Word of Salvation – Vol. 36 No. 48 – December 1992

 

Beautiful Feet

 

Sermon by Rev H. DeWaard on Isaiah 52:1-10

Reading: Romans 10:12-17; 2Corinthians 5:17-21

 

Congregation, beloved in Christ,

When some months ago I visited the palace of the Sultan in Indonesia I had to take my shoes off.

In the same way when going into a mosque (like a church for Muslim people) I had to go in on bare feet.  Why do you think that is?

When you go into the presence of important people like a king or God, you have to show respect, it is a holy place.  I am sure you all know an instance in the Bible when a person had to take his sandals off.  God said to Moses at the burning bush: Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground' (Ex.3).

Bare feet show respect and humility.  There is a story in the Hindu religion according to which the god Krishna stole the clothing of shepherd girls while they were bathing.  They cried for their clothes to be returned to them.  The reply was: 'You must get them yourself.”  The point being that a person must not come to God covered up.  He must come to God as he is: naked.

I don't like taking off my shoes.  I always glance back to see if no one is going off with my shoes.  Besides, the pavement is hot and the gravel is hard.  It slows me down.

Perhaps that is the point.  It is appropriate that that which is holy should be approached slowly.

Yet, the beautiful feet mentioned here in our text are running feet.  They are beautiful, not literally, but because they are carrying Good News to the captive people of God in Babylon.  A person with beautiful feet is one who is zealous and eager to pass on a message from a king to be given to a needy people.

1.  The Context

The people of God were in a real crisis.  Estranged from God they were taken away into captivity to Babylon – roughly where Iraq is today.

How could God do that to His people?

They eagerly waited for a messenger to announce that their troubles were all over.  They were straining their eyes and ears to hear the running feet of one who would bring Good News of their release.  They scanned the horizon for such beautiful running feet.

Was it realistic to expect such good news?

The central thrust of the Bible is that God does not forsake His people:

'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast... though she may forget, I will not forget you!' (Is.49:15)

'For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back'. (Is.54:7)

God is in holy search for His children, wayward as they are.  God runs after His people.  That's why He sent angels, prophets, apostles, preachers and ordinary Christians to bring a message of hope.  All such messengers are people with beautiful feet!

In Romans 10 Paul quotes this passage.  He is struggling with the puzzle of Israel's unbelief.  Why didn't the Jews believe in Jesus as their Messiah?

Did God fail?  Were His covenant mercies at an end?  If that is true, how can WE be sure that God's promises are not empty for us today?

Paul continues to pray in hope.  He himself had been brought from darkness to light.  Why could God not work the same miracle in other Jews?  So he ran with beautiful feet to proclaim the Gospel in their synagogues.

Today we need people with beautiful feet.  People who are able to give a message of hope from the Lord.  We need it because there is so much doom and gloom around us.

For what kind of world do we live in?

Look at 2Tim.3:1-5.  It is almost like a commentary on our society.
            ...self-centred, immoral, searching for meaning,
            in flight from reality, despairing, abusing one another,
            no regard for authority, homes are weak – as are marriages.

Yet this society is religious.  Did some of you see the TV documentary one Satanism a few weeks ago?  It shows you what happens when the Lord of the Bible is rejected.  Man has to worship something or someone, because mankind is made in God's image.  Somehow he is always related to God.  But when the relationship is one of rebellion, religion becomes sick.

What message do we have?  What's the good news?

2.  The Message

The runner with beautiful feet carries a message of peace.  God is no longer hostile toward his people.

Salvation and deliverance are at hand.

How could it be otherwise?

For: God reigns!

Behind all the confusion and turmoil in the Middle East, behind the bleak economic outlook of our day, behind them political changes in South Africa, THERE IS A THRONE...!

God is in control.  Through all these upheavals He is accomplishing His purposes.  His covenant mercies will not fail.  He will act on behalf of His people.

How?  Through political events associated with heathen kings.

He brought his people back from captivity.  He used Cyrus and Darius and delivered His chosen people.  Today the Lord uses Gorbachev and Saddam Hussein to carry out his plans.

But even when you are politically, free you are still captive the power of sin.

God had to do something more drastic.  God had to break the power of sin!  Only He could do that.  So He became man in Jesus Christ.  See him emptying himself of his glory, taking the form of a servant, humbling Himself to death on a cross.  He is the pathetic figure you see here in Is.52 and 53- He is the Man of Sorrows:

            'He took our infirmities upon him,
             he was crushed for our iniquities,
             by his wounds we are healed
             for the Lord laid on him the iniquities of us all.’

In his desire to save you, God allowed himself to be captured.

He allowed himself to be slowed down and nailed to a cross.  As a matter of fact he came to a dead stop on Calvary.  Why did He do it?

To restore us together with the whole creation to our original greatness.

The Incarnation was D-day: God intervened in the death and resurrection of Christ.  It was God's way of breaking the power of sin.

There will be another day, V-Day when Christ comes again to complete and perfect his creation.  The picture is shown us in Isaiah 65:17ff.
            - children remain alive; they will not die by their thousands in infancy.
            - old people find a meaningful existence;
                        they will not twiddle their thumbs in some geriatric ward.
            - people will enjoy the fruit of their labours;
                        they will not be oppressed by an unjust legal system
                        nor by greedy landlords.

If that is God's aim shouldn't we strive for justice... peace.... beauty... and wholeness?

We are gathered for worship in order to be scattered into the world with a message.  And we are to give this message hands and feet.

Our message is: Your God reigns!  None is like him in power and glory.  His footprints are everywhere.  His work of redemption is going on.  He wants your faith and allegiance.  He does not wish that any should perish but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth.

How do we respond to the message?

3.  The Response

The message is useless unless it is acted upon.  The runner with beautiful feet, after exhausting himself, running over mi mountains and valleys is eager to relieve the gloom and doom and give hope to the captives in Babylon.

Still out of breath he does not say: 'Well, here it is.  Take it or leave it!.

A herald preaches for response.  The message is urgent.  Life depends on it.

Of all the reactions people may have to the Gospel none is worse than a yawn:  So what?  Who cares?

I do not preach so that you might enjoy it.  I don't do it for my own enjoyment either.  I do not even preach just to give you a spiritual lift.  Nor do I speak for about 20 minutes just to fill up the time.

I preach to appeal to you to believe the message of God, to have you realize the importance of committing yourself to the Gospel and its demands.  It's an appeal to walk the narrow way, the way of God, to take up your cross and follow Jesus to become part of his community.  I preach in the confidence that God the Holy Spirit can take the message this evening and fan it into a flame of love.

D.L. Moody was a man with beautiful, persuasive feet.  In the Great Chicago fire, Moody lost his church his home and most of his possessions.  The evening of the fire, Moody had preached an evangelistic message and asked his hearers to come back next Sunday to make a decision.  Because of the fire he never saw these people again.  'I have never dared to give an audience a week to think about their salvation since,' he said afterwards.

This week you will rub shoulders with hungry and thirsty humanity.  There are lonely people, desperate people, there are people thinking of taking their life, marriages are tense... will you be a person with beautiful feet?  Are you going to try and help such people?  Not all of them.  Perhaps one...!  It could be a fellow church member; it could be someone at work or in your neighbourhood.

That will be hard unless you yourself are enthused by the Gospel.

So may I urge you to consider the following:

1.  Ask God to open your lips and use your words to bring a message of hope.  Speak in dependence on and by the power of the Spirit.  Speak to God about your neighbour and speak to your neighbour about God.

2.  Believe in the wiles of the devil.  The devil wants to keep people in bondage.  To blind them to the Good News.  You may be the person whom God uses to open the eyes of a needy person.

3.  Accept the fact of human lostness.  It is only as you see that we are lost without Christ, that we can minister with passion.

Luther once said: Not understanding, reading or speculation, but living, no, dying and being damned makes a preacher.  That is, you must understand what it is to be spiritually desperate.

4.  Speak of Christ.  Not the church; not your experience, not theology.  Speak of Christ who is our beautiful Saviour with beautiful feet,

Follow Him and you too will be a person with beautiful feet.

AMEN