(Sermon held prior to celebration of Lord's Supper)

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 63:1
Psalm 51:4
Psalm 62:1
Hymn 1A
Hymn 44
Hymn 62:1,2,3,4

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

The first few verses of the passage we read from Is 32 are hardly comforting. A picture is presented of most unsettled times, including failed harvests (vs 10), fields overgrown by weeds (13), forsaken palaces (vs 14), deserted cities (vs 14). Here is social disruption, political instability, economic collapse.

Whence this unsettledness? Why would sovereign God allow such strife and strains to beset His covenant people? That, beloved, is due to Israel’s sins; that people had broken God’s covenant, had refused to obey God (cf Dt 28). Hence the prophet’s call to the "complacent women" to "tremble", to "strip yourselves", to "gird sackcloth on your waists"; these are in Scripture symbols of sorrow for sin, of repentance. It’s once there comes repentance that the Lord would remove the covenant curses, would replace the social disruption, the political instability, the economic collapse with peace and quietness, with prosperity.

But listen now, congregation, to the surprise of our text! For the prophet Isaiah does not say that the harvest will fail and the fields remain overgrown with weeds and the cities remain deserted until repentance comes; he says instead that the harvest will fail and the cities will remain deserted "until a spirit is poured upon us from on high." The point is that God will act, and the result of His sovereign work will be that "the wilderness becomes a fruitful field," becomes so fruitful as to be comparable to a forest. More, the result of God’s pouring out a spirit from on high will be that justice and righteousness will abound, and the effect of justice and righteousness will in turn be the existence of peace and quietness. Says the Lord: "My people will dwell in a peaceful habitation, In secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places" (vs 18). Truly, how different from Israel’s current troubling circumstances, how desirable! And all that not because Israel would be so repentant, but rather because the Lord would graciously send a Spirit from on high.

In the years following this prophecy, the Lord did as He promised. He sent a Spirit from on high who in turn caused an end to the exile, and even repentance in Israel. The fulfillment of this promise, though, has come in Jesus Christ. For Christ on the day of Pentecost poured out the Spirit from on high, with as blessed result that the Church of Acts 2 knew no trying traumas; the saints of Acts 2 formed a living communion of saints so that "they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favour with the people" (vs 46f). And why was it that the Christ had now poured out His Holy Spirit, gave this gift of peace and quietness? It was not, beloved, because the people of Israel had become so repentant and so earned God’s forgiveness. It was rather because Jesus Christ had given Himself to the curse of Calvary. He paid for sin, with as result that the Holy Spirit could be poured out on sinful people, and these sinful people receive the peace and quietness which God in His covenant had promised to His children.

What we have in our text, then, congregation, is a promise valid for us too. Though we live so long after Isaiah, after Pentecost, though we live in circumstances so different from those of the prophet, God in Christ has sovereignly and graciously poured out His Holy Spirit even on us so that we receive from the Lord the precious gift of peace and quietness. And make no mistake: we’ve not received Christ’s Holy Spirit because we were so repentant or so humble. We rather receive Christ’s Spirit because Christ on Calvary washed our sins away. The doing is His alone.

Now we sit at His table. What’s impressed upon us at this table? This: Christ paid for the sins of the unworthy, paid for our sins. As that gospel is spelled out for us, we are confronted again too with the blessed fruit of Christ’s death for us: the Holy Spirit is poured out even on us, poured out so that we might receive from God the gifts of peace and quietness.

In the strifes and strains of this life, I believe that God graciously gives this peace even to me. Tomorrow, when the Saviour returns, we shall see that peace in all its blessedness and perfection. Amen.