Bible Passage: Isaiah 43:16-21
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: April 6, 2025

Bulletin – April 6, 2025

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

“No way!”  This is the standard response when you don’t believe something just happened or will happen.  The Bears are lining up for a 40-yard field goal that will beat the Packers on the last play of the game.  That’s a pretty routine “make” for the pros.  The ball is snapped…and the Packers’ defensive end Dean Lowry gets his hand up and blocks the field goal.  Packers win!  Packers’ fans yelled, “No way!”  Bears fans muttered, “No way!”

Sometimes the situation in life is much more profound than a football game.  Imagine being a resident of Jerusalem and hearing Isaiah’s message.  It was a message they did not want to hear.  Isaiah foretold captivity for them.  Captivity in Babylon.  Discipline from the Lord for the way they wandered away from him.  It might have seemed like the end for Israel.  Who ever heard of a people returning from exile in a foreign land?  Impossible.  No way.  But Israel’s LORD and ours teaches a very important lesson in our text today:  No way?  The LORD Says, “Way!”

The LORD needed to have a serious talk with his people.  They were drifting from him.  They were guilty of worshipping the false gods of their neighbors.  Their spiritual condition was desperate.  The LORD sent the prophet Isaiah to them to deliver a stern message from God:  they will be taken away into exile in Babylon.  A few chapters before our text, Isaiah tells Judah’s king, The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon.  Nothing will be left, says the LORD. (39:6)

There’s more at stake here than at first meets the eye.  What will become of the Jewish people?  Exiled people often disappear.  They lose their identity as a people.  They slowly become absorbed into the nation where they live.  If the descendants of Abraham lose their distinct identity, what becomes of the promises the LORD made to Abraham?  The LORD promised that the Savior of the world would come from Abraham’s descendants!  They cannot just “disappear”!  Can the LORD exile his people and remain faithful to his promises?  Some might be inclined to say, “No way!”

And so the LORD speaks the words of our text.  He begins: This is what the Lord says,

who makes a road through the sea and a path through mighty waters, who brings out the chariot and the horses, the army and the strong warrior. They will all lie down together. They will not get up. They are extinguished. Like a wick they go out. (v. 16)  The LORD reminds his people of another time when God’s people might have been inclined to say, “No way!”  It was at the time of Moses.  After the plague of the death of the firstborn in Egypt, Pharaoh had let the Israelites go.  They had walked out of Egypt a free people!  But recall how Pharaoh then changed his mind.  “No way am I letting my slave-labor go!”  So he mustered the Egyptian army and went in pursuit.

He caught up to Israel when they were at the bank of the Red Sea.  So there Israel was!  Trapped!  They had the Egyptian army behind them and the Red Sea in front of them.  There was no way out!  There was no way to escape!  Until the LORD said, “Way!”  And then he parted the Red Sea and made a way for them right through the middle!

The LORD reminds the people of that only to say in the next sentence,  Do not remember the former things.  Do not keep thinking about ancient things.  Watch, I am about to do a new thing. (v. 18-19)  In effect the LORD is saying, “That’s nothing!  Watch what I am about to do!  You who are saying, ‘There’s no way we will get out of Babylon!,’ listen to this!”  And then the LORD says, Indeed I will make a road in the wilderness. (v. 19)  And in prophetic terms Isaiah describes God’s people walking along a way in the wilderness well-supplied with water with even the wild animals praising God for this amazing thing!  Once again, where people might say, “No way!”, the LORD says, “Way!”

In this text the LORD reveals something of his character.  He shows himself to be the God who steps in and acts where all human potential and power fail.  Where we must say, “No way,” he steps in and says, “Way!”  And the greatest display of this was not at the Red Sea under Moses or even when he brought the exiles back from Babylon.  The greatest display of this is his providing a way to heaven!

Here is the greatest dilemma of all!  How can sinners like us hope to enter God’s holy heaven?  God is a holy God who can abide no sin.  God’s holy Law justly condemns the sinner and sentences us all to hell.  It seems an open-and-shut case.  If we look at ourselves and we read the “legal-eze” of God’s Law, the conclusion is easily drawn,  “No way!”

But here is where the LORD once again steps and says, “Way!”  He will provide the way!  He will provide his Son.  His Son will do what we cannot.  He will keep God’s Law perfectly, and he will give you the credit.  Jesus Christ will take the sentence God’s Law imposes upon sinners and die on the cross, and he will give you forgiveness.  Where humanity weeps, “No way,” Jesus proclaims, “I am the Way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)  The cross and empty grave of Jesus are the LORD’s latest “new thing”!  They are the way to heaven!

The book of Acts tells us that the early Christians, before they were called Christians, were called “the Way.”  That’s significant.  Because the Savior who loves us and whom we love, we – the Church – become the Way to heaven in this confused world.  Let’s always remember that!  That is what we are to be in this world.  We are not a psychology clinic or a “life-coach” trying to motivate “healthy habits.”  We are “the Way,” because we proclaim the Way.  To a world that weeps, “No way,” we say, “Way!  There is a way!  And his name is Jesus!”

Amen.