Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

You have been served. You have a summons to appear in court. This is not just a hypothetical parable. It is the truth. You will be called forth as witnesses, every single one of you. For this summons you are not on trial, you are witnesses. You are called to give a testimony, but not a testimony about yourself. If that were the case, then you would be the one on trial. But it is not you who is being judged. You are just a witness. God is in the dock. You are called to testify that He is who He says He is.

 

The prophet Isaiah was a member of the court of the kings of Judah in Jerusalem. So the whole nation usually heard what the LORD had sent him to proclaim. Often, the kings of Judah were not too happy about that because Isaiah was not a propaganda prophet. He didn’t only tell what the ruling authorities wanted the people to know. Isaiah told the people what the LORD God wanted them to know and it was not always good news. In fact, it was often quite damaging to the rulers, for the LORD God had sent Isaiah to call them to account for not trusting in the LORD God, and to condemn them for placing their faith in other places for salvation.

 

Because of their rebellion, the LORD sent Isaiah to tell them that there were going to be consequences for their sin and unfaithfulness. But along with that the LORD also sent Isaiah to proclaim that salvation could be found in the LORD God alone. And that He would save His people, not just from temporal, political punishments by foreign nations, but also from His own wrath against their sin and from its eternal consequences of death and hell.

 

It is the same prophetic message that we also need. We need it to be pointed out to us when we sin and when we place our hope for salvation and deliverance from sin’s consequences in places other than the Lord who has accomplished our salvation in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And ultimately it is a question of who is this God who has promised salvation to us? We have put God in the dock.

 

You have heard the testimony from your parents who raised you in the Christian faith; from pastors whom the Lord of the Church has sent to you; from the great Lutheran preachers and leading podcasters; from ancient Church fathers and Lutheran Church fathers; from the apostles and prophets; and from God Himself. Despite all of this testimony, still you do not live your lives like the LORD God is your one and only Saviour from sin and death. You still look to other places to escape the judgment of sin, to find blessing and prosperity, and to direct your manner of life with authority.

 

 

The LORD willingly steps into the dock and states His name and known aliases for the record: “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts; ‘I am the first and I am the last; besides Me there is no god” (Isaiah 44:6).

 

First, He claims to be “the King of Israel” because He has conquered their enemies. You can understand how the royal family in Jerusalem might not appreciate that very much at all. But ever since the nation was formed under slavery in Egypt, the LORD God has been their King. He is the one who conquered Pharaoh and delivered them from captivity and led them out and gave them their own land. He is the one who conquered the peoples who were in the land and established Israel in peace.

 

And even when they asked for an earthly king like the nations around them, He warned them that it would not turn out well for them. Their earthly king would tax them and take their sons for his army and send them into battle to die. The LORD promised that He would remain a king gracious and merciful. He would go to battle for them and send His own Son to defeat the enemy and give His life on behalf of the nation and for the sins of the world.

 

Second, He claims also to be the “Redeemer” of Israel. A redeemer is one who pays the price that you owe and rescues you from the judgment against you. The kings had promised to pay other nations for protection (Syria, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon). They were indebted and obligated to keep paying, not only so they wouldn’t be attacked by others, but even so they wouldn’t be attacked by these protectors as well. Even more egregious was the people of Israel’s appeal to the gods of these other nations for protection and blessing. They had promised to pay the demons and so the judgment against their sins stacked up to the heavens.

 

Not only was the LORD God their only source of deliverance from the political nations and the demonic gods of those nations, He was also willing to pay for the sins of the people to redeem them from His own righteous judgments against them. He alone is the God who pays for the sins of His people.

 

Third, He claims also for Himself the title “LORD of Sabaoth,” meaning the Lord of armies, or of hosts, great numbers that cannot be defeated. The people may have felt that they were not of great number, perhaps not in comparison to the nations around them. They could not muster an army large enough to turn away the threatening political powers. Were the gods of the other nations lords of a greater host? It often seemed that way when the people focused on their own abilities to muster an army.

 

But this is the LORD who led His prophet Elisha to walk with only his servant through a city besieged by the Syrian forces. The servant was terrified, but Elisha said to him, “’Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.’ So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:16-17). The LORD’s angelic host number “myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands” (Revelation 5:11).

 

And finally, God in the dock identifies Himself as “the First and the Last.” He doesn’t only say that He is the first to be a god over a specific people, or the first to accomplish the deliverance of His people. Rather, the LORD claims to be the First period. Before all other things is this God. And not only does He come in first, but He is also the source of all other. He is the Creator. There is nothing that can claim to have any input into His existence. In a similar way He is not just the longest lasting deity. He is the Last itself. There is nothing that will exist beyond Him.

 

As a collection of all of these claims, then, the LORD Himself says, “besides Me there is no God.” In other words, these titles that the LORD uses to identify Himself define what it means to be God. And He is the only One who ultimately and definitively fulfills these titles. He rules with blessing; He redeems with grace; He commands the hosts of heaven; He is eternal. Therefore there is no other God than He.

 

And the reason He is willing to put Himself in the dock to be under investigation, is because His people are looking elsewhere for a god. They desire a different King, another Redeemer, the Commander of a greater host, an older, newer, more enduring, and progressive God—one like the Syrians supposedly have or the Babylonians or the Egyptians, or the Canadians, the gods of people who seem to have more power, affluence, technology, art, or history.

 

So where are you looking for your God? If you are looking anywhere other than this God who reveals Himself and His will to you in His Word, then you have a false god. If you are looking for life’s blessings somewhere other than in the divine King of Israel, then you are an idolator. If you are seeking forgiveness and restoration but not hearing this Redeemer’s Word, then you are one of the heathen. If you are looking at how other’s have achieved success or riches or pleasure and choosing to do what they do rather than following this LORD of hosts, the First and the Last, then you are like the Israelites who longed to follow the practices of the pagan nations around them rather than trust in what the LORD God was speaking to them through His prophets.

 

The LORD has given His testimony. He has spoken to you who He is and no other gods have been able to put forth a showing. If they are His equal He bids them to declare it and there is only silence. If they know what is going to happen in the coming days they should speak up and put it on record. What will happen to the Christian Church? What will happen to you? What will happen when the Lord Jesus comes again? They are all silent, because they know they will be found out to be liars, unknowing, and impotent.

 

God has clearly testified of all of these things before you. It is all in His Word given to you. His emissaries speak it to you. It is all recorded and written down for you to investigate. But do you give it any heed or do you continue to look elsewhere for your life’s benefit? Are you still looking at what others do instead of what He does in order to give blessing upon blessing?

 

He has one more witness to call. It is not one of the angels of His presence, or the ancient mountains or depths of sea which He created in the beginning. It is not one of the false gods or any of the heathen peoples whose misdirected faith has destined them to hell. It is not even one of His apostles or prophets brought back from the dead. It is you.

 

You have received the summons just as Israel was called to witness to the one true God being the King of Israel, their Redeemer, the LORD of hosts, the First and the Last. “You are My witnesses” (Isaiah 44:8). Your redemption and your salvation will be the testimony that you give. Later in the same chapter of our Old Testament Reading, the LORD speaks to them again: “Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are My servant; I formed you; you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me. I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to Me, for I have redeemed you” (44:21-22).

 

The people of Israel are His witnesses because He forgave their sins. He rescued them from their enemies. He brought them back from exile and preserved them so that the promised Saviour, Jesus Christ, would be born from their stock. He provided redemption for all of their sins and has given eternal life to all who put their trust in Him. With boldness He called them to be His witnesses assuring that His design for their salvation would certainly come to pass. And in making them take the stand, He wiped away their fear that in any way He would not keep His promises to them.

 

And so it is for you, who are now called to be the LORD’s witnesses. Do not be afraid. Your redemption and salvation are the testimony by which He upholds the truth of who He is and the salvation He brings. He has told you and your life of blessing is evidence. Your deliverance from false gods and vain hopes will substantiate the truth of His claim to be the one and only true God who saves His people from their enemies, from their sins, from all manner of calamity and death. When you stand in resurrection glory with His people from ancient times and into future generations, the eternal evidence will bear out.

 

Jesus Christ is the true God, “the King of Israel.” When He defeated our enemies through His suffering and death, there was a title affixed to the cross above His thorn-crowned head that proclaimed who He truly was, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” His resurrection victory receives testimony from your life of confidence and faith that sin and death have been defeated for you.

 

When you confess your sins to God your Father, you testify that He is the one true “Redeemer.” You give your statement to His divinity when you pray that out of His boundless mercy and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be be gracious and merciful to you, a poor, sinful being” (Lutheran Service Book 184).

 

You give your testimony from the stand when you stand before the Church and sing out “Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth; heaven and earth are full of your glory” (Isaiah 6:3; LSB 195). You use the name that He claims as He comes to you with His body and blood in the bread and wine of His Supper.

 

You proclaim Him as “the First and the Last,” giving testimony as you repeatedly give glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; “as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.” As you officially stand in the congregation to give this testimony and as you live your life in faith through tribulations and threats in confidence with what He has claimed in His Word, you are his witnesses, and so it will be established eternally when you stand in the resurrection.

 

Notice that you are not being called to give a testimony about yourself. It is not about you. It is about Him, the King, the Redeemer, the LORD of Sabaoth, the First and the Last. We have a tendency to think only about ourselves, what we did and what kind of person we are. Our innocence or guilt preoccupy us. But the testimony is all about Him, who He is and what He has done. He is the one in the dock.

 

That is why He alone is the Rock and there is no other. He alone is the firm ground on which your salvation is anchored. If it was about you, there would always be doubt, anxiety, and despair. But it is about Him alone. Remember who He is and what He has done for you. You are His witnesses that He alone is the God who formed you, does not forget you, has blotted out your transgressions, and redeemed you.