PASTOR'S MESSAGE

   

“God Is Our Rock"

Isaiah 44:6-8

 (Preacher: Reverend Gary Buss)

Bill had purchased a talking metronome at a music teacher’s conference in New York.  Before he and his son boarded their flight home, Bill hefted his carry-on bag onto the security check conveyor belt.  The guard's eyes widened as he watched the monitor.  He asked what Bill had in the bag, then slowly pulled out the six-by-three-inch black box covered with dials and switches.  Other travelers, sensing trouble, vacated the area.  “A metronome,” Bill replied weakly, as his son cringed in embarrassment.  “It’s a talking metronome,” Bill insisted.  “Look, I’ll show you.”  So he took the box and flipped a switch, realizing that he really had no idea how it worked.  All of a sudden it said:  “One, two, three, four,” and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.  Then, as Bill and his son gathered their belongings, the boy whispered, “Gee, dad, aren’t you glad it didn’t go ‘four, three, two, one?’”


Apparently those security guards didn’t believe Bill; they doubted his word.  And so he had to prove it to them.  While that kind of suspicion is obviously a good trait in a security guard, it’s not a good trait when it comes to our relationship with God.  And yet, it’s not unusual for us sinful creatures to do just that.  At times we may be skeptical of His guidance or suspicious of what He’s doing in our lives.  Instead of trusting His promises and taking Him at His Word, all too often we’re full of doubts.  Even though He promises to guard and protect us from every evil, we frequently doubt God’s goodness.  We doubt His power to help us.  We may even doubt His love for us.


We see a classic example of that in our text for today.  It’s a portion of Isaiah’s prophecy, where he predicted that God would rescue the people of Judah from their Babylonian captivity and He would do it through Cyrus, the king of Persia.  However, Isaiah also predicted that when it happened, the people of Judah would be full of fears and doubts.  They would be near despair and losing hope, because they didn’t trust that God was powerful enough to deliver them.  And so, God inspirited Isaiah to write the words of our text to comfort and encourage them.
That seems like a very pertinent message for our world today, especially when we see terrorists on every side, terrible fire and storms raging all around us, young children being kidnapped, raped and murdered.  It’s enough to fill any of us with doubts and fears, not to mention that we have our own personal private fears.  Fears for our loved one’s safety and happiness.  Fears for our health and financial well-being.  Fears about old age and death.


Now at first, it may seem quite right and natural to have such fears.  After all, these are very real concerns we’re talking about.  Unfortunately, as with the people of Judah, so also with you and me, such fears often boil down to a lack of faith and trust in God.  And lack of faith is a sin, just like worrying is a sin.  We see that clearly in our text.  The people of Judah let their fears so overwhelm them, that they began to doubt God and His Word.  And their doubts led them to turn to pagan idols for help.


How about you and me?  Where do we turn for help in times of need?  Do we always turn to God first?  Or are we tempted to turn elsewhere, to friends or money, to worldly philosophies or even to ourselves?  Well, whenever we turn somewhere else other than God first and foremost, that is the sin of idolatry.  Which is why God reminds us in our text:  “I AM THE FIRST AND I AM THE LAST; BESIDES ME THERE IS NO GOD.”  It’s reminiscent of Jesus’ statement in the book of Revelation:  “I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, THE BEGINNING AND THE END, THE FIRST AND THE LAST.”  In other words, He and the truth of His Word are to be our one and only first priority in all things. 


To underscore that thought, the Jewish Rabbis used to point out that Hebrew word for truth, the word ameth – is spelled with three letters:  aleph , the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet; mem , the middle letter; and tau , the final letter.  Which reminds us that the truth of God is at the beginning, the middle, and the very end of life.  And so, the truth of God’s Word ought to be our constant focus by daily Bible reading and weekly Bible study, lest we wander away from Him into idolatry.   

 
It reminds me a little bit of the young man, who was driving down a lonely, moonlit country road one night with his girl friend, when the car engine started to cough.  Immediately pulling over to a scenic little spot, he put his arm around the young lady sitting next to him and said, “That’s funny, I wonder what that knocking noise was.”   “I’ll tell you one thing for sure,” the girl said with a stern look.  “It wasn’t opportunity.”  In a clever way, she was warning him to be careful, lest he wind up in deep trouble.  In a merciful way, God does that same thing for you and me in His Holy Word – He warns us!  His Law points out that our sinful doubts and idolatry had us headed straight toward death and destruction.  For in God’s judgment all such sinful idolatry is punishable by eternal death and damnation in hell!


  Thankfully, though, God didn’t just come to warn us about it, He came to rescue us from it completely.  For His answer to our sins of doubt and idolatry is the answer of the Gospel – the Good News of our salvation in Jesus Christ.  Just as God used Cyrus to rescue the people of Judah from exile in Babylonian captivity, so through Christ God has rescued you and me from captivity to sin and exile in hell.  And He did it by means of the cross.  On the cross, Jesus took all our fears and doubts and sins and got rid of them for good.  He swept them all away in the flood of His forgiveness.  God didn’t just minimize our sins or excuse them.  Instead, He totally and unconditionally forgave them, because Jesus took the full penalty for our sins on Calvary.  God’s justice has been fully satisfied, and we are fully forgiven.


That’s why, in the words of our text, Jesus is the first and the last, and there is no other God besides Him.  After all, Jesus was God’s first and only choice to redeem us, since He was the only One who could do it.  And He is God’s last comment on the matter.  We are forgiven in Jesus’ blood, and there’s nothing more the devil can say about it.  He is the One who began our salvation, by living and dying to redeem us, and He is the One who will bring it to an end, when He comes again to take us Home.  And for that reason, my friends, you and I no longer have to be afraid.  We no longer have to be filled with fears and doubts, for as God says to us in our text:  “FEAR NOT, NOR BE AFRAID; FOR YOU ARE MY WITNESSES.  IS THERE A GOD BESIDES ME?   THERE IS NO ROCK; I KNOW NOT ANY!” 


Here, God reassures us that He is our Rock, the Rock of our Salvation.  Now in Scripture, the word ‘rock’ is often used as a symbol for endurance and changelessness.  And that’s what God’s love to us is like.  It never changes or decays.  His forgiveness and salvation to us in Jesus Christ endures forever.  That’s why in verse 7 of our text, He calls us His ‘ancient people.’  Just like the rocks have been around since ancient times, so has God’s plan of salvation.  The Bible says that He chose us before the foundation of the world to be His precious, beloved people.  And in our Baptism He made it so.  In fact, in the Hebrew text it literally says that we are His ‘eternal people.’  For by the gift of faith in Jesus, we will dwell with Him eternally in Heaven.
But in Scripture the word ‘rock’ is also a symbol of faithfulness, like the phrase:  ‘solid as a rock.’  Chevy uses to describe their trucks – like a rock.  It means you can count on something, count on it to never break down, count on it to last.  So too with Jesus Christ, the Rock of our Salvation.  We can count on Him never to break down.  We can count on Him to always be there to pardon and forgive us, to help and deliver us, because He is always faithful to keep His promises to protect and save us.  He will never let us down.  As a matter of fact, in the Hebrew Old Testament, the word for ‘rock’ is often associated with a rugged fortress, or an inaccessible height.  The idea being that with Jesus Christ as our Savior, nothing – not sin, not death, not even the devil or hell itself – nothing can reach us to bring hurt or harm, for Jesus will surround us with His strong arms of protection and seal us off from danger.  He is the Rock of our Salvation.  And that’s why we need not be afraid.  That’s why we can lay aside our doubts and fears, and put our full confidence and trust in Him.


            In the early 1900’s, Mrs. Juliet E. Nichols tended the Angel Island fog signal on San Francisco bay.  The bay area often has a blanket of fog that rolls in from the Pacific Ocean and later dissipates.  But on July 2, 1906 the dark mist became a foreboding shroud for several days.  Ships couldn’t see the lighthouse, so they needed the fog bell.  And to make matters worse, the striking mechanism for the fog bell broke down, and ships were in danger of crashing.  But Juliet Nichols was undaunted by that.  Faithful to her duty, she grabbed a common household hammer and repeatedly pounded on the bell for over 20 straight hours, until the mechanism could be fixed.  And two days later when the bell broke down again, in spite of a very stiff arm, she pounded the bell another night, just so that the ships might be safe!  


Dear friends, that is a marvelous example of what Jesus Christ did for you and me.  Juliet Nichols may have given her all to warn the ships of danger.  But Jesus Christ did something even better.  He gave His very life, not just to warn us, but to rescue us from death and hell.  He has set us free from our sins and our fears, and we can count on it because He is our Rock of Salvation.  And we have the blessed opportunity to share that Good News with others.  Just as fog bells and light-houses have saved many sailors from perishing in a watery grave, so also the sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been the means of saving many a soul from hell.  That’s what God was talking about in our text when He said:  “YOU ARE MY WITNESSES!”  He calls us again today to spread His saving Word to those around us who are perishing.  John A. Shedd eloquently put it this way:  “A ship in the harbor may be safe, but that’s not what ships are for!”  May the Good News of our free salvation in Jesus Christ, so equip and empower us to sail boldly forth and proclaim His Word until He comes again to take us Home.  In His name we pray.  Amen.

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