations in the city, which is called by your name. For we do not present our supplications before you because of our righteous deeds, but because of your great mercies.

Oh Lord, hear, oh Lord, forgive, oh Lord, listen and act. Do not delay for your own sake, my God, for your city and your people are called by your name. So what is Daniel saying? He's asking God to renew the covenant, to show mercy upon them for the sake of God's own name.

Daniel says, glorify your name, bring honor to your name by doing these things. Now, it's interesting, that was the same motivation according to which God had acted originally judging Israel. And now, Daniel brings up that same motivation for God to act, to restore them.

Isn't that interesting? If the divine husband had to send away his covenant people as an unfaithful wife, precisely to guard the glory of his name, would he not also after a time, would he also after a time, would he, for the sake of his name, restore her so that she would not remain in reproach?

Would he not rebuild their home, which was laying in reproach? Surely he would bring great honor to his name by showing mercy yet again, by restoring his wife to a rebuilt home, bringing her back into a loving and reconciled relationship.

It is right for Daniel to pray for God to act in accordance with his own glory. And this is how God makes his decisions. This is his motivation. Isaiah 48, verse 11 says, for my own sake, for my own sake, I will do it.

For how should my name be profaned? And I will not give my glory to another. It is the zenith of righteousness that God would act for his own glory and not another's. Anything less would make him an idolater.