(The following sermon was preached by Rev. A. Ndebele at Ingwenya Mission on 23rd April, 1972.)
“And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” Isaiah 35: 10.
This passage talks about the children of Israel in bondage. They were captives in Babylon, given over because of their sins. They had sinned against God and so they were allowed to be captured by their enemies and taken to Babylon. That wicked king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, took captive Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who were thrown into the fiery furnace because they worshipped the true God. They said, “We will not serve the golden image, O Nebuchadnezzar.” Because of this the servants were commanded to make the fire seven times hotter so that the Hebrew boys would be thrown into the furnace. There in Babylon the Israelites were subjected to alien gods of silver and gold. This was a sad place indeed. No wonder that they were unhappy in Babylon; they were not a free people; they had to do what they did not wish to do; they were in slavery in Babylon just as they had been in Egypt.
But, here in our text, we read: “The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with joy upon their heads.”
First of all, those people who are spoken about were the redeemed of the Lord. This implies that they had been in bondage; for to be redeemed you need to be in bondage. But it is promised that they shall return to Zion. Zion was where the temple, the place of worship was after the tabernacle, which was temporary, travelling in the wilderness on to the promised land, had been dissolved. When they had arrived in Canaan, the temple was built in Mount Zion as a permanent place of worship. The prediction here was: “They shall return to Zion.”
How they were to return:
“with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads”. That was the manner. We are also told the prospect, the blessings that they will reap: “and they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away”. This was to be their final destiny.
These people were the redeemed of God. They were in bondage; they came into bondage when they sinned against God. When Adam and Eve sinned against God, man was driven away from that blessed place where God had placed him, where he was happy, where he had no sorrows, only full happiness. But on account of sin he was driven away. He was bound by his own sin; the law of God was against him; he had God’s displeasure with the prospect of eternal damnation. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
What is the consequence of sin? Eternal damnation, temporal death and spiritual death. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Man rebelled against God; so he is born harnessed by sin. Men, women and children are slaves to sin, led captive to the will of their master, every thought of the mind evil. The sinner goes out to commit evil. He is a slave in his whole personality; his whole being has been enslaved. So his desires, his passions are all slaves to Satan; he goes at Satan’s will to commit every sin. A sinner might say: “I am no longer willing to live this life.” A drunkard might say: “I realise this life is dangerous to my body and to my family. I am unhappy because of sin.” Will he leave his sin? No! He is bound by his sin, a captive chained by his sin. So at the least opportunity he will return again to his sin. There may be a thief just out of prison, determined not to return to that sin again; but you see this man back to prison again, guilty of the same sin. He is back where he was before. So it is with every sin. Men may boast of freedom—just as the Jews were saying, “We were never in bondage to any man.” But Jesus said to them: “Ye are of your father the devil.” There is no freedom apart from Christ: “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
The broken law cries out: “Pay me what thou owest.” The law of God must be paid to the last farthing. So, whatever freedom you boast of, poor sinner, the law of God demands what you owe. Because man has violated the law of God, he lives in fear because death will meet him and bring him into confrontation with the law of God. The law says, “What about the old sins, the sins of yesterday?” The sinner might say, “Now I’ll try to do better.” But the law claims, “What about what you already owe me as well?” The person who has been taking goods on account falls into debt. That person might say, “Now, I’ll try to do better. Now I’ll stop taking on account. I’ll pay cash instead.” But the shopkeeper may say, “Yes, if you pay me cash that is very good. But what about the goods for which you are already in debt? Pay me that thou owest lest I give you to the police, and the police give you to the judge.” You, sinner, are in need on account of God’s broken law.
But these are the redeemed of the Lord, returning to Zion. They are redeemed; this implies the need of a Redeemer, one who can pay the debt in full—the goods of last year, of this month, of next month—all covered in this person. So a sinner goes free because his debt has been paid in full, present, past and future; all paid to the full. This brings before us the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Redeemer of God’s elect, who came to earth from heaven, the Holy One of Israel, born of the Holy Spirit. The Virgin Mary could say, “I know not a man.” It was an utter impossibility in human nature that she conceive; but not so with Mary. God is speaking, and with God nothing is impossible, working in an extraordinary manner. Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners, to save sinners from their bondage to the law of God. Their whole righteousness is a pile of filthy rags, rottenness to the core, as a leper rotting and corroding from head to foot, the limbs breaking away in rottenness, until the body is dead and the passers-by say, “Remove this smelling carcass.”
Is that not your condition by nature, sinner, with all your obedience? Notwithstanding everything that man can do he falls back into disobedience. So he needs a Redeemer to redeem him from the curse of the law; from the dominion of sin, its power, its corruption—none other than the Lord Jesus Christ by His powerful death on the Cross. When He died on Calvary’s Cross He cried out, “Father into Thy hands I commend my spirit”. He announced His own death. You never heard of such a combination of power and weakness. He died indeed—yet all power was at His disposal. He bowed the head, and gave up the ghost, but in his dying He announced to the whole world: “Father into Thine hands I commend my spirit.” What power!
The veil of the temple was torn asunder from the top to the bottom. What tore the thick, tight cloth? The supernatural power of the death of the Cross. The chains of hell were broken. So now the Holiest of all, which was not seen by men since the building of the temple, was now open to all—showing that there was no barrier. By His blood “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them”. They are saved for time and for eternity. That is freedom to speak about. Redeemed by His power, they shall return to Zion from Babylon where they could not worship freely; where they were bound by their enemies so that the Psalmist said: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”
But they shall return to Zion, to the worship of God. Sinners who have sinned in Adam forget to worship God, but when redeemed they worship God acceptably; they are new creatures in Christ Jesus. In Babylon the Jews were not free. The Lord’s people have problems within and without: the influences of this world; the worship of idols; men mixing the worship of God with the worship of the spirits of their ancestors. Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters . . . You cannot serve God and mammon.”
They shall return—the redeemed of the Lord shall not be left out. They will return by His grace, drawn by His word and Spirit, awakening them to an awareness of sin. They will return to their homeland, which is Canaan—or Jerusalem—or Mount Zion—where the true worship of God is found. Their hearts will long for the pure worship of Jehovah. They will rejoice in the worship of the Spirit, in worshipping in spirit and in truth.
They shall return with rejoicing. “Thy people shall be willing in a day of Thy power.” So they will not return in a half-hearted way, but with joy, with songs in their mouths. What songs? One song will be “Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned and done evil in Thy sight”. They are not as dumb devils. They will sing, “Unto Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.” They will sing, “My Lord and my God.” They return rejoicing.
Have you ever experienced the joy mixed with tears? Ashamed because of your sins but rejoicing over sins forgiven—all my sins, my iniquities against my God, against my own soul. They are rejoicing in the Lord Jesus. Although their sins are so many, so great, yet the blood of Jesus washes them from all sin. Only those perverted by the devil would rejoice if Christ had come for ‘the good’. Why? They think that they can stand on their own, that they can pay the debt. But if poor people with no money heard that bags of mealies were to be given out to those who had money, what sadness and tears that would bring them! But if there was to be a free offer to the poor, what joy such news would bring to those who had nothing! They could say, “Now we and our children will be satisfied because we are to be supplied freely.” Here they shall hunger no more for those with nothing to pay receive.
The last part of the verse says, “They shall obtain (that is, they shall be given as their property) joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” In this world they are promised tribulation. They shall sing songs of gladness and of tears, sorrowfully bemoaning their sins in this world. There are also problems which they cannot surmount. One can say, “My problems are more than I can bear.” Even the Lord’s people, if it were not for the Lord’s everlasting arms around them, could even hang themselves as Judas Iscariot did. “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that they faith fail not.” Thanks be to God for the intercession of Christ; otherwise Peter could not be saved. Peter denied the Lord three times, but the Lord’s arms were around Peter’s soul.
The blessed of the Lord will be given joy and gladness. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away for ever. Finally they shall return to the Zion above. In this world they have many temptations, many trials. They may have concluded, “God has cast me away. How is it, if God be on my side, that I have so much trouble; hatred from my fellow men; false accusations from the enemies of God?” The Lord has allowed it to be so in His holy providence. He allows these things to harass His people, making them weep tears. But in Zion above, all tears shall flee away, as the shadows of night flee away in the morning.
After death Jesus says to them, “Come up hither . . . Thou hast been faithful in small things . . . That they may behold my glory . . . I was dead but am alive again, and alive for evermore and have the keys of hell and of death.” He says, “All power in heaven and earth is given unto me.” “The redeemed of the Lord shall return to Zion with joy and gladness upon their heads”, as if they were crowned with everlasting joy by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He has crowned them. Who can take away that crown—fixed by the eternal Jehovah, by the blood of the Everlasting Covenant sprinkled on their heads, so that when they appear they shall have no wrinkle or spot or any such thing—free from sin, with joy undisturbed?
In this world when we rejoice with friends, it is only for a moment soon disturbed by sorrow. How much greater is soul sorrow when sin rears up its ugly head once more. But after death they shall have joy and gladness which shall never, to all eternity, flee away. When Adam had sinned he did not rejoice, because he had sinned. He feared God and hid himself.
What does death mean? The presentation of a sinner in the presence of God, where he cannot run away. In America there are some people who dress up dead bodies to deceive the mind that death is not a reality. All this is a hopeless attempt to take away the seriousness of death. Singing and clapping round the body, with people dressed up in uniforms—how foolish it is!
Woe to you if you are not freed by Him who alone is able to free you from the power of death. All other attempts fail. Death is a reality. But the redeemed of the Lord have joy undisturbed because the Lord Jesus Christ died in their room and place, so that death only summons them to the Lord, who is well pleased with them. Why? All their sins and iniquities will be remembered no more because they will have been washed away in the precious blood of Jesus.
Dear friend, will you be there? My soul, will you be there?