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The Reason for Singing in My Heart! (Part 3)
Isaiah 54:1-8 Hymn: 405 (305)
1 “Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the LORD. 2 “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. 3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. 4 “Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. 5 For your Maker is your husband— the LORD Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. 6 The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit— a wife who married young, only to be rejected,” says your God. 7 “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. 8 In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness. I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer.
Over the last two weeks, we have heard the reason for singing not just quietly in our minds but with loud shouts. Verse 1 says “Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the LORD. Also we have heard the promise of revival for the completion of the universal church, and we can’t help but sing since our church belongs to the universal church. We praise God because of the promise that our universal church will not remain stagnant but will revive men from now and eternity. We can praise God greatly, since He has firmly promised that we will never remember the past shame and disgrace nor be afraid by our past guilt and weakness.
Today we will continue to be blessed as we study verses 7-8 and the reasons for becoming saints and families that sing and praise the God in heaven with all our might.
There is a reason for singing because of we have received a great mercy away from His anger.
Let us read verses, 1, 7, and 8, in this manner. “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. 8 In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness. I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer.
The text tells us there is another reason for singing. We can sing with all our might for just one great reason, but it tells us there is an additional reason for singing.
Judah heard God saying that the widow, having been deserted by God, will forget her past shame and disgrace and that she will enter a new honeymoon with her God. This is the background for God’s continuing explanation. Judah’s drastically improving situation is by the sole grace of God in love and the result of God’s mercy toward His people. This is the willful determination of God. Therefore we sing of His personality, plan, and action as we perceive them. God is love. This love encompasses His rebukes and wrath against our offenses. In verse 8, “In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness”.
God’s wrath toward unbelievers is an eternal condemnation. God poured His wrath over those who heard of but did not pay attention to His word and consider it lightly or a joke. This results in their condemnation to the fiery pits of hell. They are detestable to God, and God will condemn them to an eternal punishment and discard them forever. One can say that God’s indifference to the abandoned is itself a great punishment. This is a desertion without any concern. One does not show any concern whatsoever. One pays no attention to their cries regardless of their earnestness. Those who used to be happy without God regret belatedly and gnash their teeth with bitterness. No, those who used God as a means to gain their worldly happiness or those who, even though they regularly attended church, believed God as one who fulfills the lacking of their happiness will bitterly cry and gnash their teeth endlessly in hell.
God shows His wrath even to the saints. Verse 7 says “I hid my face from you for a moment” and verse 8 “in a surge of anger.” And in verse 8, God explains the meaning of the anger by “I hid my face from you for a moment.” The great anger of God toward the people of God is to hide His face and to not meet them. God does not completely abandon His people. Although He hides His face and does not meet them personally, God cares for His church and saints (Job 9:11, Job 23:8-10). Therefore, His anger toward the saints and His church is not eternal condemnation but a disciplinary punishment. Many say God in the Old Testament is a God to be feared. He punishes immediately even the people of God when they commit sins. By contrast, people think the God of the New Testament is the God of love. It makes sense. Nevertheless, God in the Old Testament is the same God of love and God in the New Testament is the God of justice and the same unchanging God.
God’s anger toward His people is to hide His face from them. When the faith of Abraham was weak, and he took Hagar for the birth of Ishmael, God kept silent for 14 years. God was silent to Job. God was silent to Job when Job insisted on his righteousness.
God kept silent to David when David sinned, and David had suffering deep in his bones. His strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Truly all children of God come to understand such suffering caused by the silence of God. Hence they cannot bear such suffering. Saints are those who live such a life.
God punish disciplinarily His children because they are His
Hebrew 12:8 says, “If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.”
God punish disciplinarily because there is a hope for them.
Romans 8:28-30 states: 28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
To attain to the glory of God is God’s plan for His children. (Romans 3:23) If you are a true child of God, God will not leave you alone for living your own way. God will put His bit on you in order to turn you toward participating in His glory, even if this turning requires the bit
.
The silence of God is one of His means for the people of God to seek Him. This may sound like a joke to those who have no fellowship with God and live a religious life just in its external form. But to those who live the life of the fellowship with God, God’s silence or hiding His face is an unbearable pain. Thus, one sincerely seeks God with the repenting heart of purification (Matthew 5:8), mournfully (Matthew 5:4), with a poor spirit (Matthew 5:3), and hungering and thirsting for righteousness (Matthew 5:6) as a deer pants for streams of water (Psalm 42:1). These are not just religious activities but the living actions of life. As all living people breathe subconsciously, this is also the work of a new life in action. This is life itself.
The reason for praising, singing, and shouting for joy is that God is merciful to His people. Such people are eventually called by God. Verse 7 of an English version has ‘For’ in the beginning of the sentence. As you are well aware, it means ‘Because’. God will visit the people in shame and humiliation and call them to the grace that is to end His anger and to begin His eternal compassion toward them. They heard the voice of God in advance through Isaiah. Therefore, they can burst into song and shout for joy with their voices uplifted. God is commanding them to sing in this way.
The fulfillment of this prophecy took about 100 years, as they were in Babylonian captivity for 100 years. Nonetheless, the 100-year period is a brief moment to God. The duration of 100 years is the time-length of three generations by our human account. But this is a brief moment to God. For God sees the entire period starting from the days of Adam and to the day of the Lord’s return as a single period. This is nothing but a brief moment in His great providential administration.
There are so many pitiful people being abandoned by God over three generations. Truly, they are miserable people. They are those who were not happy with God and lived with the mind of envy toward the world. They are like the Hebrew generations that fell and perished during the 40 years in the wilderness.
However there were remnants even during these periods. There was a remnant during the time of Elijah. These remnants existed among such people and they became the stumps for the new beginning. They became the breeding seeds for the new age.
When there is a need for reformation, we must clearly understand the providential work of God that leaves His remnant and trains them through suffering tribulations in order to shape them as the people of God who trust Him only. This understanding is necessary in order to remain faithful in this evil age.
God can put aside entire generations of disobedience, create new sinless people, and begin again to establish the kingdom of God with them after shaping them as people of complete obedience. But God did not take this approach. He did not entirely abandon these corrupt generations, but God corrects them with patience and leads them to life. Why? His covenant and personality is the reason. How great is His grace and lovingkindness. Those of you who have received the grace of God have enough reason to burst into song and joyful shouts.
What was the mind of Isaiah when he prophesied? He received the word and declared it when Judah had not yet fallen. There remained tens of years before the fall of Judah. Furthermore, the returning of the Babylonian captives would take place approximately 150 years later from the time of the Isaiah’s prophesy. What was the attitude of the prophet Isaiah as he prophesied?
Can we now live our lives bursting into song and shouting for joy? God fills our lives with His greater grace when we sing, thank, and enjoy because of the grace appears to be insignificant to us. Also, we can sing in anticipation of the approaching grace of the future. Although I am not very familiar with your life situations, I assume the situation is incomparably safer than that of the situation of Judah and with much abundance. But it has been a long while since our spiritual song has been secede. Aren’t our sighs louder than our singing, don’t our cares of the world choke our joys, and our complaints and dissatisfactions abolish our thanksgivings?
They are looking forward to the future plan God has for them. They can sing as they hold on to the covenant of God. The reason is not based on the present situation. The present situation is hardship, but they can sing because of the fulfilment of the firm covenant to their new generations in the future.
Doesn’t everyone sing when they are merry? Who cannot sing when everything goes well? God says there will be a remnant people like the remaining stumps; after the trees are cut down, who will remain by the grace of God, though the overwhelming majority of the corrupt who deserve God’s wrath are to be cut down like trees. And God will fulfill His promise of the return of the Babylonian captives through this remnant. One comes to burst into song in a situtation unlikely for singing when one comes to know the personality, plan, and works of God. They will sing the songs that the world does not understand
.
Then the remaining question is why God let Judah fall and be sold as an entire nation to Babylon as war captives in spite of the remnant that remained? When the government and religion of Judah rebelled as a systematic institution against God, there was no way to restore the community of the nation as whole. The reason is that they themselves became their gods and established the necessary institutional system in order for them to function like gods. And they settled safely within the institution. They felt safe within the institution and the law that they had established and satisfied with it as good enough without trusting God. There may have been a few righteous but they were too weak to effectively restore the entire community. When this happened, God broke, according to the text, the entire Hebrew nation and abolished their law and institution. God destroyed their views of the world, values, life, and happiness, and their power. And God separately protected and nurtured His remnant so that they could rise anew again. This was the fall of Judah and the redemptive work of God.
Likewise, Israel’s conquest of Canaan provides such a historic picture. Although the Hebrews at the time of Moses made an exodus out of Egyptian bondage, their minds remained in the mode of bondage which was familiar to them. A self-regulating autonomy, not a humanistic autonomy concerned with eating and drinking, can be discussed here as the free mind enjoying the pursuit of God’s will and proactively seeking what pleases Him. They had the slavish mind of being dragged, always opposing their leaders in their hearts, being suspicious, and having a mind of to return to Egypt. They recalled the onions, leeks, melons, garlic, and fish that Pharaoh provided for their labors. They could not forget the taste of Egyptian food and could not get used to enjoying the manna God provided. They had such an ordinary view of life that they preferred to safely stay and eat in Egypt than to enter the glories of Canaan. All those of that generation perished over 40 years while they were wandering in the wilderness.
Therefore, God let the new generation rise to conquer Canaan with the old institutions and laws of the old community completely abolished. After the first generation is wiped out with a few exceptions during their 40 years in the wilderness, we observe the next generation under Joshua conquer Canaan as all of their tribal chiefs trust Joshua and faithfully follow every single one of the commands God gave through Moses and reaffirm their commitment to do away with anyone who disobeys as they progress on to conquer the land. The city of Jericho fell before this generation who were united not only institutionally but also spiritually and in the same faith.
We have to correctly know how important community is in the church we are serving and building. Without this knowledge, it is not only hard to build the church as a true church but also impossible to demonstrate the character of God and the life of Jesus through our service, as well as to bear spiritual fruit in our life mission. Our Philadelphia Korean Presbyterian Church should understand this well and march onward in our faithful mission.
God says one will forget completely all of the past shame and humiliation. There is clearly a shameful past. A red line has been drawn in a census registration document as a spiritual analogy. One has had a finger pointed to them in the past. But now it is no longer valid. All has been completely erased. There is not even a residual mark after the erasures. (Colossians 1:22, Ephesians 5:26-27)
The Samaritan woman of Sychar had ‘the life and holy power to be unashamed of her past’ after meeting Jesus. Therefore she left her water jar at the well and entered the city to witness about Jesus who told her every shameful deeds of her past. No longer hiding her past, she used her shameful past to introduce Jesus to those who were well-aware of her humiliating past. (John 4) Halleluiah!!! This is the true conversion that scripture presents and that we are pursuing after in our evangelism.
Again, we are well aware of the woman who poured the perfume of an alabaster jar on the feet of Jesus. Perhaps she may have been a prostitute. This woman, who ived with her face hidden by a veil, came to realize her sins and received forgiveness after hearing from Jesus and became a new person. Thus, she stopped wandering the streets to seek her customers and instead became a follower and disciple of Jesus. That day, she was following Jesus to listen to His word and went into the house of Pharisee who invited Jesus to his house. The friends of the host might have stopped her from entering the house. Jesus might have asked the Pharisee to allow her to enter. If they tried to stop her from coming into the house, they would not have spoken gently to her. They may have cursed her calling her a “prostitute” and despising her with all kinds of swearing. However, she was not humiliated of her past. Before her conversion, she may have wanted to bite back as her strength allowed, but now she began to feel compassion toward those who mistreated her.Their ignorance started to appear pitiful to her.
What caused her to change in this way? It is the love of God. It is the grace emanated from His love. Jesus made the change in this way. God the Holy Spirit made those souls to live. God has been establishing His kingdom according to the plan He has established before creation, without ceasing or taking a break or giving up. We are living in this process of His.The northern kingdom of Israel fell and even the southern kingdom fell, and it appeared that the administrative work of God had ended. Yet at this very moment, God raised the remnants and the stumps to join His splendid redemptive work by giving the birth to the Lord Jesus Christ in the house of David.
The overall trend of churches both in America and Korea is in crisis. At this critical time, we want to be the remnant by His grace for fulfilling God’s plan. We should become the individuals and the church that participates in building the grace-filled kingdom of God as we are singing and shouting for joy.
Let us sing hymn 405 (305) ‘Amazing Grace! How Sweet the Sound!’ and pray.
노래할 이유 있네! 이사야 54:1-8 찬송 : 405(305), [(1) 잉태하지 못하며 출산하지 못한 너는 노래할지어다. 산고를 겪지 못한 너는 외쳐 노래할지어다. 이는 홀로된 여인의 자식이 남편 있는 자의 자식보다 많음이라 여호와께서 말씀하셨느니라.
(2) 네 장막터를 넓히며 네 처소의 휘장을 아끼지 말고 널리 펴되 너의 줄을 길게 하며 너의 말뚝을 견고히 할지어다. (3) 이는 네가 좌우로 퍼지며 네 자손은 열방을 얻으며 황폐한 성읍들을 사람 살 곳이 되게 할 것임이라. (4) 두려워하지 말라! 네가 수치를 당하지 아니하리라. 놀라지 말라 네가 부끄러움을 보지 아니하리라 네가 네 젊었을 때의 수치를 잊겠고 과부 때의 치욕을 다시 기억함이 없으리니 (5) 이는 너를 지으신 이가 네 남편이시라 그의 이름은 만군의 여호와이시며 네 구속자는 이스라엘의 거룩한 이시라 그는 온 땅의 하나님이라 일컬음을 받으실 것이라. (6) 여호와께서 너를 부르시되 마치 버림을 받아 마음에 근심하는 아내 곧 어릴 때에 아내가 되었다가 버림을 받은 자에게 함과 같이 하실 것임이라 네 하나님께서 말씀하셨느니라.
(7) 내가 잠시 너를 버렸으나 큰 긍휼로 너를 모을 것이요 (8) 내가 넘치는 진노로 내 얼굴을 네게서 잠시 가렸으나 영원한 자비로 너를 긍휼히 여기리라 네 구속자 여호와께서 말씀하셨느니라.] 우리는 지난 두 주간에 걸쳐서 본문을 통하여 노래할 수 밖에 없는,
노래하되 속으로 노래하는 것 아니고 소리쳐 노래할 수있는 이유를 들었습니다. 1절에 [잉태하지 못하며 출산하지 못한 너는 노래할지어다. 산고를 겪지 못한 너는 외쳐 노래할지어다. 이는 홀로된 여인의 자식이 남편 있는 자의 자식보다 많음이라 여호와께서 말씀하셨느니라.]
라고 말씀하십니다.
이어서 보편적 하나님의 교회가 부흥하여 완성되리라는 언약을 들었고 우리 교회가 그 교회에 속하여 있으니 찬송할 수 밖에 없습니다. 우리 교회가 그저 교회로 있지 않고 사람 살리는 교회가 되게 하시겠다는 약속을 받고 우리는 찬양합니다. 지난 날의 수치과