"THIS PAST YEAR BEEN A GOOD YEAR BECAUSE ALL THINGS HAVE COME FROM GOD AND ARE TO GOD."

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Hy 59:1,2,3
Ps 56:4,5
Ps 75:4,6
Hy 42:1,2,3,8
Ps 68:8,12

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

It’s the last evening of the old year. That fact drives us to consider the past year, to reflect on the things that have happened, to weigh up whether the year was good or not. As we make up the balance, we consider the turmoil we’ve gone through in our various families, we throw into the balance too the ups and downs of church life in this past year (and then we remember in particular the recent Synod), and for good measure we recall the developments that have dominated the world news in the year gone by – a President committing perjury, riots in our northern neighbour, collapse of the Asian economy, unrest in the Middle East. A good year? I suppose we all could think of ample events from home, church, and world to conclude that 1998 was not a good year; what else should one say to the moral decline of the western world, to a finding of false doctrine in one of our ministers, to abiding tensions in families and marriages? But we could, really, think of an equal number of events in home, church, and world that prompt us to conclude that Yes, 1998 was a good year. After all, in the Church there’s been profession of faith by a number of Young People, the American Congress has shown (despite opinion polls) that it dares to speak out strongly against presidential perjury, and in the homes there has been much love between husbands and wives, much growth in the children and so on. In a word, the balance for 1998 could come out either way.

But the fact that the balance could come out either way, brothers and sisters, is because at bottom we’re not making up the balance correctly. You see, we can make up the balance from a human point of view, and then indeed we’d have to say that Yes, in some ways there has been much good. But equally we’d have to say that there has been much that wasn’t to our liking, much that was not good. So we’re caught between thankfulness and disappointment, between ‘It’s been good’ and ‘It’s not been good’.

The Lord our God would have us rise above that tension. How we can do that? By looking at 1998 not from a human point of view, but rather from His divine perspective. From that perspective, brothers and sisters, we’ll discover –to our tremendous delight and comfort- that 1998 has been a very good year indeed. For in the year that now expires, all things have come from God, and all things are to God. For this God is the first and the last.

I summarise the sermon with this theme:

THIS PAST YEAR BEEN A GOOD YEAR BECAUSE ALL THINGS HAVE COME FROM GOD AND ARE TO GOD.

1 The first and the last. Those words have a familiar ring to them; they appear more often in holy Scriptures. The passage before us this evening contains the first time that these words are actually used as a name for God. After this instance in Is 41, the terms appear again in Is 44 & 46, as well as in Rev 1 & 22.

Is 41, then, represents the first time these names are used of God. One wonders why these words appear now. What prompted the Lord to tell His people at this time that He was "the first" and the last, that He was "with the last" too? To come to grips with the answer to that question, we need to understand something of the circumstances in which the people of Judah found themselves at this time.

The immediate circumstances are suggested by the question which the Lord asks through Isaiah in vs 2. That question is this: "who raised up one from the east?" We know who this "one from the east" was. For Isaiah laboured in the years when Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah were kings in Jerusalem (1:1; cf 6:1). The reigns of these kings coincided with the rise of the Assyrians as a world power. These Assyrians had their base in the city of Ninevah, located east of Judah. The soldiers of the Assyrians were fearsome; wherever they went they were victorious, kings were trampled under foot, nations made like dust. In as much as Judah was one nation among many, was Judah fair game for the Assyrians; they had attacked and defeated numerous other lands, and surely Judah would soon get its turn.

For the people of Judah and Jerusalem this threat to their freedom and independence was certainly horrifying. Indeed, this threat raised so many questions in the minds of older and younger in Judah. Specifically this question: who is it that stirs up this power from the east?! Assyria: it’s a power to be feared; who then sent that power against us??

The prophet Isaiah is moved by the Lord to give an answer. Indeed, through the prophet the Lord echoes the question asked by the people. Vs 2: "who raised up one from the east? … Who gave the nations before him, And made him rule over kings?" The question is repeated in vs 4: "who has performed and done it?" The answer is given in the words of our text: "I, the LORD." Says God through the prophet: that’s who called the Assyrians into existence, that’s who makes the Assyrians trample over kings, who makes him threaten even Jerusalem. "I, the LORD, do it."

We’re inclined to say: that’s small comfort for the people of Judah. They hear the news, and what they hear is all bad –it’s wars and rumours of wars- and the prophet has the gall to say that it all comes from God! They go to the shops for their groceries and find that what they need is priced beyond their reach because the dreaded Assyrians have pillaged the country, and Isaiah says this comes from God. The parents speak to their children about serving the Lord, they tell of His covenant promises, of His grace and mercy, and the children are demoralised and say: is this the God you want us to serve?! Is this the God who made His covenant with us?? And while the parents and their children struggle with who this God is, Isaiah the prophet preaches on: "who raised up one from the east?" "Who has performed and done it, calling the generations from the beginning?" Who is in charge of all things? "I, the LORD, the LORD, Yahweh...." Know it, O people of Judah: it’s God Himself who lets the hated Assyrians endanger you. Consider your problems, O brothers and sisters of Judah. Add them up, think on them, and know this: your problems come from God, from God!!

There’s something in that answer that doesn’t ring right, even to us. If God controls all –as

Isaiah insists- is God then responsible for the evil that occurs around us? For ourselves, we’re more comfortable with the thought that the evil touching our lives is the bad work of some evil force, specifically the devil. We envision in our minds a fight between God and Satan, with good things being evidence that God is superior, is winning the battle, while evil things are evidence that Satan has much power, was able to pull something off to our hurt. Two powers at war with each other, and we’re at the mercy of the one who ends up being strongest in a given situation....

But that thought has no place in the prophecy contained in Is 41. Yes, there was much evil surrounding the lives of the people of Judah. But in the midst of all that evil, the Lord God straightened out the error that could find fertile root in Judah. That evil comes not from some dark power lurking in the skies; that evil comes instead from none else that Yahweh Himself. There are not two equal powers vying for influence in Judah, God vs Satan, with the arrival of the Assyrians a trump card from the evil one. It is God Himself who stirred up that terror from the east, God Himself who sent the Assyrians against this people. God, HE did it!

It is to drive home this point to His people, beloved of the Lord, that God refers to Himself in our text as "the first". With that designation, God points up the reality of His sovereignty. The point of the designation is that all things come from God, God is the cause of all that happens, all things have their roots in Him. He is the first: ie, God is not subject to external pressures that prompt Him to do this or that. No person, no situation, works on God, He is not dependent on or subject to developments on earth; He stands above all that happens, He controls and determines all that happens. It means too: there is no cooperation with God, as if He has to work together with others to reach His goal. God is above all of that because He is first; He determines what is to happen and He sees to it that it happens. He is "the first", ie, "without the will of [this God] not a hair can fall from my head." For: "all creatures are so in His hands that without His will they cannot so much as move" (LDs 1,10). Absolutely sovereign.

This revelation about God, then, served to underline, to point up, to demonstrate what the Lord had said concerning that power from the east. The Assyrians as a world power did not arise on their own strength. Nor were they sent into the world by hell. The fearsome Assyrians were there simply and only because the Lord God called them into existence; He is "the first".

Yet what kind of a God is this sovereign who so controls all things that kings arise at His bidding? The prophet Isaiah uses in our text God’s covenant name ‘Yahweh’. That’s the name, we recall, which captures the notion of faithfulness, the name by which God would have His children know Him. Yahweh: God revealed this name before the Exodus, and in the years that followed demonstrated that He indeed was ‘Yahweh’, for He faithfully and graciously led His chosen people out of their bondage to Pharaoh, did so in such a way that no harm came to the Israelites in the process. Yahweh: here was a God who looked after His people, who was tenderly concerned for His people.

Yet the Exodus from Egypt involved more than God graciously delivering an unworthy people from their slavery to a cruel overlord. That deliverance from Pharaoh represented the deliverance from Satan which God would work through Jesus Christ; the Exodus is a figure of Calvary. In as much as the Exodus from Egypt pointed up the deep meaning of God’s name ‘Yahweh’, did the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on Calvary give still deeper significance to this name. ‘Yahweh’: here is faithfulness and grace indeed to an undeserving people, for they’re delivered –though so unworthy- from slavery to sin. Behold there the instruction of all the sacrifices Israel had to offer in the Old Testament.

"I, Yahweh, the first." It’s not without significance, beloved, that the name ‘Yahweh’ is placed beside the description ‘the first’, and the term ‘the first’ beside the name ‘Yahweh’. The term ‘the first’: it drew attention to the fact that all things come from God, that He’s sovereign. Yet this almighty God is not ruthless, does not throw around His power without regard for the children He has adopted. No, God is ‘Yahweh’. That God who calls Himself ‘the first’ is that gracious covenant God who redeemed an unworthy people from Egypt, who delivered a fallen race from the clutches of Satan. To say it with the words of the New Testament: this almighty God is "my heavenly Father". That God who is "the first", the God who sovereignly controls nations and kings –even super-powers- is "for the sake of Christ His Son, my God and my Father." And because that is so is there an immense security in those designations of God: "Yahweh, the first". In the words of the Catechism:

The Israelites of Isaiah’s day were scarcely impressed with the fearsome political realities of their day. It was all so horrendous: those Assyrians on the horizon preparing to strike against their city, their houses, their wives, their children. Had God lost control? Had God thrown away His grace? There was so much, so very much uncertainty.... But in their despair God would not leave His children comfortless. Says God to this despairing people: "I, Yahweh," [am] the first." Says God: it was I who moved the Assyrians to rise against Jerusalem, I who make your horizons so very dark. It’s not Satan, My people, it’s not even the Assyrians themselves who caused your present distress. Rather, it is I, the Almighty, the First. I have caused this agony in your lives. Yet, My people, you are not to despair. For I am and I remain ‘Yahweh’. I use My sovereign power for your good.

2 That leads us to the second aspect mentioned in our text about this sovereign God. The last line of verse 4 tells us that this sovereign yet faithful covenant God is "with the last." Those words contain two thoughts.

a. The first thought we need to draw from these last words is an extension from what is contained in the word "the first". Elsewhere in his prophecies, Isaiah refers to God as "the first and the last" (cf 44:6; 48:12). We’ve paused already at what the word "the first" means; they point up the fact that all things come from God, He sovereignly controls all, determines all. The words "the last" embody why God does what He does; to say that God is "the last" points up that all things are geared to God. He is "the last", ie, He is the purpose, the end, the goal of all things. Nothing happens without an ultimate objective, and that objective is God. To say it with Paul: not only are all things of God; all things are also to God (Rom 11:36). And elsewhere: "there is one God...from whom are all things and for whom we exist" (I Cor 8:6).

For the people of Judah, threatened as they were by that victorious power from the east, this word from the prophet will surely have raised not a few eyebrows. To say that God’s hand lay behind the Assyrian threat was one thing; to say that this threat was directed to God’s greater glory – that’s surely something different! The Assyrian threat must be there for God’s sake?? What kind of a God is this, then, who uses such evil things to bring praise to Himself?! Is God then not ruthless to men in His efforts to gather praise for Himself? Is this not a God who is exceedingly Self-centred?

A sinner, beloved, can so easily lay countless charges before the throne of God, charges that to our sinful, mortal minds seem quite justified. God speaks much differently. The Israel of Isaiah’s days –even as we today- are obligated to remember that the holy Creator of heaven and earth would bring no praise to Himself if He would turn His back on sinful man, if He would just let the sinner be. "The justice of God requires that sin committed against the most high majesty of God [must] be punished with extreme...punishment of body and soul" (LD 4). Sin demands punishment, and in as much as God punishes sin does He bring praise to Himself; that punishment points up God’s holiness.

Why was it now that the Assyrians were threatening Judah? Yes, it was because God as "the first" had stirred up this army from the east; all things come from God. But equally: why had God stirred up this army from the east? That was because God in His wisdom had determined that this is what He needed to bring glory to His holy Name. The prophecies of Isaiah are full of references to Israel’s sins, and to the covenant punishments that must come upon Israel because of her sins. All things are to God, this threat from the Assyrians included; by means of these Assyrians God brings glory to Himself, for in these Assyrians He sovereignly punishes His sinful people for their iniquities.

So the Israelites of Isaiah’s day should not be taken aback with the revelation that Yahweh is not only "the first" but is also "the last". Life does not circle around the creature; life circles ultimately around the Creator. As the Lord says in Is 43: all is created, kings and sovereigns included, "for My glory" (vs 7). Israel ought instead to recognise that precisely this structure of things –all things are from God and all things are to God- gives security to men, comfort, encouragement. For it is when men live according to the purpose of their existence –God’s glory- that people receive His blessing.

It’s this same truth that is laid before us through-out the book of Revelation. That book begins and ends with a reference to the fact that Jesus Christ –triumphant as He was on Calvary and crowned as He therefore was to be Lord of all- is the first and the last (cf Rev 1:8; 22:13). And in between these references to Jesus’ being the first and the last is the account of how He shall direct world history in the course of the NT dispensation. There’s mention of beasts, of wars, of sickness, of earthquakes, of fires: disasters aplenty that make men’s blood curdle. Yea, and these are the disasters of which we hear so much in the news, the disasters which we take to be so much a part of life. The book of Revelation would have us know –just as Isaiah 41 would have us know- that all these things come from God, yes, from Jesus Christ, and that all these things work together to give great glory to the Christ who was crowned Lord of all creation.

There is so much evil all around us, evil no less threatening than the dangers surrounding Jerusalem in the days of Isaiah. But God, brothers and sisters, would have us know and believe both that it comes from God and that it’s all directed to God. Be it the arrogance of a Saddam Hussein, or the fall of the Asian economy, or the watershed issues now being debated by the American Senate, or the disappointments we have with our children or the frustrations we feel in the communion of saints, or the errors found in the bond of churches and the division that results, be it the sins we see in friends and relatives or the church discipline that needs to be exercised: all comes from God and all is for God; Scriptures would have us know that our Saviour Jesus Christ –true God with the Father and the Spirit- remains the first and the last, the sovereign God from whom are all things, the holy God for whom are all things. Then it’s true: there is so much that we do not understand. But that doesn’t matter. The fact remains that all that came upon us in 1998 came from God, came from God in order that it might be to God, to His greater glory.

b. There is a second element in the last part of our text that requires our attention. Properly speaking, Isaiah does not say in our text that God is "the last"; properly speaking the prophet tells Israel that Yahweh, the God who is "the first", is "with the last". The point is that the events which come from God and which are to God reach a climax. God is the purpose of all things, but that does not mean that God receives glory through all that happens without any opposition. In fact, as the day of the fullness of God’s glory approaches, the opposition against God increases. For the Israelites of Isaiah’s day the end of the world will have seemed near; what future was there with the dreaded Assyrians breathing down your neck!? But future there was: God, that sovereign, faithful covenant God, revealed Himself to be a God who was "with the last". These dejected Israelites, in other words, were not alone; that God from whom were all things and for whom were all things, was with them.

Then Yes, their future looked grim. And they could ask themselves and their children who it was that directed the Assyrians to torment them. But this is the Word of God to His people through Isaiah: I, Yahweh, am the first and the last, the cause and the purpose of all things. And even as all things in this world revolve around Me, do I make a point of being with My people always; never are My own alone.

And here, brothers and sisters, is the marvel of the year that ends. Yes, there was so much this past year that could make us despair. But as you make up the balance tonight, beloved, your almighty God would have you know that in the year 1998 not a single thing happened without His instruction. Equally, not a single thing happened unless it served the glory of this God. No, do not ask how this disappointment and how that disaster served to the glory of God; we’re not told the details. But the fact remains. Go ahead, then, recall all the disappointments of the past year, add them up tonight. But believe this, beloved, believe it: it all had one cause: God, and it all had one purpose: God. And even as this God directed the events of 1998 to His glory, He did not forget you His child for a moment; Yahweh, that God who is your Father for Jesus’ sake, was with you every day, with you to ensure that Yes, all did serve to His glory. He was with you so that none could pluck you from His hand, despite the trials and storms there have been, and yes, that’s glory for this sovereign God.

Was 1998 a good year? To our human way of thinking, 1998 had a bit of both, some good, some bad. But God says of both good and bad alike: I sent it all, sent it all so that I might be glorified. And lo, in 1998 I was glorified.

And that, brothers and sisters, is why 1998 was a good year. And 1999 will be also. For God’s glory: that’s what it’s all about. Amen.