Hewn from a Rock
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: Two weeks ago there was a series of articles in the Wichita Eagle-Beacon about one of the richest men in the United States, George Ablah of Wichita. The article talked about his childhood, his education, his family, his early financial difficulties, and how he made it big in the world of high finance and real estate development. I was particularly interested in one interview in which Ablah stated that he didn’t personally take credit for his phenomenal success; he said that the credit went to “the market.” Now I would have preferred he had given God the credit, but better that he should give it to the market than keep it for himself. For in essence what he was stating for us was that he owed his success to something outside himself.
You know, there are no truly self-made men, and if you ever meet one who claims to be, you have met an obnoxious person. Sure, there are some who have started in absolute poverty, and through unusual self-discipline, hard work, long hours, and amazing entrepreneurship have become a phenomenal success, but if they are honest with themselves they can always look back to people who have played a major part in their success—perhaps a parent who sacrificed so they could go to college, maybe an employer who gave them their first job, or perhaps an investor who gave them a real break. Ablah wisely gave a lot of credit, not only to the market, but also to his wife and the important part she played in his business career.
I mention this because our text for today challenges us to go back to our roots and examine where we came from. There are several reasons why this is a valuable exercise. For one, it produces gratitude toward those who have paved the way for us. It also serves to allay fears and discouragement when we are facing failure rather than success. More importantly, it helps us to exalt the grace of God as we consider our small beginnings. And it also grants us hope for the future. All four of these results are shared in today’s text, Isaiah 51:1-3:
“Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness,
Who seek the Lord:
Look to the rock from which you were cut,
And to the quarry from which you were dug.
2 Look to Abraham your father
And to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain;
When he was only one I called him,
Then I blessed him and multiplied him.
3 Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion;
He will comfort all her ruins.
And He will make her wilderness like Eden,
And her desert like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her,
Thanksgiving and the sound of a melody.”
The key statement we want to focus on today is that found in the last half of verse one: “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” Some will recall the expressive language of the KJV: “Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.” The rendering is memorable, but unfortunately it has led many to believe that the primary thrust of Isaiah 51 is that we should realize that God found us in a pit, in fact in the hole of a pit, and thus we have nothing to commend ourselves to God, for all that we are is purely by His grace.
Now that is true and I believe there is good Scriptural support for it, but I don’t think that is the principal thrust of Isaiah 51:1. Our text today is written to give encouragement to God’s people regarding their great heritage. God’s grace will come through as a strong theme, but perhaps in a different way than expected.
Let’s begin, then, with the principal point of Isaiah 51, namely that …
Looking to our roots helps to allay fears and discouragement.
The words of Isaiah 51 are directed specifically to the godly remnant of Israel. The previous chapter had much to say about disobedient Israel, including that God was getting a bill of divorcement from them. That is, they would no longer have the privilege of calling themselves His family; instead, judgment and exile would be their portion. But in chapter 51 God has words of encouragement for those who pursue righteousness and seek the Lord. Yes, the future may look bleak for the nation, but God challenges the faithful remnant to look to the rock from which they were hewn and the quarry from which they were dug.
Now we don’t need to waste much energy trying to determine what the rock is and what the quarry is, for the next verse tells us clearly that Abraham is the rock and Sarah is the quarry. The average Jew hearing that would indeed be encouraged, for he would know the story well how God called n Abraham out of a pagan nation and an idolatrous family and made of him a great nation. He would also recall that Sarah was enabled to conceive when she was way past the child-bearing age. If God could do that for Abraham and Sarah, then He could also do it for Abraham’s progeny. That’s encouragement.
The rest of the chapter is confirmation of the encouragement given in verse 2. Look at verse 7, for example: “Listen to Me, you who know righteousness, a people in whose heart is My law; do not fear the reproach of man, neither be dismayed at their revilings. For the moth will eat them like a garment, and the grub will eat them like wool. But My righteousness shall be forever, and My salvation to all generations.” Yes, the righteous have many who opposed them and on account of whom the judgment of God was coming upon the nation, but God encourages them to recognize that He is certainly able to spare the righteous. Look also at verse12ff: “I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, and of the son of man who is made like grass; that you have forgotten the Lord your Maker, who stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; that you fear continually all day long because of the fury of the oppressor, as he makes ready to destroy? But where is the fury of the oppressor?”
Do you see what God is trying to do? He is trying to allay their fears and encourage their hearts by reminding them of His great power and their enemies’ great weakness. But even before that He has reminded them to look to the rock and the quarry, Abraham and Sarah, whose own experience, as we shall see, demonstrated the power of God in a remarkable way.
Well, if looking to our roots helps to allay fears and discouragement, then …
Looking to our roots produces gratitude toward those who have paved the way for us.
When the righteous remnant to whom Isaiah was speaking looked to Abraham and Sarah, what did they see? They saw a man whose preeminent quality was faith. The classic statement about Abraham in all the Bible is found in Gen. 15:6: “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.” What was remarkable about his faith, of course, was the fact that God called him out of a pagan country and out of an idolatrous family and told him to go west. He didn’t know where he was going, he didn’t know what he would find when he got there, he didn’t know who lived there, but he did believe that God knew what He was doing and that God’s will would be best for his life.
God’s people are told in verse 2 that Abraham was the father of their nation and Sarah was the mother. As Isaiah puts it, “she gave birth to you in pain.” The intimation is that gratitude should be felt and expressed to those who made possible the very existence of their nation. Look to the rock, look to the quarry and be grateful that these were willing to step out in faith so that God’s blessing could be showered on you 1500 years later.
There is great value, I believe, in national celebrations, whether it is a centennial such as we had in 1976, or the 40th celebration of D-Day, which we just celebrated in June, or simply the annual observance of Memorial Day or Veterans’ Day. We need regular reminders that the freedoms we enjoy in the United States were not easily obtained and therefore should not be taken for granted. We need to express gratitude toward those who made our freedom and prosperity possible.
The same holds true in the spiritual realm. We have experienced an unusual measure of God’s blessing here at First Free during the past decade. But it is extremely important for us to give honor and credit to those pastors and lay leaders who came before us and paved the way for these blessings. As we enjoy the satisfaction of a crowded, debt-free facility; as we stand perhaps on the verge of a major new expansion of facilities and ministries; as we look with fulfillment at the new churches we have started; as we enjoy the reputation our church has achieved for sound doctrine and warm fellowship; we must not forget Pastor Schumacher and the dozen or so people, who met in the basement of a bungalow on North Oliver in 1950 to pray that a new church might be planted in Wichita. We must not forget Pastor Clifford Smith, who guided that small church for six years in the 1950’s.
We need to remember Pastor Marlin Jones, who along with the Lews, the Nelsons, the Days, the Castellis, the Gees, and others, cast a vision for this piece of property way out in the country on North Woodlawn, and went out on a limb to purchase it when some were saying it was financially irresponsible and others were alleging that the city would never expand this far to the northeast. And we need to remember Pastor Hauser, who with the strong support of many who are still a part of the Body, gave loving pastoral care for eight years in the sixties and seventies, and bequeathed to you and me a congregation that was stable, harmonious, spiritually mature, and which had superb lay leadership. It’s because we owe a debt of gratitude to those who have paved the way for us that we are having a celebration in four weeks to honor those pastors, and to allow them to see and enjoy the fruits of their labors.
We need to realize that nothing that we see here today was accomplished by any of us. We have simply been a part, and a very small part, of the ongoing work of Christ, who said, “I will build My church.” Friends, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug,” and be grateful that you have been privileged to follow in the train of those who have been men and women of faith—modern Abrahams and Sarahs.
If looking to our roots helps to allay fears and discouragement, and produces gratitude toward those who have gone before, it is even more true that …
Looking to our roots exalts the grace of God.
It is good to give credit to those who have paved the way for us, but it is even better to give credit to the grace of God, for without that, even those who have gone before us would have accomplished nothing. Let’s examine verse 2 in a little more detail: “Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain; when he was one, I called him, Then I blessed him and multiplied him.” The key phrase here is, “when he was one, I called him.” That doesn’t mean, “when he was one year old.” It means “when he was one by himself,” i.e., when he was a solitary person, and a pretty insignificant person at that, in contrast to the great nation that his descendants were destined to become. “Then,” God says, “I blessed him and multiplied him.” You see, God is the God of multiplication, not addition. God doesn’t need to start with a large group to build an even larger group. He can start with one and multiply that one into the greatest nation or church or organization on earth.
Think with me, if you will, of some of the small beginnings God has used to accomplish great things. Consider Moses—a little infant under a sentence of death, hidden in a basket among the bulrushes, found by the daughter of the Pharoah who had ordered his execution; later he was an angry young man who murdered an Egyptian guard who was mistreating his friends; still later he was a reluctant spokesman who gave God the excuse that he was not sufficiently eloquent to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt; but eventually, we find him the greatest leader any nation has ever known—because God’s grace was with him.
Or consider Rahab, a prostitute in the pagan city of Jericho. Talk about a moral and spiritual zero—this woman was it! Yet God in His grace revealed Himself to her and used her to help the Israelites destroy the city of Jericho, a key to their conquering of the land of Palestine. And God rewarded her faithfulness by bringing her into the family of Israel and allowing the Messiah, Jesus Christ, to be born through her line.
Or consider David, a shepherd boy. When his father, Jesse, was told by the prophet Samuel that one of his sons would become King of Israel, Jesse brought each of his seven oldest sons before the prophet, but did not even think to bring his youngest son David, because he was so young and inexperienced. How could a harp-playing shepherd boy even be considered as the leader of a nation? Samuel, too, thought that one of Jesse’s sons must be the anointed one, until the Lord spoke to him and said, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) Later when that same shepherd boy, David, offered to go out and fight against the giant Goliath, he was laughed at and scorned and sent home. Yet God took his bold faith and channeled it into kingly form, and David became the greatest king the nation ever had.
Or consider Peter, an uneducated, uncultured, uncouth fisherman, going nowhere fast. God in His grace reached out to Peter, and over time transformed him into a fearless apostle of the Christian church.
And on and on we could go talking about the times God has started with one person, often a loser at that, humanly speaking, and multiplied that one willing person to accomplish His perfect will. That shouldn’t surprise us, for we read in 1 Cor. 1:26:
“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.'”
Yes, God specializes in losers, in the weak, in the despised, in those who are alone.
Think about your own life. Where were you when God found you? Some of you had broken marriages, some had alcohol problems, some had moral problems of a serious nature, some were just self-centered and going your own happy way. What has He done for you since He found you? What blessings has He heaped upon your life? Does looking at your roots exalt the grace of God? If not, I dare say you’re not looking very carefully.
Finally, this morning I want us to see that …
Looking to our roots grants hope for the future.
We started today by noting that the previous chapter was a chapter about judgment on the nation. But now verse 3 promises blessing rather than judgment: “Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places. And her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and sound of a melody.”
The pivot between these two sections is the charge to “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.”
When you’re confronting an uncertain future and when you’re facing a major trial, it always helps to look back to see where you’ve come from. Think back to the prayers God has answered in the past; think back to the previous trials He has brought you through; think back to the small beginnings you started with in contrast to the fulness you are experiencing now. Doesn’t that give you hope to carry on and confidence that God, who has begun a good work in you, will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus? The promise-keeping God will perform His word in the future, as He has in the past.
While we’re looking at our roots today, may I make it perfectly clear that our roots, no matter how deep they run nor how strong they are, can never guarantee us eternal life. We may have fine godly ancestors; we may have parents who love and serve God faithfully; we may be privileged to attend a church founded and built by those who were intimately acquainted with God. But God has no grandchildren, only children. Each generation (in fact, everyone) must come to personal faith in Christ. Jesus Himself said, “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.”
There is a strange paradox in the spiritual realm: if you’re born only once, you must die twice. But if you’re born twice, you only have to die once. Jesus said, “You must be born again.” That new birth comes by placing your faith and trust in Jesus’ death on the cross and receiving His forgiveness of your sins.
DATE: August 26, 1984
Tags:
Heritage, spiritual
Grace
Gratitude