Introduction: Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Our text is the Old Testament Lesson just read, from Isaiah 29. We begin with prayer.
Dear fellow disciples of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ:
- In our text God reflects upon the response of humanity to His Word and to the wisdom contained therein. It is obvious from God’s Word that He wills for us to have wisdom and insight – to know the truth and to be set free by the truth. He has given us His Word for this purpose, and caused it to be written down for us.
- The record of Scripture makes clear that God is much more interested in our receiving this blessing than we are. From Adam and Eve to the end of time human beings are described as ignoring, perverting, or outright rejecting the Word of God – the words of His book, the Bible.
- So it should be no real surprise to us that we observe the same phenomenon in our own day and time. Take for example the Word and wisdom of God regarding marriage – as cited in the Epistle Lesson: “Therefore a MAN shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to His wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” One man, one woman, joined together as one flesh by God Himself. But today many of our fellow citizens – even in a nation heavily influenced historically by Christianity and the church – have rejected this wisdom and truth.
- We might also consider what Jesus asserted in regard to marriage: “What God has joined together, let not man separate.” However, heterosexual Americans have also to a large degree rejected this wisdom and truth. Not only those who have divorced, but the majority believe that it should be relatively easy to dissolve a marriage. And for many today, there is belief that marriage is unnecessary – that it is better to simply “live together.”
- Well, it is not only in the specifics of morality that mankind rejects the Word of God, but chiefly in theology, in the realm of belief. For immorality can only be made “comfortable” within a system of beliefs, one which rejects other teachings of God’s Word.
- What our text reveals is that the stubborn devotion to rejecting God’s clear Word results in God’s Wisdom being hidden from us. This is the topic that we must soberly consider this morning. The good news is that:
I. God’s Wisdom Is Revealed To Us In His Word
Text: “The vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book.”
2 Tim. 3:15-17 “From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
John 17:17 “Your Word is truth.”
John 8:31,32 “If you continue in My Word you are truly My disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
A. But Many Simply Can’t Read It – Or Refuse To
Text: “And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying ‘Read this,’ he says, ‘I cannot read.”
B. And To Many, The Scripture, The Word Of God Is Sealed From Their Understanding
Text: “When men give it to one who can read, saying, ‘Read this,’ he says, ‘I cannot, for it is sealed.’”
C. And Often It Is Sealed To People Because Of “Commandments Taught By Men”
Gospel: “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
Statement: This is very much how people respond to the Word of God today, the Bible. Many simply refuse to read it, to study it, to continue on in it – because they don’t like what God’s Word has to say. Biblical illiteracy has become epidemic in America; very few of our younger generations have any familiarity at all with God’s Word. Others – even many within the church – consider God’s Word to be too difficult [sealed from their minds], and refuse to discipline themselves to actually study God’s Word. This is much easier – for it leaves us “comfortably ignorant” of the many evils that our sinful flesh cherishes.
Application: But we must understand that this is not wisdom but foolishness – and this is not healthy and helpful to us, but rather damaging and destructive of our real spiritual health and vitality. And it can become deadly – if we then continue to “act” as if we honor God, using our lips and going through the motions – when our heart is actually far from God, so far from God that we will not even “study” His Word. This is the worst form of substituting the tradition of men for the Word of God – when we think that our self-determined “faith” and “morality” is superior to what the Bible teaches; when we are so convinced of this that we simply suspend any further consideration of God’s Word, the Bible.
Transition: So we must consider that:
II. There Are Many Ways In Which People “Seal” God’s Word
A. Some Hide From God – As If He Doesn’t See Them
Text: “Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, ‘Who sees us? Who knows us?’”
B. Others Turn Reality Upside Down – And Arrogantly Reject God As Creator, Choosing Instead To “Create Him” For Themselves
Text: “Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?
Statement: These are not temptations that are far from our hearts and our thinking. How many things do you think and say and do each day without any regard for the presence of God? Things that you wouldn’t dream of thinking if you were aware that God is in fact present everywhere and aware of everything? Is this not the same as subconsciously asserting that God does not see us or know us? And it is assumed that religion is a matter of free choice – that we all have the right to conceive of God as we see fit, that is, in a way that is comfortable to us, that makes us happy. Evolution does exactly this – it rejects God Who has created us in His image and turns us into animals – in essence asserting that God has no understanding and did not make us!
Application: Of course we all have questions and thoughts about ourselves – why we are how we are, why we think the way we do, why we have unhappiness or discontentment, or illness and injury, or why we have to age and die. But God wants us to ask Him these questions, and to hear what He has to say to us in His Word – a Word of wisdom and truth! But it is easier to make up our own answers – and to simply be grumpy with God, foisting all blame upon Him.
Transition: These are temptations that are common to all of us – and recognizing them should create a great deal of dread and fright in all of us. But even in the face of our stubborn rebellion, God assures us that:
III. He Will Destroy Man’s Wisdom
Text: “Therefore, behold I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
A. He Destroys Man’s Wisdom With The Gift Of Jesus – His Only Begotten Son, The Holy One Of Israel
Heb. 1:1-3 “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, Whom He appointed the heir of all things, through Whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the Word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
B. God Destroys Man’s Wisdom By His Redemption And Salvation In Christ Jesus
John 3:16 “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
1 Cor. 1:17-31 “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and God has chosen the base things of the world, and things which are despised, and things which are not, in order to bring to nothing things that are; so that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, Who of God is made to us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, according as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’”
C. And God Destroys Man’s Wisdom By Continued Reiteration Of His Eternal Word
Text: “In that day the deaf shall hear the Words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see. The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.”
1 Pet. 1:23-25 “You were born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of men as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls out, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the Word preached as gospel to you.”
Statement: And so this Word of God continues to come to us – and it is gospel, good news of forgiveness and redemption and righteousness accounted to us by God Himself through faith, so that we are assured that we will not come into condemnation but have eternal life! We may not be that interested – but God is interested in our salvation and blessedness! So He speaks and directs us to His written Word – a living and abiding Word which endures forever! He will still be speaking it on the Last Day!
Application: And surely this is a Word which we should desire to hear, a Word of utmost and ultimate blessing! And surely we know that if this is the principle content of God’s Word, then all of it must be great good news and full of wisdom for us! And surely we can see that our sinful nature opposes God’s Word and so is self-destructive, one of our greatest enemies! And so the options remain before us – as to our response and reaction to the Word of God. We know how so many around us respond to God’s Word – and the horrid things that such rebellion brings. Thanks and praise be to God that this is not His will for us, but rather that we receive His Wisdom through His Word, and have eternal life!
Conclusion: So let us consider carefully what is at stake, and which part of humanity we wish to join – those from whom God’s wisdom remains hidden, or those who “obtain fresh joy in the LORD” – in the Lord Jesus, and in God’s salvation!
There is no question as to God’s will. There is no question as to which is more beneficial – both now and forever! So let us take His book, the Bible, and continue in His Word, that we may know the blessed truth and be blessed by His freedom! Amen.
Votum: And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in the true faith, which is in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting, Amen.