Imagine (dreamers, Fools, and Lunatics in the Name of Peace): A Sermon Based on Isaiah Chapter 2

It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

Some say I'm a dream, but I'm not the only one

- John Lennon

I start with some lyrics from a song called "Imagine" The song was and is quite controversial. The man who wrote them was quite controversial as well. He didn't call himself a Christian, but someday, he believed, everything would be different. All things would be made right, if we could only imagine and believe. As a result, some called him a modern day prophet, or a visionary; others called him a dreamer, or fool, or a lunatic.

But as John Lennon, the songs author points out, he was not the only one. And regardless of what you thought of his music or politics, in 1980, this man who preached "give peace a chance" his entire life, was shot in the back and murdered by a fan, for what he says was "for no particular reason."

There have been dreamers, fools, and lunatics in the name of peace since the dawn of time.

Mark Twain wasn't a particularly religious man either, by all accounts, and many thought Samuel Clemons, a.k.a. Mark Twain was crazy when he wrote his famous story "The War Prayer".

In his story, a congregation is gathered prior to sending their sons off to battle. The United States was in the midst of a civil war. And everyone knew that if you backed the north you were in the right, and God fought on your side. Or maybe it was if you fought for the south you were in the right, and God fought on your side. The minister leads them in a very stirring prayer, asking God to grant victory, to give courage, to lead these young men forth into the glory of a righteous cause. At the close of the prayer a stranger steps forth. The story seems to imply the man is an angel or even Jesus Christ himself. So, Speaking for God, he reveals to the people that for which they have just prayed. He spells in out in graphic detail a vivid picture of what they have just prayed for - the horror and death and destruction of not just a faceless enemy, but living, breathing, loving people. He describes the violent carnage they were asking God to aid them to bring forth. He brings forth the reality that those who will die are not just soldiers, but fathers, brothers, uncles, sons, friends, neighbors, most of them not much more than children.

The man steps down.

Had they learned anything? Would they amend what they were praying for?

Maybe pray for peace instead?

As the congregation filed out, all that could be heard was "Who was that lunatic?"

You see, everyone knew war had broken out. They'd accepted it, prepared for it, and were now waging it. War was a part of life.

But what's this idea of "peace breaking out"? How does one "wage peace"? That's just crazy.

God spoke through the prophet Isaiah: In the last days, at the time of the final judgment, all things would be different. All things would be made right. God and man and man and man would wage peace.

I'm sure some thought he was a lunatic. Some people think the bible is just crazy talk. I am not one of those people.

These are the words of Isaiah from Chapter 2 [From the New Living Translation] NLT

1 This is a vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

2 In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's house:

will be the highest of all-

the most important place on earth.

It will be raised above the other hills,

and people from all over the world will stream there to worship.

3 People from many nations will come and say,

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of Jacob's God.

There he will teach us his ways,

and we will walk in his paths."

For the Lord's teaching will go out from Zion;

his word will go out from Jerusalem.

4 The Lord will mediate between nations

and will settle international disputes.

They will hammer their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will no longer fight against nation,

nor train for war anymore.

5 Come, descendants of Jacob,

let us walk in the light of the Lord!

6 For the Lord has rejected his people,

the descendants of Jacob,

because they have filled their land with practices from the East

and with sorcerers, as the Philistines do.

They have made alliances with pagans.

7 Israel is full of silver and gold;

there is no end to its treasures.

Their land is full of warhorses;

there is no end to its chariots.

8 Their land is full of idols;

the people worship things they have made

with their own hands.

9 So now they will be humbled,

and all will be brought low-

do not forgive them.

10 Crawl into caves in the rocks.

Hide in the dust

from the terror of the Lord

and the glory of his majesty.

11 Human pride will be brought down,

and human arrogance will be humbled.

Only the Lord will be exalted

on that day of judgment.

12 For the Lord of Heaven's Armies

has a day of reckoning.

He will punish the proud and mighty

and bring down everything that is exalted.

13 He will cut down the tall cedars of Lebanon

and all the mighty oaks of Bashan.

14 He will level all the high mountains

and all the lofty hills.

15 He will break down every high tower

and every fortified wall.

16 He will destroy all the great trading ships

and every magnificent vessel.

17 Human pride will be humbled,

and human arrogance will be brought down.

Only the Lord will be exalted

on that day of judgment.

18 Idols will completely disappear.

19 When the Lord rises to shake the earth,

his enemies will crawl into holes in the ground.

They will hide in caves in the rocks

from the terror of the Lord

and the glory of his majesty.

20 On that day of judgment they will abandon the gold and silver idols

they made for themselves to worship.

They will leave their gods to the rodents and bats,

21 while they crawl away into caverns

and hide among the jagged rocks in the cliffs.

They will try to escape the terror of the Lord

and the glory of his majesty

as he rises to shake the earth.

22 Don't put your trust in mere humans.

They are as frail as breath.

What good are they?

So, do we believe it's all the ravings of a lunatic, or the truth? Can we really imagine a time when there will be universal peace, with no military conflict or training?

A day when machinery of warfare will be turned into implements of agriculture?

Isaiah not only imagined it, he "saw it", a vision, a revelation from God.

Charles Spurgeon said this in a sermon from 1859:

"The prophets of God were anciently called seers, for they had a supernatural sight which could pierce through the gloom of the future and behold the things which are not seen as yet, but which God hath ordained for the last times. They frequently described what they saw with spiritual eyes after the form or fashion of something which could be seen by the eye of nature. The vision was so substantial that they could picture it in words, so that we also may behold in open vision, the glorious things which they beheld after a supernatural sort."

The Spirit of God opened the prophet's spiritual eyes to see and to understand what the sovereign God revealed. Isaiah did not just hear, he did not just imagine; he "saw" the Word. He received a message from God and he speaks with clarity and authority.

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His paths" (v. 3).

Isaiah is describing a time of universal and unending peace. He is not describing temporary peace treaties or lull in the fighting. Not a ceasefire, or a troop reduction, but a complete and absolute peace.

When the Lord God Almighty arbitrates, conflicts cease and peace is the issue. When God rules, there are no wars. There is no way but God to a warless world.

There will be a full time, God-centered peace between all the nations.

There will be no more military actions, no colds wars, no nuclear arms race, no economic sanctions, blackmail or threats.

"They will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war", reads another translation of verse 4.

Never again will they learn war.

What a contrast to our day when we are busy beating our plowshares into swords, and our pruning hooks into spears, our tractors into tanks, and our grain silos into missile silos.

It's important to notice carefully the sequence of events in these verses. The elimination of war cannot come about before the nations have learned to submit to the light and Word of the LORD. It cannot come before the final judgment.

So it sounds like wars will continue for a long time to come. People will continue to rise up and kill one another.

And that's not what the mothers of soldiers want to hear. That's not what the brothers and sister and sons and daughters want to hear.

A daughter of a soldier in Iraq responded this way:

"I want everyone to live together in love. I want all injustice to end so that people no longer have a reason to fight. I want the armies of the world to disband because everlasting peace has suddenly broken out all over the world. I want the tanks, and the missiles, and the planes, and ships to all be refitted for feeding the hungry and bringing aid to those in need."

That's exactly what Isaiah said will happen.

A world where we beat our swords back into plowshares and our spears back into pruning hooks, our tanks back into tractors, and our missile silos back into grain silos.

We want these things.

But, at first glance, some of Jesus' words don't seem to offer much hope of this peace coming soon.

Jesus says, "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars." Also, "For nation will rise up sword against nation, and kingdom against kingdom."

Jesus says in Matthew 10: 34 "Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.

But Jesus said that these wars and rumors of wars must take place because they are signs of something altogether new; the beginning of a new beginning.

As Christ followers, we believe that Christ will return and when he does, all the causes of all wars will be destroyed.

For Christ will have won the war to end all wars.

There will be a new heaven and a new earth, and the Lord will rule and "the mountain of the Lord's house:

will be the highest of all-

the most important place on earth...

and people from all over the world will stream there to worship."

We have a great hope. His name is Jesus.

And as surely as nation will rise up against nation, he will come again to end it all.

Come, says Isaiah as he proclaims the word of judgment and of salvation in

today's reading, "Come - let us walk in the light of the Lord!"

We want "peace to break out all over the world", but it's risky.  Here's a story to illustrate the point.

Once upon a time there was a land of darkness. People there had heard of light before but many thought it was just a myth. Some said that at one time there was light but few believed. In fact most people never bothered to open their eyes. Small children were warned about running with their eyes open. They might fall and be poked in the eye.

But there was a woman who knew that a time of light was coming. She believe in it so much that each day she opened her window and opened her eyes to see if the light had come. And she told people that she did this. They said she was crazy, a dreamer, and that she might get poked in the eye if she was not careful. But a few people thought, "What if she is right?" and they opened their eyes to see if the light had come.

You see, like in this story, we live in a land with darkness, but we also believe that there is a bright shining, light in the world, and that light is Jesus Christ. And we believe that the light here today and will one day return in even greater glory. We believe peace is possible and by the power of God, it will one day happen.

Not just a little bit, not just kind of, but complete and utter peace.

Others may think we're foolish and call us dreamers, maybe even crazy. But today or one day, with God's help, everyone will have to choose whether to risk it, and open our eyes, or keep them closed for all eternity.

Come - let us walk in the light of the Lord!"

That word "come" is in the present tense, it about what we do now - today, as we await tomorrow. We are an integral part of God's plan to bring for His kingdom today.  We have to open our eyes and walk in the light of the Lord, even if we do risk getting poked in the eye.

That's were Christ words come full circle.  No, He did not come to bring peace, but peace will one day come, and "blessed be the peacemakers,  for they shall be called the children of God."

A contemporary of Mark Twain was a reformer by the name of Julia Ward Howe. One hundred and thirty years ago, she was the first to propose an annual "Mothers' Day," only, and it's not well known, it had a slightly different twist than what eventually came to be. This woman had seen enough bloodshed in her lifetime, that she called for the observance of a "Mothers' Day for Peace," a time for women everywhere to stand up and say, "No More!"

 "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters," she said, "to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?"

... Mrs. Howe is best known, however, for writing these words of God stepping into conflict and bringing it to an end, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord," the Battle Hymn of the Republic - a song often misunderstood and used as a support for war in the name of God.

"Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord", says Isaiah,

   "Stay awake, be alert", says Jesus.

"Put on the armor of light." says Paul,  

Let the light of Christ be around us and shining from within us - today.

Let His spirit be a dwelling in our hearts and our minds - this minute.

Let his living presence be seen in all that we say and do

 and all that we see and hear - second by precious second.. until he returns again in glory.

In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's house:

will be the highest of all-

the most important place on earth.

In the name of Christ Jesus  Amen.    

©2008 Timothy Henry