Almost two and a half years ago, I preached to God’s people for the last time. I quickly realized that preaching was my single greatest earthly joy as well as a most insidious idol. Through my captivity, God showed me more of himself: things that could only be viewed and understood in the dark night of the soul. One year from that date, I wrote down nine thoughts from Isaiah 66 that God had taught me, that I might have a record of the mighty truths I learned in the dark. One week ago, I preached (to adults) for the first time in two and a half years. It was a profound experience. I find myself drawn back to the very same passage, and again I find nine truths that God has taught me as he freed me from my bondage. These are nine truths discerned at the break of dawn.
1) God doesn’t need infrastructure or visibility to do a great work.
God didn’t need the temple, Israel did. And while it is true that God can and does work in obvious and structured ways, he often does not. God speaking to Elijah at Sinai was no less profound than when all Israel came before him and the mountain smoked. God spoke to Moses from the cloud and fire, but were his constant trysts with Samuel any less special? David wrote some fantastic psalms of worship for formalized settings, but are not his psalms from the cave especially sweet? What God did for me and through me last week is hard to define, because it lacks the human structure with which we define so much of our experience of God. It defies categorization.
I am a mortal man, and I desire to erect a great temple to the glory of God. It is easier for me to see and understand it. But God is not like me, and the work he does sometimes lacks all ostentation. It is not wrong to imagine things in the visible realm, for we exist in that realm; but we also exist in the invisible realm, and we must always keep those values before our eyes. If I am really serious about the glory of God, I must accept his self-glorification in whatever form it comes
2) God uses people for his work because of his own sovereign choice
There is no sigh of relief found in verse two, when God finds a man through whom he can work. God was not sitting in heaven waiting for me to be made usable to himself: he still has plenty of rocks and donkeys left to cry out his name if push came to shove. God chooses to use people because it pleases him to do so, and brings great glory to his name. Like I said in my previous nine thoughts, God doesn’t need me.
But God uses me. I cannot tell you why, except to assure you that it is not from any merit I possess. Not only does God use me in a generic way, he uses me specifically, for the specific work he has fitted me for. God does not search his tool-box of Christians to see who can do the task he has decreed: if he did, he would find nothing usable. Instead, he sees in Christ the very tools necessary, and forms his servant into precisely the tool he needs to be. As I look back and look forward, God has not given me a ministry hand crafted for me, he crafted me to do the very ministry his sovereignty decreed. I wept and struggled when God put me on the shelf, but the truth his he never did put me on the shelf: he put me in the forge. He had a purpose all along that he chose me for. I don’t yet know what it is, but I am sure by the time I am doing it I will be perfectly fitted to that duty, for the one who chooses also crafts.
3) God’s presence is the reward of his people
Verse two does not say “This man will I bless,” or “to this man will I give a great ministry;” God’s grace is too rich to provide us with these mere trinkets. Rather, he says “unto this man will I look.” As in the priestly benediction, as well as many other passages (especially in the Psalms), God promises to look upon his people face to face. This phrase does not indicate a distant observation, direct access to the very presence of God. Moses saw God face to face and his face shown, here God declares that he will look upon his servant face to face. Power, effectiveness, angelic escorts, all these are the blessings fit for strangers; the only blessing befitting sons is THE blessing, Immanuel himself. When God finally breaks the captivity of his prisoners and sends them out, he causes them to stand before him, looks them face to face, and goes with them personally.
I sought so many things from God when I was shut up, and he denied me those things for two and a half years. But when he looked upon me, he did not give me the things I sought, but gave me the reality of the presence of my Immanuel. As Samuel Rutherford said when he was cut off from preaching, “Anwoth is not heaven, preaching is not Christ.” I asked that God might go with me when he sends me to preach, and that he did. What an astonishing thing this is! Omnipotence stands with me face to face, what cannot be accomplished? What need have I to call fire from heaven when the Burning One stands beside me, above me, and within me? What need for showers of blessing when rivers of living waters flow from the indwelling Spirit of Christ? My plea now is that of Moses: don’t send me if you will not go with me.
4) Brokenness and hope go hand in hand
In the dark, I learned that brokenness is a lifestyle, not a phase. God does not break me so I can be built up again, he intends for me to stay broken. The cyclical nature of brokenness is born from my refusal to stay broken. Before, I sought strength, and in the dark I learned the power of brokenness. But in the light, I see the beautiful side of brokenness: limitless hope. One who is broken, lowly, and trembles before God can legitimately expect God to act in amazing ways. One who is strong might have some hope, but his hope rarely gets much farther than his own strength and experience. A broken man has no power. A broken man has no rational path toward success. A broken man is an empty vessel. At first this is difficult to bear, but as I learned to stop pegging my hopes upon my own strength (which I would dutifully and ceremonially acknowledge was God’s power through me), I moved from hopelessness to boundless hope. I am powerless, so God will have to supply the power; and if God supplies the power, why can it not be exceeding abundantly beyond all that I ask or think? I am full of hope, and have no fear of being ashamed, for how can omnipotence fail?
5) Mankind really does hunger for divine reality, despite appearances
God condemns the dead formalism in the strongest possible terms, and I learned why in the dark. So much of my experience was based upon dead works, outward forms, and suppositions for so long. Only in the dark could my lack of reality be discerned. Since then, I have had great cause for mourning when I see my brethren caught in the same trap. I cry out to God when I see the fear of God taught by the precepts of men. Furthermore, the worldlings are literally damned by their formalism. They are anesthetized against the fiery truth of God by their forms as they glide along to hell. It is everywhere, and no one seems to mind. How can we expect God to pour waters upon the dry ground when we don’t even thirst for reality anymore?
Last week, I was struck by an inescapable revelation: even we who are steeped in formalism (I am still chief of that clan) still hunger for reality. We run to formalism not because we prefer it, but because our thirst for reality has driven us mad, and we run through the dessert toward the mirage. We want reality, but we despair of finding it, so we seek every outward means we can find in a vain hope for relief. I have seen this in both believer and unbeliever. Why is this such a hopeful thing? One very simple reason: we are truly thirsty, and entirely unsatisfied with substitutes. I do not believe God creates a thirst for himself in his people just to vex them, but because he intends to see them well and truly satisfied. The Spirit of God has set me to preach the unsearchable realities of Christ to both regenerate and unregenerate…and I know they are thirsting for it.
6) God still speaks
God has some pretty harsh pronouncements for those who fail to see him and cling to outward substitutes, and those truths were very evident in the dark. But here in the light, I saw another side of that truth. Why did God say he would bring judgment? “Because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear.” It’s so easy to focus on the failed human response, but I am reminded by an astonishing truth: God still speaks, even when it seems darkest. Let’s keep in mind who this speaking God is: he is not some distraught, pleading mendicant hoping for some attention and relief; he is the God of heaven and earth who literally spoke light into existence…and that God still speaks. I am not under any delusion that things are good right now: both the churches and the world is in a seven-fold night, and we are reaping our worst fears. But this night is not darker than that first primordial night, and God pierced that night with two simple words from the throne.
God spoke last week, and if God still speaks, I have every reason to expect that his sheep will still hear his voice and follow the Lamb like we did when the church was young. If God still speaks, I can expect fire from heaven, for his word is a fire. If God still speaks, the worst of sinners can see the light of life penetrate their souls. If the risen Christ were to directly speak two words to my brethren on Sunday, we would all be burning with love and zeal. If the risen Christ were to speak two words to Fitchburg, we would repent like Nineveh. And God still speaks, even through poor stammering servants.
7) My joy is important to God
In the human realm, I struggle with joy because I see little value in it, and I often bring that same flawed outlook to spiritual joy. My own joy is simply not an acceptable motivation for anything, nor is it an acceptable result of a work of God. I want God to do something real and substantial for good reasons, my own joy is at best a tertiary concern. God does not think that way. His word is filled with pronouncements regarding joy, but here in Isaiah 66, God promises that he will “appear to your joy.” God was not promising to appear to glorify himself (although he will), or do a mighty work among the nations (although he will), but simply to be able to say “rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her all ye that love her: rejoice with joy for her all ye that mourn for her.” There are good reasons to call upon God to rend the heavens and come down, and the bible gives many of them, but one reason that God himself views very highly is so that his people may rejoice in him.
I am only beginning to really understand what a powerful force real spiritual joy is: I lacked it so long I didn’t even realize it was gone. When I preached last week, and God gave me the fire I sought, I was filled with joy. That is neither selfish nor unimportant; that was one of the chief reasons God appeared with me on Main St. I mourned for two and a half years while God kept me silent, and that mourning did wondrous things for my soul. But God kept every one of my tears in his bottle, and heard all my cries, not one was vain. And if he condescends to appear to my joy, I need not be ashamed of that; rather I must glory in the pitying love of my redeemer. I am filled with joy now, for God has opened my mouth, and that joy causes me to glory in the God of my salvation.
8) God’s working is, and should be, perplexing
God’s ways and thoughts are not our ways and thoughts, why are we so surprised when his working is hard to understand? In verse 5, it was the brethren of God’s servant who hated him, and cast him out because they believed it was God’s will. How could they misunderstand God’s working so badly? The reason is simple, God does inexplicable things. Case in point, the deliverance he promises to Israel defies all common sense. Child birth before labor, nations being born in a day? Who has heard of such things? The obvious answer is no one. I have been perplexed for two and a half years. What is God doing? Why? Furthermore, my brethren have been perplexed by me for a long time as well, and will likely continue to be so. Why is God doing this? Can this truly be God’s will? My perplexity does not indicate something is wrong, nor does my brethren’s perplexity make them unspiritual. Rather, if we did truly understand everything God is doing in our own lives and the lives of our brethren, it is a sure sign that the work is of men, not God.
I was perplexed last week. People asked me “How did the meetings go?” and I simply didn’t have an answer. I knew God was among us, but it was not what I expected, and I didn’t understand entirely what God did. I have spent a week praying and meditating on these things, and while I understand more now, I still don’t entirely understand. I do not understand what God is doing in my life in the broader sense. I do not understand where I am going or what I am doing. I am filled with perplexity. This used to be a cause of great worry for me, now it is a cause for worship. I “marvel at his beauty and glory in his ways,” while I praise him for doing a work that only the mind of God could have thought up.
9) Expecting impossible things from God is in the highest sense reasonable. Read through the second half of Isaiah 66: it is a catalog of impossible things. As stated above, giving birth before labor and nations being born in a day is ridiculous…yet God does it. God specializes in impossibility; it is his unique trademark. A great man or an angel might do great things, but only God can do impossible things. What a blessing for an afflicted people! When I see the state of my own sinful heart, the state of my church, and the state of my town, I can sometimes be very distressed because there is literally no way for our pitiful estate to be changed. I can come up with no reasonable path toward revival and regeneration, it is simply impossible. I cannot be the brand plucked out of the fire God wants me to be, my church cannot be the fullness of him that filleth all in all, and Fitchburg certainly cannot be an Antioch. When faced with impossibilities, we have two options: lower our expectations to more reasonable levels, or stake everything on God and wrestle with him until he does the impossible. In the face of an omnipotent God, the second response is the only reasonable option.
