No. 40. >> There is a lot of confusing language used by different Christian traditions about the matter of salvation. What does God mean in Chapter 44 Verse 21 when he says: Return to me? >>DR. DANIEL L. GARD: In our culture, our society, we live with freedom of religion. And that's a very precious freedom. And I'm very grateful for it. But because we live in a culture with freedom of religion, ideas about God are expressed quite openly. And that's a good thing. But sometimes as we listen to the way in which those things are expressed, in fact, sometimes the very things that are said, it can be a bit more problematic. And we have to remember as pastors, too, that our people are inundated with all sorts of religious influences. The time that they spend with us in the presence of God before a pulpit and an altar is a very small part of their weekly life. And many pious Lutherans will be listening to many different things. And sometimes there's ways in which words are used that can be a bit on the difficult side. For example, I was asked once when I was a young man, single at the time. Went to a laundromat. And a woman came up to me and she said: Young man, have you been saved. I said: Yes, ma'am, for the first good looking girl that comes along. It wasn't what she meant and I knew it. But it was my response. But it's not language that you'll hear in Lutheranism. Nor will you hear language like: Have you received Jesus? Or have you accepted Jesus? And the reason why we don't use that particular language is simply because of the connotations it brings. In fact, I've never accepted Jesus. He accepted me. And that's all that matters. So Lutheranism brings a little different way of expressing what we want to say. This was also true in the time of Isaiah. And it's a very interesting text I think which helps bring some clarity, particularly to the kind of language that's used for matters of salvation. In Isaiah 44, I'll just read two verses, 21 through actually -- I'm sorry; three verses. 21 through 23. Remember these things, O, Jacob. For you are my servant, O, Israel. I have made you. You are my servant. O, Israel, I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud. Your sins like the morning mist. Return to me for I have redeemed you. Sing for joy, O, heavens, for the Lord has done this. Shout aloud, O, earth, beneath. Burst into song, you mountains. You forest and all you trees. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob. He displayed his glory in Israel. When the United States was founded and our Constitution drawn up, the founding fathers had the wisdom to add the Bill of Rights. And I've alluded to something of this already. That among the rights guaranteed to us is the right of the free press, as well as a right to freedom of religion. And that's a precious freedom. And one, too, that is worth guarding and protecting. But if you've ever noticed, there are large segments of the press which treat biblical Christianity in some fairly interesting ways. At best, to be one who believes the Bible is to be one who is a throwback to a lessened lightened age. And at worse, you're a social evil. Well, that's the way the world has always viewed the people of God in Isaiah's time as well as our own. If possible, unregenerate humankind would suppress and even destroy God's people. In our own day we only have to look at what our brothers in Christ suffer in, for example, Islamic nations where one can be executed simply for proclaiming the Gospel. And even as you listen to this tape and as I prepare it, there are brothers and sisters in Christ who suffer in Islamic prisons. Simply because they either became a Christian or spoke the Word of Jesus. Yet, God's people have a Lord who is infinitely stronger than the enemies. God has always had a people who were his through faith in him. And through his redemptive grace. Take a look at the eleventh chapter of Hebrews at some point. It's a wonderful introduction to the Old Testament. And as you read through the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, you'll see saint after saint. Those who believed and pressed forward in faith to the same thing that we are called to press forward towards. They were filled with a promise. A promise of a Savior who was coming to redeem them from their sins. Now, they looked forward in time to his coming. When Isaiah preached, the Messiah had not yet in time come. And yet, they were urged to look forward to that one who would. We who live in this time, the 21st Century, look backwards in time to that same event that Isaiah urged people to look forward in time to. And that is the coming of Messiah. In that way the New Testament church is very much simply a continuation of Old Testament Israel. Because we share the same faith. And the same hope in a Messiah. Now, it's to these people, God's own children, that God makes a promise through Isaiah in the text that I just read. He told Israel and he tells us today that his people are precious to him. That no matter what our circumstances or what our trials, God never forgets us. And that promise is true. Even when his people are in the gravest of danger. When Isaiah was sent, his people were, indeed, in amazing danger. They were threatened from both inside and outside. Already by the time Isaiah delivered this prophecy, the northern tribes had collapsed under the weight of the Assyrian empire and were subject to them. Only the southern kingdom remained. And they, too, were being threatened by this Assyrian nation. God's people were simply surrounded by danger. But to make matters worse, in Isaiah's time, they were also threatened from within. There were false leaders who had arisen within Israel. Leaders who had forsaken the God of Israel. And in fact, led many into idolatry. From every angle, inside, outside and every which way, God's people faced real danger. That's when we read that Isaiah speaks for God and says this: Remember these, O, Jacob and Israel. For thou art my servant. I have formed you. In other words, look how useless and powerless your idols are. Only I, the Lord, God, am God. It was I who called you and formed you into a people to be my servant. You see, God had chosen his -- Israel to be his own people. They most definitely had not chosen him. It was his grace that first called Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob. None of these had sought God. But rather, God sought them. Without God, they would have been just another nomadic group of people in the ancient Near East. Only by God's grace had they been made his own people, called and formed to serve him. So this is an important point that Isaiah makes that's as valid for the church today as it was then. We are God's people. Not because we sought him. But because he sought us. He goes on: Thou art my servant, O, Israel. Thou shall not be forgotten of me. So often Israel had turned its back on the God that formed them. Forgot his grace. Forgot his favor. The study of the history of Israel is one of -- it's like a roller coaster ride. Time and time again God called them back. And time and time again they slipped away from him. And again, he would send prophets and judges and call them back. Again and again and again. They would forget him. And yet, he could never forget them. God always preserved in Israel a faithful few. Those who still clung to him and to his promises. Even in the darkest days of Israel's history. Even in the days of Isaiah. All the false teachers, all the false prophets the Satan could muster could never change that for Israel. God's grace always operates among his people. And preserves them in the faith. No enemy whether on the inside or the outside is ever greater than the grace of God. You know, it's not unlike Isaiah's situation that the church has always faced in her life. There are dangers from every angle. From the outside, many suffer because of persecutions. Whether they are Islamic governments or communist governments that still remain. Also here in America, the church has enemies. And those who so ridicule the church, that simply ridicule her out of existence. The cult grows stronger. One of the fastest growing religions in the United States today is Islam. In a city of Detroit -- a small town called Harper Woods just outside of Detroit, blocks from where my grandparents live now stands a mosque, which would have been unthinkable in the days I was growing up. But there it is. These cults, these false religions, continue to grow. Always seeking especially to lead the souls of believers in Jesus Christ away from the Kingdom of God into darkness. And yet, we can't forget that as awesome as the powers of darkness outside the church are, within the broader church we continue as the church has always continued to struggle with false claims made within her. There are false prophets exactly as there were in Isaiah's time. Proclaiming a variation of the truth. A truth that sometimes -- a variation that sometimes sounded something like the truth. Just enough to deceive God's own elect. There are sincere but sometimes even confused church leaders who compromise the purity of God's Word and Christian doctrine in the interest of a false unionism or a false universalism that is sometimes labeled the brotherhood of man. And there are those of us who sometimes are very fearful believers. And we look upon that monumental task, at least as it appears to us as humans, the task of the church to bring the Gospel to every living creature. Sometimes we look at it and simply want to throw up our hands in despair and say: It can't be done. We don't have the time. We don't have the funds. We don't have the people. But it's to Israel and to the church that Isaiah's words ring so loud and clear in Verse 21: Remember these, O, Jacob and Israel. For thou art my servant. Whose servant? His. I have formed thee. You are my servant, O, Israel, you shall not be forgotten of me. The church has been formed by God himself. And no force from inside or outside can ever destroy the church. Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church. All of these little things are not going to be able to do so if the Satanic enemy himself cannot do so. And it's all because of the love and grace of God who makes the promise. And how undeserved that is. Look at Israel. There's a nation which from a human perspective certainly never deserved God's favor. They had been chosen to be a light to the world. A light that would show forth the glory of their God. A light that would show forth the coming of the Messiah, the one who would come to redeem not just Israel but all of the fallen children of Adam. They were to have been a kingdom of priests. But time after time, they would prove to be faithless priests. Very easily led into idolatry. Yet, each time God would sent prophets like Isaiah to call them back to himself. The history of Israel, as I said, is something like a roller coaster. There were high points and low points as the people drifted away from God and then God returned them to himself. But as great as Israel's sins were, so Isaiah comes and speaks some magnificent words. That God's grace was greater. In Verse 22: I have blotted out as a thick cloud your transgressions and as a cloud thy sins. Return for me for I have redeemed you. Now that is powerful Gospel. Return to me. I have redeemed you. It's already happened. There are those who say that the Old Testament is all law and no Gospel. Well, apparently they've never actually read Isaiah. Or for that matter the rest of the Old Testament. The redemption of Israel in God's perspective had already been accomplished. John speaks of Jesus as the lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. Now, that's an amazing thought. From our human perspective, it happened in time. About 2,000 years ago when the Son of God came into our human world bearing the flesh that he took on in the virgin womb. This God who is God incarnate, the God man walking the face of the earth, eating, drinking, speaking, touching, healing, caring for and loving. And then finally, going to a cross and suffering for the sins of the world. And then rising on the third day to bring God's great message of absolution to every living creature. And yet, from God's perspective, that's timeless. God is not bound to time as we are. His whole -- time is something he created. It's part of his creation. He's not bound to it. He condescends to it because we are creatures of time. And he enters into time in the incarnation. But from his perspective, the salvation that was rocked by Jesus Christ, his Son, which from our perspective was in time 2,000 years ago is an eternal sacrifice. And for Israel, though they lived in time before Christ, yet from God's perspective, that was already an accomplished thing. The salvation of Israel had already taken place through that blood of the Messiah. And it's those words that Isaiah spoke to Israel to: Return to me. I have redeemed you. Not I will in the future redeem you. I have already redeemed you. That is the grace of God that the church, as well, proclaims. As I said before, the only difference between those who first heard Isaiah and those of us who now read Isaiah in this particular time and place, the only difference is perspective in time. For them as human beings they looked forward in time to the Messiah's coming. For us at this time we look back. And we see the same salvific event. God in Christ redeeming the world. Reconciling the world to himself. While there's no one who can stand before God based on their own righteousness, the righteousness which Isaiah will later call a filthy rag, we stand in that righteousness that is the righteousness of Christ. We need God's mercy like the publican who prayed: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. And God's answer is: Return to me. I have redeemed you. The church both individually and corporately -- and this applies to every parish that you might ever serve in the course of your ministry -- is composed of sinful, fallen human beings. Every one of them. I had a wedding once where I actually told the bride to look at her groom and realized that as much as she may think of him right now, the fact is she's marrying a lousy sinner. I told the groom the same thing. Why? Because it's true. Both of them are sinners. However, in this case, they were also both baptized believers redeemed by the grace of God and made holy by him. Every congregation is made up of folks like that. Folks just like you and me. If you want to see a sinner, look in the mirror. There he is. If you want to see more sinners, look at your congregation. There they are. Every one. And yet, every one loved and redeemed by God. Our task is like that of Isaiah's. Not to point them to some future event or something that they do. But to point them to what God has done. He says: I have redeemed you. You don't redeem yourself. I redeem you. And you return to me because I've already done that. Look how frequently he gives that grace. He says to us in Isaiah in this text in Verse 22: I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and as a cloud thy sins. Return to me for I have redeemed you. How precious that is. What a message Isaiah brought. What a message you and I bring to people weighted down by the burden of sin and death and fear. Is that God has already taken care of it all. The Old Testament saints had only that promise of a Savior. We have the New Testament, we have historical reality of Jesus Christ to cling to. Now, from our point in time, again, God has already sent his Son. It's already been taken care of. So even from a human perspective, we can understand this. I have redeemed you. It's past. It's over. It's done. And nothing can add to that or change that. And how precious that truth becomes when we engage real human lives. If I could tell you one quick story, a young woman who I once had the great privilege of serving as pastor. This young woman some years before had had a child out of wedlock. The father had disappeared. She had kept the child. Was raising this child in the church. Struggling with two minimum wage jobs to keep food on the table, to cloth and educate her daughter. But she knew the power of God's forgiveness and his strength in her life. And then she got pregnant again. Still unmarried. We struggled and prayed for a week. Her question was never: Should I abort this child? That was not an issue. But her question was: Can God forgive me again? She came to see that power of God. To hear those words: Return to me. I have redeemed you. And I've got to tell you that next Sunday we had Holy Communion. And at the Eucharist as a pastor, I realized why I became a pastor. Because as I looked down this long row of very pious German Lutheran faces, all very stern looking, there was one face with tears rolling down her cheeks as she heard those words: Given and shed for you. That's our calling. That was Isaiah's calling to a nation that was hurting and broken. Return to me. For I have redeemed you. Wherever we are, whatever we face, whatever God's people face, this is the message of Isaiah. And this is your message. It's the message that saves, that redeems, that brings hope and peace.