Dr. Rodney Plunket

Let me begin by telling you how great it is to be back in this pulpit and preaching again.  I enjoyed and benefited from my sabbatical, but I am glad to be back doing what I love.

I might not have taken a sabbatical had I known the rumors it would generate.  Some people thought I was planning to leave Broadway.  That was not and is not true.  Others thought I had suffered a nervous breakdown.  I have not suffered a nervous breakdown.  I cannot even claim that I was suffering burn out.  In fact, I took the sabbatical so I would not suffer burn out.

I just needed a break from my normal duties.  Some of my sabbatical time was spent right here in my office at Broadway––organizing that part of my life and also reading.  Some of my sabbatical time had to be spent dealing with issues related to my father’s death, because he appointed me to be the executor of his will.  I also spent one afternoon with our teens at Rockcleft and wished I could have stayed for the entire week.

I was doing fine before my sabbatical.  I did fine during my sabbatical.  I hope that I am doing even finer now.  But I am sure glad to be back.

Now let’s go to the Book of the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah; because we will spend our time this morning in that great book.  The first thirty-nine chapters of this book are written because the people of Judah, the Jews, have no authentic, life-changing connection to the living God.  They still go to the temple.  They still do religious stuff.  But their hearts and their lives are far from God.

The first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah are written to address that spiritual condition.  As a result, passages within these chapters are explicitly designed to deepen the people’s spirituality, to call them to a deeper relationship with the Lord.

That is why this Sunday and next our worship assemblies will be focused upon two passages from the first thirty-nine chapters of this great book.  During the last couple of months, I have become convinced that my relationship with the Lord needs to be deepened, radically deepened.  And I have become convinced that I need to call us all to a deeper and more life-transforming relationship with the living God.

I sense that my walk with God is far too shallow, my connection to God far too weak and vulnerable.  Instead of the powerful Holy Spirit being the energizing force that exclusively guides and shapes and uses me, I sense the spirits of self-interest and greed and lust having sway within me as well.  Often I fear that the Holy Spirit is completely crowded out, quenched by an anemic faith that refuses to be set on fire.

So for three Sundays we will focus explicitly on spiritual deepening.  The first two of those Sundays (today and next Sunday) we will be called to deepen our trust in the Lord by the words of the prophet Isaiah.  On the third Sunday (August the 19^th) we will be called to deepen our relationship with the Lord by several biblical passages, passages from both the Old Testament and the New.  Please join me in prayer as we begin this study together.  [Prayer that we would be tightly connected to the will, love, and transforming power of God].

Isaiah 26 is a Hebrew poem from the prophet Isaiah.  It is, in fact, very similar to psalms that we find in the Bible’s book of Psalms.  Please look with me at the first verse of this prophetic psalm.  You can follow along either in your worship bulletin or in your Bible.

On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

          We have a strong city;

          he sets up victory

          like walls and bulwarks.

Notice the opening phrase, “On that day.”  The prophet, with this phrase, lets us know that he is looking ahead to some future time.  What kind of future time is he looking ahead too?  He is looking ahead to a time when the city of Jerusalem would again be strong and victorious.  He sings now the type of songs that the nation of God will sing as they enter into Jerusalem to worship.  They will sing songs praising God, because God is the One who has made their city strong and victorious.

As worshippers entered into the gates of Jerusalem and into the temple precincts there, they customarily expressed in song that their hearts and lives were clean, making them acceptable to enter the holy temple grounds.  The prophet incorporates that sentiment into his psalm.  He does that in verses (vv) 2-3.  Please look with me at those verses and follow along as I read.

Open the gates,

          so that the righteous nation that keeps faith

          may enter in.

Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace—

          in peace because they trust in you.

Notice the spiritual characteristics of the nation worthy to enter the holy city and the temple precincts within.  That nation is righteous.  That nation keeps faith.  That nation is characterized by a steadfast mind or, as one commentator renders it, a “trustful mind.”[1]  That nation trusts in the Lord.  And, because of their deep relationship with God, that nation experiences peace from God.  In other words, that nation has a clear and authentic relationship with the living God and that relationship richly blesses the life of that nation.

In vv 4-6 this prophetic psalm makes an important shift.  It shifts from being a hymn sung to the Lord and becomes an admonition to the people.  The admonition flows out of the hymn.  The hymn has emphasized trust.  The admonition is for the people to indeed trust in the Lord.  Please look at vv 4-6 with me.

Trust in the Lord forever,

          for in the Lord God

          you have an everlasting rock.

For he has brought low

          the inhabitants of the height;

          the lofty city he lays low.

He lays it low to the ground,

          casts it to the dust.

The foot tramples it,

          the feet of the poor,

          the steps of the needy.

Verses 5 & 6 focus on the fact that God has brought low some other high and exalted city.  So God has made Jerusalem strong and victorious while God has leveled some other city, a city that was proud and lofty.  God has so leveled and humbled that previously exalted city that even the poor and the needy are able to trample that city under their feet.  The contrast makes God’s elevation of Jerusalem even more impressive.

But focus especially on the opening line of verse (v) 4.  There the prophet calls upon the people in that future time to “[t]rust in the Lord forever.”  Why?  Because “in the Lord God you have an everlasting rock.”  Trust in the Lord because the Lord is so stable and secure and solid that the Lord is like “an ever­lasting rock.”

Now I want to focus upon just two more verses in this great prophetic psalm.  Please look with me at vv 8-9 and follow along as I read.

In the path of your judgments,

          O Lord, we wait for you;

your name and your renown

          are the soul’s desire.

My soul yearns for you in the night,

          my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

For when your judgments are in the earth,

          the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

These verses are just two in a section that extends from v 7 through v 19.  In this section the prophet returns to his own time.  He leaves that future time when the Jerusalem temple would open its gates to a righteous and faithful nation.  He leaves that time and comes back to a time when God’s justice is difficult to see.  And the prophet yearns and seeks for God to cause God’s justice to reign on the earth.  He yearns for God so that God will fill the world with justice.  I believe that the prophet yearns for that future time when a nation characterized by righteousness, faith, and trust would enter into the temple precincts to worship the Lord.

Stop and notice that in v 1 God is the one who gives victory and makes the city strong.  Notice in v 4 the emphatic exhortation for the people to trust in the Lord.  Notice in v 8 the people of faith “wait” on the Lord and that the “name” and the “renown” of the Lord “are the soul’s desire.”  Notice in v 9 that the prophet’s soul “yearns for [the Lord] in the night” and that the prophet’s “spirit
. . . earnestly seeks [the Lord].”

Feel the connection of this prophet to his God.  Feel the connection that he dreams of the people having with their God.  Hear the passion with which the prophet longs for the nation of God to be shaped by their deep and profound faith in the living God.  Feel and hear . . . and receive.  Let’s take hold of that depth of faith.  Let’s move nearer to God.  Let’s allow our prayer lives to be the center of our lives.  Let’s make our connection to God the most important connection we experience.

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