"The Grace of Christmas" December 9, 2018 AM

The Incarnation and the Prophecy of Light in Isaiah

The incarnation. Well now we come to Isaiah 8 verse 19 through chapter 9 and verse 2 and I invite you to stand with me as we do reverence to Christ who is revealed here in this passage. When they say to you, consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter.

Should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony. If they do not speak according to this word it is because they have no dawn.

They will pass through the land hard-pressed and famished and will turn out that when they are hungry and they will be enraged and curse their king and their God as they face upward. Then they will look to the earth and behold distress and darkness.

The gloom of anguish and they will be driven away into darkness. But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In earlier times he treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt but later on he will make it glorious.

By the way of the sea on the other side of the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land the light will shine on them. This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated. Let me pray for us. Father we come before you and we give you thanks for this passage of Scripture. The promise of a light for those who are in darkness. Father thank you for such imagery but thank you also for the truth of that.

You have given us light. We do not deserve light. We who have chosen darkness, we who hide in darkness, we who would prefer the darkness. But you did not abandon us to darkness but you've given us light in your Son Jesus Christ and you give us light to see your Son Christ by your Holy Spirit.

You have given us light in your unchanging infallible ever true word. We thank you for the grace that you give us and ask that you would lead us in faith and repentance today conforming us to the image of your Son.

It's for his sake that we pray these things. Amen. Has anybody gone Christmas light looking this year yet? My family has gone twice. I think they are planning a third this week already. If you're wanting a scouting report about the best neighborhoods to go just ask my wife.

She'll know exactly where to go. We love to go Christmas light looking and attempt to sing some carols. You have to sing away in the manger when you see a nativity scene in somebody's front yard. But we know where the best neighborhoods are to go look at Christmas lights because the best neighborhoods are the ones where most of the streets have houses with Christmas lights and the best streets are the ones with the most houses that have Christmas lights.

And of course we do not go during the day. We go at night. You have to wait till it gets dark otherwise you don't enjoy the event as well. Always going at night that's assumed. It's assumed. It's interesting to me as I look through our hymnal this last week that almost every Christmas hymn in our hymnal says something about light.

In fact the hymns that we sang today all said something about light. This is a theme that we have at Christmas. It's a theme that we talk about. It's a theme we sing about and it's the it's the thing that we have in our decorations everywhere we look.

There are Christmas lights. What would Christmas be without the lights? Why is it that we talk about light? Why is it that we decorate with lights on Christmas? Well it's the description of who came. Christ as our light.

That he came and why is it that he is light? Why is it that we need light? Because friends and neighbors, brothers and sisters, the darkness is deep. The darkness is very deep. Light is never as brilliant as in total darkness.

And God's light in our darkness is the grace of Christmas. God's light in our darkness is the grace of Christmas. Our passage helps us understand what kind of darkness we're talking about. Very often when you watch a Christmas movie the darkness is usually portrayed in humanity as some kind of intolerance of others.

Greed or just plain grumpiness. You know, the Grinch. Intolerant of the who's in Whoville for their who-iness. Very greedy and wanting all the presents and just plain grumpy and nasty even to his own dog.

This is usually what the darkness is portrayed as. Something comical, something light. And just the fact is that folks we need a Christmas season once a year just to help us be better humans. It's usually how it's portrayed.

But the darkness is far more deep than that. And the darkness of sin is on display here in verses 19 through 22 of Isaiah 8. Let's look at the darkness of sin. And the first kind of darkness that we have is the darkness of devilry.

The darkness of devilry verses 19 and 20. When they say to you, consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter. Should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?

To the law and to the testimony if they do not speak according to this word it is because they have no dawn. They have no light. They're in darkness. Do you know any necromancers or any of your neighbors soothsayers?

This is the way it was in Jeremiah's time. As my translation I think the old King James I think says necromancers and soothsayers. This is New American Standard reads mediums and spiritists. What were these people?

The mediums, the necromancers would speak on the behalf of the dead. The spiritists or the soothsayers would speak on the behalf of living spirits. But they would only mutter and mumble. They would only chirp and whisper.

In fact the rabbis would say that the necromancers spoke from their armpits and the soothsayers spoke from their mouths. What they meant by that was that a necromancer would usually have some sort of vessel on the table or in the middle of their encounter with whoever they're talking to.

Someone came to them and gave them money. They want to find out some sort of news. They want some information. They want some guidance from the dead. And so the necromancer would have some sort of something in the middle.

Some sort of pot or some sort of flask from which he could make smoke appear. And he wanted the person there to believe that they were hearing a message from the dead. So he would talk in his armpit like this.

Put his face in his armpit and he would practice ventriloquy. And he would make the pot talk. But he was just him chirping under his armpit. It was just him muttering and mumbling and giving the news or the guidance or whatever it was they wanted.

And of course the soothsayers were more direct. They couldn't do ventriloquy so they just said this is what the spirits say. And they would give some sort of guidance and give some sort of information to the people who gave them the money.

In Isaiah's day, in Jeremiah's day, in the days of Israel and Judah, these necromancers, these soothsayers were far and wide. You know, people who would tell you usually what you wanted to hear for a price.

They're still around today but we don't call them necromancers. We don't call them soothsayers. They maybe mutter and mumble a little bit. Some of them may practice ventriloquy. But essentially these folks are still around today.

You give them a little money and they'll tell you what you want to hear based on the authority of something somewhere. The darkness of devilry. Satan is the father of lies. He is ultimately the origin of all the lies that anyone tells and those who tell lies are of their father the devil, Jesus says.

The darkness of devilry is perpetuated by those who want a quick message and those who want a soft message. Paul says they will heap up for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires. And usually the desires of those who are in darkness, the desires of those who are in rebellion against God, is they want a quick message and they want an easy soft message.

And that's what's going on in Isaiah's day. Isaiah says to his own children, he says to his very few disciples, those right to him, he says, when they say to you, go talk to the mediums and the spiritists, don't do it.

What are they after anyway? Well it's a quick message. It's quick and easy to go to some sort of medium, some sort of spiritist, give them a little bit of money and then they talk and then you're done.

You got your message. It's so quick. It's so direct. It's easy. They want a soft message. Isaiah was not the one who came around with a soft message. You'll notice this from verses 12 through 15 in the same chapter.

He says, you are not to say it is a conspiracy in regard to all that this people call a conspiracy and you are not to fear what they fear and be dread of it. It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy.

He shall be your fear. He shall be your dread. Then he shall become a sanctuary. But to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over and a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Many will stumble over them. They will fall and be broken. They will even be snared and caught. It's not a very nice message, is it? That's not very positive, encouraging and uplifting. And also Isaiah's two sons, who he had been given, he also was instructed to name them certain names.

The first one was Shier Jashub. We met him last week. A remnant will return. It sounds good, but why only a remnant and where are we coming back from? It speaks of exile. It speaks of judgment, even as it speaks of ultimate hope.

His second son was given a name so long as a comma in the middle of it. It's the longest word in the Bible, Meher Shalom Hashbaz. I think they called him Baz for short. His name was not all that encouraging either.

His name was, hasten to the spoil, hasten to the prey. And this is what the enemies of Israel and Judah would be doing, is they conquered the people of God. So there are some messages that are hard for the people to hear.

They don't want to hear the message of God coming through Isaiah. They want a softer message and they want a quicker message. They don't want a message that takes too long to understand or take too long to study.

But Isaiah has a different type of prayer for his own disciples, his own children. Verse 16, he says, bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples, and I will wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.

I will even look eagerly for him. Bind up the testimony. That's binding. It has the idea of the harvest where you go out and you gather the grain, you bind it together. You have to go gather all the different stalks of grain and you bind them together into one sheaf.

Bind them up and then seal them, put them away, and protect them. This is work. This is labor. To have to go gather, to bind up, to put away and take care of. And then, after all that work, there's waiting.

Isaiah says, I will wait upon the Lord. He has hidden his face from his people, but I will wait upon the Lord, eagerly anticipating his answer. This is not the way we like to operate. We want a quick message.

We want an instant message. We don't want to have to work to understand what God says. We want it instantly, in our brains, in a moment. God calls us to some labor, to go and gather his truths, to bind them up, and then to meditate them, ponder them, memorize them, seal them inside of us so that we would know what he says.

And then, sometimes, the answer is, wait. This is the call to faith. That even when we get God's answer and we understand what he's saying, and there are some things left to be resolved, that we would still be in the posture of waiting, after all the labor that we've taken, to study God's Word, to understand what he means, and then eagerly wait in anticipation of his answer.

This is a life of faith. The darkness of sin falls quickly upon us, in the darkness of devilry, when we want a quick and soft message. A quick and soft message. And that's what Isaiah, Isaiah's people, Isaiah's countrymen, were looking for.

This is a very dark way to live, living by only the quick messages, and only the soft messages. It's also the darkness of depravity. Look at verse 21. These who have no dawn, these who do not speak according to the law and to the testimony, these who do not live and think and speak according to the Word of God, they have no light, they have no dawn.

And these are the same. Verse 21, they will pass through the land, they will pass through the land, hard-pressed and famished, and it will turn out that when they are hungry, they will be enraged and curse their king and their God as they face upward.

They're enraged because they are hungry, but why are they hungry? They have not bound up the sheaves, they have not gathered in the harvest, they have not set themselves to live according to God's way, they have not sought the will of the Lord, and therefore the blessings of the Lord, and therefore they are hungry, they are famished, they are afflicted according to the covenant curses of God himself, and yet they are enraged at God.

They are angry with God and their king as they look upward. They know who's in charge, they know who is ultimately responsible for all of this, they know why they're having a hard time, and they say it's God's fault.

They're angry with God, they're enraged with God. Douglas Wilson says there are two tenets of atheism. One, there is no God. Two, I hate him. What do you call someone who rejects God's words and rejects God's ways and then suffering the inevitable consequences, shakes their fist at God, blaming him while unwilling to repent?

There's a biblical word for it. It is a four-letter word, but it's okay to say fool. It's the fool. This is deep darkness. This is the darkness of depravity, that those who are made in the image of God know that there is a God, but rebel against him and are angry with him because of the natural and the divine consequences upon them.

That God who has mercy, that God who in his holiness and justice should end their life the moment they sin against him, graciously extends their life and gives them all these good things that his rain falls upon the just and upon the unjust, and that he is patient with them in long-suffering, and yet they are angry with him and the rejection of him, and they rebel against him.

This is deep darkness. Many people will say, many people will say, God being all-powerful, if he really is there and if he really is all-powerful, if he would just give me a sign and just show himself, and what about all this evil in the world?

Why doesn't he do something about that? Can't he do something about that? That God, when he does something about the evil in the world, and he does it with mighty power, giving a sign to those who would otherwise say they don't believe in him, that when they are subjected to these signs, they do not repent.

So deep is the depravity. Consider the passages in Revelation 9 and 16. Revelation 9, 20 -21. The plagues of God come upon mankind for their sins. What is the response? Signs of God. He's dealing with the evil in the world.

He's doing what man wanted him to do. What about all this evil in the world? Why won't you show yourself? So he shows himself by dealing with the evil in the world. And what's the response of man? Verse 20, the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, so as to not worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk.

And they did not repent of their murders, nor their sorceries, nor of their immorality, nor of their thefts. So here are these people who seen the power of an almighty living God, judging the the evil of mankind, refused to repent, and would rather worship idols that neither see, nor hear, nor speak.

That's deep depravity. That's deep darkness. The same happens in Revelation 16. Verse 10 and 11. The fifth angel poured out his bowl upon the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened. And they gnawed their tongues because of pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores.

And they did not repent of their deeds. Verse 21. And huge hailstones, about a hundred pounds each, came down from heaven upon men. And men blasphemed God because of the plague, and of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe.

The fact that you're still alive, it's the opportunity to repent. Behold the majesty, and the power, and the holiness of this God. And you're still alive. It's time to repent, to turn away from your sins, to subject yourself to this holy God who's given you another chance.

And then they blaspheme, and they shake their fist in the face of God. Such is the folks in Isaiah's day. Such are many of the folks in our day. I wonder if there are folks like that in this room. Another day, another opportunity to live.

But God hasn't done this, and he hasn't done that. Friend, this is the one true holy God. He has revealed himself. It is undeniable. If you're alive, you have a chance to repent of your sins and turn to him.

Do homage to the Son while there is still time. Find refuge in him. We also have the darkness of destruction. In verse 22, we have three different words in the Hebrew for darkness. This is utter darkness.

Verse 22, then they will look to the earth. After these rebels shake their fist at their God and their King up in heaven, then they look down around the earth. What do they got left? Having rejected the God of heaven, their eyes come back down around the earth.

And what do they see? What do they have left? Distress and darkness. The gloom of anguish. And they will be driven away into darkness. There's no hope in this darkness. What hope remains on earth if heaven is rejected?

What hope remains on earth if heaven is rejected? There's nothing left. We can dress up in the darkness. We can dress up in competency. We can dress up in intelligence. We can dress up in zealous causes.

But it's still darkness. I wonder if we believe that this darkness really exists. This too is a matter of faith. Many people don't believe that men live in darkness. Many people don't believe that those without Christ are in darkness.

Many people don't believe that the darkness prevails in man to this degree. But the Bible says this is true. The only reason why we don't believe it is that we don't see it as God sees it. If we don't agree with it, it's because we're not as holy as God is.

We're not as offended by it. We can easily rationalize with those who appear to be like us. But there's no hope in this darkness, and there is no end to that darkness. They will be driven away into darkness.

This is the same language of Christ in Matthew 25, describing the days of judgment. Matthew 25 verse 30, after the parable of the worthless slave, he says, "...throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness.".

That's how Christ described eternal judgment, was the outer darkness. "...in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.". For how long? Verse 41, "...he will say to those on his left, depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.".

This is how deep the darkness is, that born in Adam, born in sin, we are so deep in our depravity that we would shake our fist in the face of the God who is sparing our life, and covering over this darkness is the darkness of the devil himself, who has veiled our minds with his lies so that we wouldn't know the truth if it shook our hands, and that we are destined for a darkness without God, an outer darkness without end.

That's the darkness of sin. It is that darkness that we sing about in our hymns, into which the light has come. We sing the hymns, and we talk about the darkness. Do we understand what kind of darkness it is?

Do we understand from what we have been saved, brothers and sisters, that we have something to praise God for every day, not just once a year. That when we light up our houses, and we light up our trees, and we go see the lights that others have put up, that we should be thinking to ourselves all the time, the light who has come into our darkness to save us.

The Light of Christ in Galilee

And this is the light, chapter 9, verses 1 and 2. The light of the sun. But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In earlier times, he treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt.

Later on, he shall make it glorious by the way of the sea. On the other side of the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.

It's amazing. I was looking through the hymns this week, thinking about that theme. And hymn 160, hymn 160 is, well I don't think I've ever sung this hymn. I don't remember that I have. But it says, lo how a rose' air blooming, from tender stem hath sprung.

Of Jesse's lineage coming, as men of old have sung. It came a flower bright, amid the cold of winter, when half gone was the night. Isaiah twas foretold it, the rose I have in mind. With Mary we behold it, the virgin mother kind.

To show God's love aright, she bore to men a savior, when half gone was the night. This flower whose fragrance tender, with sweetness fills the air, dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere.

True man yet very God, from sin and death he saves us, enlightens every lobe. We understand the darkness, we understand the glory of the light. This light was for sinners. Notice that we hear about those who lived in Zebulun and those who lived in Naphtali, that he treated their land with contempt.

These folks were the first to fall before the Assyrian onslaught. They were the first to taste the bitterness of judgment that God had promised for so long. That those he first judged would be the first to receive the light.

Galilee of the Gentiles. It was from Nazareth the light came. He was born in Bethlehem, but he grew up in Nazareth. And it was Nazareth and Galilee and all the region of Galilee where Christ did most of his ministry, where he spent the bulk of his time.

He will make it glorious, God's promise is. Let's consider this light for sinners. Before we think of the glory, let's be sure that we understand the glare. The other night we went by a house, you know the kind of house when you go Christmas light looking that they've done a little much.

And you drive by certain houses and my wife says, that hurts your eyes just to look at it. That's the way it is with the light sometimes, isn't it? That sometimes it's more glare than glory. How could it not be that for those who are so entrenched in darkness?

A light for sinners and yet it's a glare. John chapter 1 verses 4 and 5, in Christ was life, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.

John 3, this is after John 3 16 that we know so well. This is what Christ says in verses 19 and 20, this is the judgment that the light has come into the world. And men love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.

For everyone practicing evil hates the light, does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. There's a glare, isn't there? First John 1 5 through 7, this is the message we have heard from him and announced to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.

The only way that the glare is turned to glory in our eyes is through Christ. It's the only way that we can approach God who dwells in unapproachable light, is to come through Christ who was given to us.

That in him that we would have our sins forgiven, in him that we will be reconciled to God. And he would turn that the glare of God's judgment light into his saving light and God made Galilee glorious.

It was where Christ walked with his disciples, where he did his miracles, where he preached his sermons. Galilee of the Gentiles had long been held in contempt ever since Solomon gave it to King Hiram because of all the cedar and the cypress that Hiram gave to him.

He gave him Galilee, the cities of the north. And Hiram went out to look at the cities that Solomon gave to him and he said they were Kabbal. Translators don't really know what Kabbal means, but they know it doesn't mean anything good.

It was long held in contempt and yet it was where Christ came to do his ministry, fulfilled the prophecy here. You can read about that in Matthew 4. A light for sinners, he would make Galilee glorious.

Christ Saves Us from Devilry, Depravity, and Destruction

He is a light who comes and he saves. He saves us. Isaiah 9 verse 6 begins this way, for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. This is the one. He is the light. He is the one who comes to save.

And he saves us from devilry. We don't have to go to necromancers and soothsayers. We don't have to go to mediators who say that they speak for God directly. He has given us his son. Though he has revealed himself in various ways to various times, recorded in the Holy Scriptures, he has come to us ultimately, finally, clearly, and perfectly in Christ.

And he is faithfully, inherently, perfectly revealed in the Holy Scriptures. We are saved from devilry. We don't have to practice witchcraft and we don't have to listen to the modern soothsayers of our day with their PhDs who undoubtedly this Christmas season will prognosticate that perhaps Jesus never actually lived.

Isaiah says to his own, to bind up the testimony, to seal the law among his disciples. We don't have to stay in the darkness, we can come to the light. The word that is a lamp to our feet, a light into our path, the Scriptures.

We don't have to be like King Saul, who wanted a quick and easy message, who didn't want to wait on the Lord, who was always doing things his own way. First offering sacrifices instead of waiting on the prophet, then not following instructions and leaving Agag alive, and then finally visiting a witch because he would not wait upon the Lord, because he would not trust in the Scriptures.

Christ saves us from devilry. He's given us himself. He has given us the light of the Scriptures. We can come out of the darkness. We don't have to stay there. We can come out of the darkness because he saves us from depravity.

It's only by Christ, by his cleansing power, by his resurrection from the dead, to give us new life. Isaiah himself knew the darkness in his own life, in his own heart, that Isaiah standing before the Lord, in the Holy of Holies, says, woe is me, I am ruined.

I am a man of unclean lips. My eyes have seen the King of Kings, the Lord of hosts. But one of the seraphim flew to me, he says in Isaiah 6 6, with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs, and he touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips and your iniquity has taken away your sin forgiven.

It's the altar. It's Christ's sacrifice by which we are cleansed, by which we are saved. And we are saved not only from devilry and depravity, by the light of Christ, we are also saved from destruction.

Jesus warns about those who reject him will spend all of eternity in outer darkness, away from him in eternal destruction. But God has given us Christ so we can be saved from that destruction, that we will know his light forever and ever.

I can't help but think of Revelation in chapter 21, beginning in verse 22. Listen to the themes of light. John says, I saw no temple in it in the city, the New Jerusalem. I saw no temple in it for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

And the city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it and its lamp is the Lamb. Its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by his light and the kings of the earth will bring the glory into it.

In the daytime for there will be no night there. Its gates will never be closed and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. And nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

I don't know how light is going to be more glorious and of far more beauty when there is no night for it to be set against, but it will. Because it'll be the light of the Lamb that we will glory in. This is the grace of Christmas.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this time in your Word. The darkness indeed is deep, but it is not too deep for you. You are not restrained.