Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Maker Is Your Husband

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

There are two pictures of two different women in Isaiah 54. And they teach us something miraculous. These last chapters of Isaiah are about a figure called the Servant of the Lord who is going to bring God’s salvation to the world. The New Testament writers identify Jesus Christ as the Servant of the Lord. And Isaiah 54 talks about the salvation he brings. From the two pictures in this passage, we learn about 1) miraculous births, 2) a miraculous marriage, and 3) the kind of miraculous life that flows from them. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 28, 2010. Series: The Songs of the Servant (from Isaiah). Scripture: Isaiah 54:1-10. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. The book of Isaiah prophesies a servant of the Lord, a mysterious figure who is going to bring salvation. New Testament writers tell us that this servant is Jesus Christ himself. Why is it so significant that Jesus is identified as a servant? And what does it mean for his followers today? Join us as Tim Keller explores the person of Jesus Christ, the gentle and strong servant of the Lord.

The Scripture reading is taken from Isaiah chapter 54 verses 1 through 10. Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child, burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor. Because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back, lengthen your cords, strengthen your states. For you will spread out to the right and to the left. Your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.

Do not be afraid. You will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace. You will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your maker is your husband. The Lord Almighty is His name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He is called the God of all the earth. The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit. A wife who married young, only to be rejected, says your God. For a brief moment I abandon you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back.

In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment But with everlasting kindness, I will have compassion on you says the Lord your Redeemer To me this is like the days of Noah when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace be removed. Says the Lord who has compassion on you. This is God's word. Now we're looking for a number of weeks at the last chapters of Isaiah because in the

weeks leading up to Easter we're exploring the mission of Jesus, what He came to do. And these last chapters are about a mysterious figure called the servant of the Lord who is to bring God's salvation into the world. And as we've seen each week, the New Testament writers, most of them, identify, virtually all of them, identify Jesus Christ as the servant of the Lord. And now last week we saw the most famous of the servant songs. The next five chapters don't talk about the servant directly, but they talk about the salvation he brings, and they are thoroughly wonderful. And tonight we take a look at this passage which actually has two pictures in it of two women, verses

one to three depicts one woman, verses four to ten another woman, and from these two pictures we're going to learn, first about miraculous births, miraculous births. Secondly, about a miraculous marriage, and then thirdly, the kind of miraculous life that can flow from these two things. If you experience the miraculous birth and have the miraculous marriage, from that comes a miraculous life. First, let's look at the miraculous birth and have the miraculous marriage from that comes a miraculous life first Let's look at the miraculous birth versus one to four one to three talk about a Baron woman and though she's barren verse one says this is how the image goes Though she's barren and she's never been in labor. She's having so many children Though she's barren and she's never been in labor, she's having so many children that in verse 2 they have to expand their tent, their family's home, but in verse 3 her children

are so many that they're repopulating nations and abandoned cities. Now what's this an image? This is a prophetic image. What is this telling us about? Of course, one thing that most people say, and I think this is true, that this at least is saying that God is going to bring Israel back from exile in Babylon, and they will again inhabit their land. But though I don't think this prophecy precludes that, it doesn't exhaust the

meaning of this. And here's the reason why. Verse 3 does not just say, the prophecy does not just say that the children of this woman are only going to inhabit one new nation. It says they're going to fill nations. And besides that, the births here are absolutely miraculous. It's a barren woman having children. That's impossible. So it's a supernatural, miraculous event. So what is it really talking about? The ultimate fulfillment of verses 1 to 3 is seen in the New Testament because Paul in Galatians 4 quotes verse 1 of Isaiah 54,

sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child, and applies it to what? To those who through Jesus Christ are born from above, born by the Holy Spirit from heaven, and who through faith in Christ experience a miraculous new birth, and they truly do. Christians have for centuries spread out throughout all the nations of the world, and therefore you really can't find the ultimate fulfillment of this passage unless you go to the New Testament and especially to the new birth that you experience through Jesus Christ. And I want you to consider what Paul's getting at when he looks at this metaphor

of the barren woman and applies it to the new birth. You and I have some sense of who we ought to be. In fact, especially if you're young, you probably feel like you still have hopes that you're going to someday become the person you ought to be. But Paul is saying, you can't do that. You can't become the person you ought to be any more than a barren woman can have children just by trying hard. I'm sorry, she doesn't have the capability. It doesn't matter how hard she tries.

She can't do it. And it doesn't matter how hard you try to be the person you ought to be, you can't do it unless there's a supernatural intervention from God. It is impossible. We're all spiritually barren. And in some ways, this is one of the main themes of the whole Bible. Even when the term's not being used in New Birth, it's everywhere. Look at all the great people of the Bible. Look at Abraham. There's a great guy. He sends a woman and her son, Hagar and Ishmael, out into the desert to die when they're creating family strife. Or here's another place in which Abraham was a great guy.

Twice he exposes his wife to sexual abuse to save his own skin. These things would have all been a disaster. Hagar and Ishmael would have died. It would have been a disaster. Abraham's life would have been a disaster, but God intervened. Okay, Jacob, Abraham's grandson, there's another great guy. Not just lying to his father, Isaac, you know, when he's blind and aged in one of the most important moments of his life, but not only that, Jacob when he has his own children, he favors his one son over the others and bitters them, you know, destroys the family virtually, is on the verge, it would have ruined his son Joseph, the one he loved, but God intervened.

Or look at another great figure in the Bible, one of the, you know, through whom the line of David comes, Judah. Look at Judah. There's a great guy. His son dies. He neglects his widow, daughter, and law-wise out having sex with prostitutes. There's another wonderful hero of the faith. But God intervened. Or look at David. He lost after the wife of one of the men that he owes his life to, then he has him killed so he can marry her, then he tries to cover it up, which would have been a disaster for his kingdom, but God intervened. Now I know what some of you are thinking when you read all these, these people, you look at them and say, couldn't God have gotten a little better material to work with? I mean, what's wrong with God's leadership development system here?

I mean, does He not know how to identify leadership potential? Why doesn't He work with better material? And the answer is, there is no better material. You're not better material. One of the main themes of the Bible is you must be born again, even when the word's not used. You must be born again. There is no, unless God intervenes, you'll never be the people that you ought to be. You'll never be the person you know you should be. Never. We're all spiritually barren. You must be born again. The second image, which is verses 4 to 10, gives us another marvelous picture. This time again of a woman, but not the barren woman of verses 1 to 3, who is fulfilled in the new birth through faith in Christ. This, it's what's wonderful about this metaphor, is God not only can bring life out of a dead

womb, but he can bring love out of a dead marriage. This woman is a separated wife. She's separated from her husband. Why? Now, this text actually doesn't tell you, but you have to actually look at the context which is in Isaiah 50, not very far earlier. In Isaiah 50 verses 1 to 3, Israel is depicted as a wife, and God is depicted as Israel's husband. And what does Israel do? See, God is like a husband who loves his wife, marries his wife, cares for his wife, nurtures his wife, and of course God has done this for centuries, loved and served his people, his wife. But then Israel worships other gods, begins to worship idols, which is spiritual adultery. See how the metaphor works? Israel's putting herself in the arms of other lovers.

And what does God do? God does what any husband who has loved and served and loved and served and is betrayed like that, you know what it does, what does it do to you? What does it do? It says in verse 8, I hid my face from you, verse 7, I abandoned you, and what does that mean? He withdrew. He did what actually a lot of husbands would do. He said, look, I can't be with you. But the trouble is, Israel is a little nation surrounded by big nations, and when God withdrew his protection, incomes assyria, incomes Babylon, and they are conquered, and they are taken off into exile. They're separated from God. You know, so here you have a wife who has been unfaithful and she's separated from her husband. What was

happening now? What is the future? What will go on? And this is what the prophecy is about. In verses 5 through 10 really, the whole rest of the passage, There are astounding juxtapositions. First of all, you've got the mighty maker. I'm your maker, verse 5. I am the almighty maker, the mighty maker. I am the holy one of Israel, God of all the earth. And as we see in verse 7 and 8, I'm angry. God's wrath. His wrath on what has happened. His just and warranted anger at what has happened. So you have a holy God, wrathful God, just God, mighty God, Creator God, who is nonetheless your tender husband, who is in verse 6, your God. Also one of the most wonderful things in verse 6, it says, I see your distress. Well, of course she's distressed in spirit, you know, in this metaphor, in this image. Of course she's

distressed because she brought it on herself, but look at the tenderness of God. He doesn't say I see you're upset good Yes, the distress is her own doing but it moves him and Most amazing of all he says in verse seven and eight though my wrath was righteous and right and Though I turned away from you, my everlasting kindness, that's the case-saith Hebrew word, that's the word that means his unconditional covenant love, is my love is going to overcome my wrath, and I am going to renew our marriage. We're going to heal this marriage. And when it's renewed, he says, nothing will ever break it again. Nothing will ever remove that covenant from you again. You will never, will never be separated again.

The mountains will be removed, but it won't happen. Our covenant is more, our marriage is more enduring than the mountains. And what does that mean? God says, in spite of the fact that I'm holy and I'm just, and I'm righteous in my anger, yet I'm your husband, I'm your lover, I'm moved even by the distress you brought on yourself, and I'm going to heal our marriage, and it will never ever be broken again. How in the world can this be?

And what fulfills this astonishing prophecy? And just as verses 1 to 3 was only understood as ultimately being fulfilled in the New Testament, in the New Birth, so these words can only be fulfilled and understood in light of the cross. How so? You know at verse 7 where it says, where God says, I abandoned you, but no more. You know why? That word abandoned is the Hebrew word, the same Hebrew word that shows up in Psalm 22, verse 1, where the speaker there says, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? And that's the very word, that's the very phrase that Jesus Christ spoke on from the cross. What is he saying? As he was dying on the cross, he said, I'm getting abandoned

so that you don't have to. God is hiding his face from me so you can have the light of his countenance. So you can go right down to verse 7. Jesus was forsaken. Verse 8, Jesus lost the face. 7, Jesus was forsaken. Verse 8, Jesus lost the face. Verse 9, 10, the very flood of God's ultimate justice came down on him. Why? Why? Why did all that happen? Well, here's an illustration that we often use or something like it, but it's so important we got to refresh our memories every so often. If you have a friend that comes over to your house or your apartment and through stupidity or maybe even anger breaks your chair. Oh, he turns to you and says, I am so sorry for breaking your chair. Now there's only two things that can happen. One is you can say, I'm glad you're sorry, but pay it, pay for it. Here's how much it costs to replace the chair. You could

make him pay for it. Or you could say, I forgive you. I forgive you. Forget it, forget it, forget it. In which case, you pay for the chair. Or you don't get another chair, which means you're still paying for a sin because you now lack the chair. But do you see what's going on? When a wrong is done, somebody always pays, always, always, always. Either the person pays, or the person is forgiven, and the forgiver pays, but somebody always pays, always. How can God forgive us for the wrongs that we've done to Him? How can God forgive us for the wrongs that we've done to each other, even the world around

us? How can God forgive us for the wrongs that have made done to each other, and to our even our the world around us. How can we how can God forgive us for the wrongs that have made such a mess of this world? How can he forgive? Well, we know if he forgives, if he doesn't make us pay, he has to pay. And on the cross, God came in the person of Jesus Christ and cosmically and infinitely paid the price, got the abandonment, got the forsaken forsakenness got the judgment so it doesn't have to fall on us Now here's what I want you to see The cross therefore shows how these things can be brought together How can God be infinitely holy and infinitely loving at once?

Only the cross will show you When I was in seminary many years ago, I was doing a course on the Gospels, one of the things we were always shown very rightly is that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke you have an account of the transfiguration, but in John you don't. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke the transfiguration is very important because Jesus, we talked about this last week, was a very ordinary looking person. His ordinariness made it very difficult for many people to realize who in the world he was. How could this be the Son of God?

But on the Mount of Transfiguration, briefly, the shutter is lifted, and his disciples saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Oh, why isn't there, why isn't there it there in John? Well, I mean, he's speculating a little bit. I mean, obviously John knew about it, but he didn't need to put it in. One of my professors said, because one of the things that John shows you, which is amazing, is that when Jesus is about to die, the night before He's about to die, He says to His Father, Father, now is the hour for the Son of Man to be glorified.

What a weird way to talk about the cross. Wouldn't you think that if you're going to have a revelation of who God is, His greatness, His majesty, His glory, the cross wouldn't be the place to see it because isn't it weakness and, you know, his face all swollen from having been beaten and thorns and blood and the nails? How awful, how horrible, why in the world would Jesus Christ say, that is the moment in which the glory of God will be most manifest? Here's why. There has never been a stronger, more powerful revelation of the holiness of God than on the cross. God is so holy, he takes his law so seriously, he takes sin so seriously, that he couldn't even shrug it off and say, well, I'll just forgive you. He had to die. It was him or us. That's how serious God takes his holiness. That's how

serious God takes his law. There has never been a more powerful revelation of how bad sin is and how holy God is than the fact that he was dying on the cross. He was so holy he had to die, but he was so loving. He was so merciful. We saw this word last week in Isaiah 53, he was satisfied to die. Only in the cross does the love of God and the holiness of God, the infinite love of God, the infinite holiness of God brilliantly coincide and shine forth together. It's the preeminent vision of the glory of God and manifestation of the glory of God. Only through the cross

can we see how the maker can be your husband, how the Holy One of Israel can be your God. And only the cross, can we see how the maker can be your husband? How the Holy One of Israel can be your God? And only the cross will explain how this marriage, healed marriage, can be permanent. I mean, how can it be permanent? Look, are we still like Abraham and Jacob and Judah and David? Are we still human? Aren't we still people? How could how in the world could God say if you enter into this new covenant with me? This marriage this this relationship of intimacy It'll never be broken. How can he say that? only because of the cross Jesus was the most influential man to ever walk the earth and and his story has been told in hundreds of different ways.

Can anything more be said about him? In his book, Jesus the King, Tim Keller journeys through the Gospel of Mark to reveal how the life of Jesus helps us make sense of our lives. Dr. Keller shows us how the story of Jesus is at once cosmic, historical, and personal, calling each of us to look anew at our relationship with God. Jesus the King is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the transforming love of Christ

with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. You know, one of, to me, one of the most audacious little verses in the Bible, it sneaks by you with its audacity, is 1 John 1 8 9, where it says, if you confess your sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanses of all

unrighteousness. But did you hear that? If you, if you're a Christian and you confess your sin, why will God forgive your sin? Because he's just, it says. Well I thought God forgave sins because he was merciful. Yeah, of course, God forgives sins because he's merciful. But don't you see because of the cross, he also now forgives his because he's just. If Jesus Christ paid for your sin, the sin you did yesterday, if he paid for that on the cross, then for God to punish you for it would be for him to get two punishments, two payments, right? Which would be unjust. And what that means is, because of the cross, not only the mercy of God is on your side and the love of God is on your side, but the holiness and the righteousness and the absolute

justice of God is on your side, in all, every aspect, every attribute of God demands that now there is no condemnation for you if you're in Christ Jesus. That's why this marriage is a miracle. Now if you believe in Jesus and you experience the new birth and you're brought into this miraculous marriage, there's a new kind of life that flows from that. And if you want to have this miraculous life, I would like you to just see four things. In a sense, this text does not go into many details, but it just hints at them. But the hints are so delicious.

The four things, if you want to experience this miraculous life that you need to do are you need to answer the call, forget the shame, count your children, and burst at a song. Look quick. First, answer the call. You see verse 6, the Lord will call you back. Now verse 6 is telling us that if you are to become a Christian, if you are to embrace God, have a personal relationship, God is calling you back the way a husband calls back a wayward wife. Where's the wayward wife living with her lover? And God is saying, come back to your true lover, come back to your true spouse, and leave the house of your paramour, your other lover. And what I want you to realize is of all the metaphors, God is a king and he calls us to obey.

You know, God is a shepherd and he calls us to follow him. Of all the metaphors, the idea that God is also your true spouse and he's calling you away from your false lovers, your alternate gods. This is to me in some ways the most incisive of all the calls. Here's why. When most people hear the idea that you know they should come to Jesus and receive him as Savior and Lord, what does that mean? Most people say, well I guess that means I have to stop doing certain things. They're kind of fun, but I guess that's the price you have to pay if you want to go to heaven. I mean that's the attitude. Well, this metaphor changes all that. What this metaphor says is you cannot come to God unless first you see that there's something that you love more than God, something that you trust

more than God, something that's more important to yourself, image, something that's more important to your significance and security, and you have to identify it as what it is. It's a false God, it's a pseudo savior, it's a form of spiritual adultery. It may be a job, it may be a career, it may not be what you would think of as a sin, but this metaphor forces you to see the things that you're really getting your life meaning from and recognize them for what they are, false gods. Now we talk about this a lot, but I've got a great quote here tonight that kind of goes deep and really

hits us hard. David Foster Wallace was a, before he committed suicide, was one of the leading literary lights in America. He was a very well-known postmodern author and critic. He wrote a very famous novel. And just before he committed suicide, he gave this commencement speech at Kenyon College. And in the speech, he says this. He says, in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual type thing to worship, be it Jesus Christ or Allah or Yahweh or the Wiccan mother goddess, is the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual type thing to worship

is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. Then he gives examples. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. If you worship your body and beauty and sexual allure, and you, if that's what you worship, then you will always feel ugly. And when time and age starts showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you all the way.

If you worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. If you worship intellect, being thought very smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious things about these forms of worship are their unconscious. They are default settings. Now, that's an amazing statement. And listen, he doesn't say which one it is, but one of these things ate him alive. And what he says is so insidious about this is the things that you think, well, I'm just working hard to be a good writer.

I'm just working hard to, you know, to find someone to love me. I'm working hard to be, to look good. I'm working hard to do something, you know, to really do something in politics. I'm working hard to have a good career and make money and be productive. He says, it's worship and you won't admit it. You won't admit it. And this text is telling, until you do, you cannot really answer the call. You're not really coming to God unless you see not just that I got to stop doing this and this and this, but the very reason I live, if it's not for God, is an enslavement, is an idol, is a false God, it's worship until

you see it. A, it will eat you alive. And B, you can't really answer the call. So the first thing you have to do if you want this miraculous life is answer the call. The second thing you've got to do is forget your shame. Oh my, you know, I love it. Verse 4 says, you will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood for your maker is your husband. Oh my. You know, there's a lot of you that are Lady Macbeth's.

You know, out damn spot, but I can't get it out. And there's some of you that feel like failures, or that there's something you've done and you feel stained and defiled. Forget your shame. How? You need to see what... you need to understand the theology. You need to understand the gospel. You need to see what it is. You need to work it into your heart until you forget your shame. At the, at the, in Mark 14, there's an amazing place where Peter denies Jesus three times. Let me just show you the magnitude of what he did.

Three times he's asked, are you a follower of Jesus? Here's Jesus being beaten, being tortured, on his way to being killed, and Peter can't even admit he has anything to do with it. Three times he's asked, are you a disciple of his? First time, no. Second time, no. Third time, he curses. You know, in Richard Balkam, the famous New Testament scholar, makes a very good case that at that spot he was actually cursing Jesus to prove that he wasn't a follower. Now you've got to remember a couple things here. This was not an active impulse because it happened three times. Secondly, Jesus gave him warning. Remember, he told him he was going to do it. He had warning. And he was an insider. He knew what Jesus was like. He knew his love. He knew his power.

And yet he still betrayed him like this. I mean, I'm not sure there's ever been a more deliberate, more cowardly, more massive betrayal than this. And yet yet your maker is your husband. On the beach, John 21, Jesus after the resurrection is talking to Peter and says, Peter, I want you to be the leader of my church. I want you to be... I want you to feed my lambs. I want you to be the leader of my church. I'm sure Peter was saying, what? And what Jesus is teaching this? He's saying, forget your shame. Here's what he wants. Basically Jesus is saying, plunge your failures into my grace. If you, you are going to be the best leader because

you were the biggest failure. If you plunge your failures into my grace and really understand what I have done for you, on the one hand it'll humble you and yet the same time you'll be totally secure, which makes you very effective in people's lives and a great leader. Forget your shame. I don't care who you are, I don't care what you've done. I don't care if there's literally blood on your hands tonight. Forget your shame. Come to Christ. So you have to hear the call. Secondly, you have to forget your shame. Thirdly, count your real children. The desolate woman who isn't

burying children nevertheless has thousands. How could that be? If you go to the website of Bethel Gospel Assembly, which is an African-American church largely in Harlem, this is what it will tell you happened in their history. Go pull it down and it'll tell you what the history in the history of the church, it'll say this. It says Bethel Gospel Assembly, Incorporated, was uniquely born out of love. She'll say this. It says, Bethel Gospel Assembly, Incorporated, was uniquely born out of love.

When in 1916, two young women, after receiving Christ as their Lord and Savior, applied for membership at a downtown church in New York City. They were refused membership to the church because of the color of their skin. They're African American. As a result of this rejection, their steps were redirected to an entrance through which thousands were led to a saving knowledge of Christ. A young German member of the church, Lillian Crager, suggested that the women hold cottage meetings near their home in Harlem.

Her commitment to the Lord led her to travel to Harlem to give leadership to the Bible study classes. But as a result of their commitment, her family and the young man to whom she was engaged rejected her. She refused to forsake the ministry that was started in Harlem, however. The college meetings began in January 1916. They continued to blossom. In November 1917, these believers secured a room on 101st Street in Madison Avenue in which services were held, and Bethel Gospel Assembly was born on November 18, 1917. Well, I want you to know that that's an interesting account, and it's a little on the polite side,

because 15 years ago I was meeting with the pastor at the time, Bishop Ezra Williams, and he gave a little bit more information. Here's the story behind the story. These are notes that I took that day. He says, well, you need to understand that Lillian Crager was a dedicated Christian, and it was through her Bible study that the two African American young women from Harlem came to Christ. And then they just tried to join the church that Lillian belonged to, and they weren't allowed. And when they were not allowed into church, they asked Lillian belonged to and they weren't allowed. And when they were not allowed into church, they asked Lillian to begin a ministry up in Harlem to reach more of their friends. The German lady was engaged at the time and her fiance was very much against her doing such a ministry. He said that

if she began that ministry up in Harlem, he would call off the wedding. As she agonized over the competing call she felt from God over against her desire to be married, she came upon Isaiah 54 verse 1. More are the children of a desolate woman than of she who has a husband. And she sent God's call, and she went into the ministry, she lost her husband and a new church was born and she has thousands of children. Thousands of children. Do you understand? What does it mean to have children? You know, in the great divorce, which is a story by C.S. Lewis about a, it's a fiction of course, a man who goes

to heaven and is sort of being shown around by a guide, and he sees interesting things. He comes around a corner and there's this woman that comes around who's huge and gorgeous and beautiful, and she's surrounded by men and women who are dancing around her and loving her and she's filled with light. Quote, I only partly remember the unbearable beauty of her face. Is it, is it? I whispered to my guide. Not at all, he said.

It's someone you never have heard of. Her name is on earth, was Sarah Smith, and she lives at Golders Green. But she seems to have been a person of great importance, I said to my guide. Have you not heard that fame up here and fame on earth are two quite different things? Well, I said, but who are all these young men and women on each side of her? They're her sons and daughters, my guide said. Well, she must have had a very large family, I said. No, every boy that met her became her son, every girl her daughter.

Well, wasn't that hard on their parents, I asked? No, there are those who steal other children's parents. But here, this was of a very different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents, loving them more. And few men looked on her without loving her, but it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer to their own wives. And now the abundance of the life that she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them. Already there is more joy in her little finger than is necessary to awaken all the dead things of the universe to life. I don't care whether you're married or unmarried, I don't care whether you're male or female, if you share the grace

and the love and the faith that you've gotten through Christ. You're gonna have a lot of children. You're gonna be creating a family, a real family. We can all be fruitful. Now look at lastly, burst into song. Burst into song about what? About the fact that your maker is your husband. One of the most amazing things about this metaphor, that God's not just our king, but he's our spouse, is because in marriage, in spousal love, two people are attracted to one another's beauty. Attracted to one another's beauty.

We saw this last week in Isaiah 53. Why did Jesus come to die? He desired you. And when you begin to even get a little sense of your beauty to Him, He'll become a beauty to you. And when He becomes beautiful, not just someone to use, not just someone to have to obey, when God becomes beautiful to you, you'll start to serve Him just because of who He is in himself. You will begin to serve him to get the pleasure of pleasing him and giving him pleasure. And when you begin to taste the pleasure of giving God pleasure, when the main thing in the world you want to do is delight the one who delights in you,

everything in your life will fall into place. And you can burst into song. I suggest this one. Let us arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace us in His arms. In the arms of our dear Savior, oh, there are ten thousand charms. Let's pray. Our Father, thank You for giving us what we need. We need to know that Your power can come into our lives, to make us what we ought to be, that we could never generate that ourselves. And we also need Your love in our lives to know that because of what Your Son, Jesus Christ, did on the cross, we now belong to you. Please teach us how to answer the call

and forget the shame and generate new children all the time and burst into song all the time, making melody in our heart to you, thanking you for everything. So shape us with these great truths, we pray through Jesus in his name. We pray, amen. Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching,

please rate and review it so more people can discover this podcast. This month's sermons were recorded in 1990, 2003, and 2010. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was Senior Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.