October 31st often reignites an ongoing conversation among Christians regarding Trick or Treating.   Whether you are in the “No way!  Not under any circumstances!” camp or the “It’s free candy! What’s the big deal?” camp or somewhere in between, the argument often overlooks a much bigger issue. 
 
October 31st is not just Halloween, it is also Reformation Day.  500 years ago this October 31st, a young monk and professor posted 95 statements for debate on the community bulletin board (the church doors) in Wittenberg, Germany.  His name was Martin Luther, of the Augustinian Order.  That event sparked the movement known as the Reformation.  What lay at the very heart of it is a simple and profoundly important question:  “What is the gospel?”  In Luther’s Day, the abuses that fired up that question were these:  Can a person, by buying an Indulgence from the Roman Catholic Church, actually purchase release from the penalties due his or her sins?  Is the righteousness that the sinner needs in order to enjoy God’s favor and get into heaven something the sinner produces? Were there certain people who were way more holy than they needed to be for their own salvation, whose overflow of good works can be credited to sinners?  Is Jesus alone the righteousness that we need to stand before God?  And what role does faith play in all of this?  Do Christ’s benefits flow to the sinner by faith alone, or must good works also be combined with faith in order to be saved?    
 
Those questions were not new in Luther’s day.  They were around in days of the apostle Paul, too.  The Christians in the Galatian churches had heard the gospel – believed it, too.  That gospel was proclaimed against the backdrop of the law which clearly said that peace and God and eternal life were impossible if based on the good works of the sinner.  God’s minimum standard is perfection which, of course, no sinner can claim.  But the gospel announced God’s favor and grace expressed, established and extended to the sinner by the finished work of Jesus.  It’s why Paul wrote this in Galatians 3:  “...those who rely on the works of the law are under a curse.  For it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who do not continue to do everything written in the book of the law.’ Clearly, no one is declared righteous before God by the law, because, ‘The righteous will live by faith.’  The law does not say ‘by faith.’ Instead it says, ‘He one who does these things will live by them.’  Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.  As it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’ He redeemed us in order that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that we would receive the promised Spirit through faith.”  (Galatians 3:20-14)   The gospel is God’s treat, freely given, announced to the sinner because Jesus has already purchased it in full and by his life, death and resurrection put it into full effect.
 
But Christians in Galatia, like so many in Luther’s Day and in ours, were being tricked out of that treat.  The tricking came from two sources:  man’s own law-based opinion about salvation, and from false teachers who promoted that view.  This “other gospel” says that faith in Jesus is a fine thing, but if you do something to offend God (sin), then it is entirely or mostly or a little up to you to fix that.  The reason why so many in Paul’s day and Luther’s day and our day get tricked by that is because it seems like it is the way all our human relationships works. But our relationship with God is different.  God knows that we sinners will never be able to meet his minimum standard of perfection no matter what we do.  And even if we could get to a level of conduct where we stopped sinning, that would not erase all our sins committed before that point.  Jesus performed the righteousness for us which could not and God credits that to us.  Jesus became a curse for our sins in our place and God now considers those sins punished.
 
Paul opened his letter to the Galatian Christian with a sincere and urgent warning that is as valid for us today as it was for them:  “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ, for a different gospel, which is really not another gospel at all.  There are, however, some who are trying to disturb you by perverting the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven would preach any gospel other than the one we preached to you – a curse on him!”  (Galatians 1:6-8)
 
Look to Jesus and his finished work alone.  Let your good works be a willing thank you note written with your life for that gift, but don’t get tricked into thinking that your good works are the check you are writing to purchase what God has already given you in Christ.  Don’t get tricked out of the treat!

Isaiah 55:6-9
6Seek the Lord while he allows himself to be found!
Call on him while he is near!
7Let the wicked abandon his way.
Let an evil man abandon his thoughts,
and let him turn to the Lord, and he will show him mercy,
and let him turn to our God, because he will abundantly   forgive.
 
8Certainly my plans are not your plans,
and your ways are not my ways, declares the Lord.
9Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my plans are higher than your plans.
 
Doesn’t it make you wonder?  Hurricanes devastate the gulf coast and Puerto Rico. People lose their lives, cities are destroyed, and livelihoods are destroyed.  Where is God?  A gunman opens fire on a country music concert in Las Vegas and 58 innocent people are killed and hundreds more injured.  Where is God?  A visit to the doctor results in the crushing news of a life-threatening illness.  Where is God?  A family is fractured and lives are changed.  Where is God?  Thieves steal, a power outage ruins food, a terrorist kills with a suicide bomb.  Where is God?  I can’t imagine that there is even one of us here who has not wondered that in the midst of trouble, crisis or calamity.
 
Where are you, Lord?  That question, even when it comes from you and me as Christians, comes from fear, doesn’t it?  We fear that perhaps there are times in our lives when God is not near, when God does not see what we we’re going through, or when God does not hear our cry for help.  We fear that perhaps God is near, but is settling some score for some sin we have committed.  We fear that we are in a situation in which there doesn’t seem to be any good resolution to a problem that is so vast that not even God is able to help. 
 
Those fears are like waves that wash over us.  With each assault they seem to weaken our grip on God’s promises or wash away our joy.  It gets to the point that physically, emotionally and spiritually we don’t know if we can hang on any longer.  If you aren’t in a place in life like that right now, you probably have been.  And if you haven’t been, you probably will be.  I’m not being pessimistic about that.  I’m just being realistic, am I not?
 
Dear friends, Isaiah has good news to share with us today.  Our God is not now nor ever will be far away from us.  He is, after all, Immanuel:  God with us.  And so today he gives us a standing invitation for the present and the future:
 
Call On God While He Is Near!
1.  Call On God Because He Is Near With Grace That Goes Beyond Understanding!
 
It is pure grace that God is near at all!  39 chapters…for 39 chapters of this book over and over again God was confronting the people of  northern Israel with their sins.  The root cause of the spiritual decay going on in Israel was tragically simple:  they had distanced themselves from God by chasing after other idols.  God doesn’t waste any time getting to the point with them.  Listen to the very opening verses of Isaiah 1:  (2-4)  “Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: ‘I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. {3} The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’ {4} Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.”  God wasn’t mincing words there, was he?  And Isaiah wasn’t the only one saying these things.  Other Bible prophets who worked at the same time as Isaiah were Amos, Hosea, and Micah.  It wasn’t that God had driven these people away.  Israel’s entire history was a wonderful story of God’s faithfulness and blessing to his people.  But Israel was responding with rebellion, ignorance, evil, and corruption.  They turned their backs on him.  God had every reason to distance himself from these people.
 
But in his grace God had mercy and pardoned sin!  26 chapters – for 26 chapters of this book God approached Israel to reassure them of his love.  Listen to the opening verses of chapter 40:  (1-2)  “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. {2} Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for.”  In a wonderful proclamation of prophetic certainty, God even explained how that pardon for sin would come about:  (Isaiah 53:5)  “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”  God was going to come as near to his people as it is possible to get:  he would become one of them to redeem them, to pardon them, to save them.  What grace!  That God would desire so much to pardon those who had so much to pardon!
But God cautioned his people never to squander this time of grace!   Through Isaiah, God was reassuring faithless and weak and troubled Israel that he had not gone anywhere – he had not abandoned them….yet.  But that could happen.  These words contain a strong hint of that don’t they?  God’s grace in the gospel was (and is) like a life-giving rain.  Where hearts drank it deep it would give life and always be near at hand.  But where it was rejected, it would simply move on to where it could do its wonderful work in human hearts.  It was just this picture that God himself was using in the verse right after our text:  (Isaiah 55:9-11)  "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. {10} As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, {11} so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
 
It isn’t just Old Testament Israel that was guilty of turning from God in idolatry.  I am too, and so are you.  Each time we thrust our will ahead of God’s will, each time I am more important than my God, each time I love and honor me before my God…that is idolatry.  In fact, from God’s point of view, each and every sin we commit is idolatry, isn’t it?  That’s the painful point Paul is making in (Colossians 3:5-6)  “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. {6} Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.”  The truth is, we too often do not put those things to death, do we?  We invite them, tolerate them, and play with them in our hearts and lives.  Why on earth should God be so near to us when our hearts are so often far from him?
 
And yet he still is still lovingly serious when he extends the gospel’s invitation to us: 6Seek the Lord while he allows himself to be found! Call on him while he is near! 7Let the wicked abandon his way. Let an evil man abandon his thoughts, and let him turn to the Lord, and he will show him mercy, and let him turn to our God, because he will abundantly forgive. What comforting statements God makes in these words!  “He is near…he will show mercy…he will abundantly forgive.”  No mights, no maybes, no ifs.  Our God is near because in love that needs no reason to love, he chooses to be.  And he forgives abundantly because Jesus was pierced and crushed for our sins, too.  For all our sins!  That’s why he invites us to turn to him – every sin that would have put distance between us and God has been abundantly forgiven.  There is no reason left for him to be distant from us!  His words carry in them the power to work the change in our hearts that they urge:  “Let the wicked abandon his way…let him turn to the Lord.”   Who would expect a God we have so often abused to be so persistently near?  But then, that’s the nature of his faithful and forgiving grace! 
 
Our God invites us everyday to come to him in trust and in prayer.  He promises that we will find him each and every time we seek him.  But should I persist in turning my back on him, he will not wait around forever.  He will move on to those who yet need to hear his gentle call in the gospel to turn to him and live.  How tragic if I should end up far away from him, not because he wanted to be far away, but because I did.  How horrible to find oneself in hell where there will never ever again be an opportunity to be near the Lord and have him near! 
 
But today, right now God is near!  He is near no matter what is happening in your life right now.  He is near with his mercy and with his pardon and with his love.  He is near with a grace that goes beyond understanding!  Paul says it this way in Ephesians 3:18:  “…how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ!”  It’s so big we can’t see the end of it, it is so deep that we can’t understand the depth of it, it is so wide that it dwarfs every sin and every hardship.  It is so long that it reaches into eternity and infinitely beyond.  That’s not wishful thinking…that’s God’s own statement!
 
But what about the hurricanes, the life-threatening illness, the crime, the disappointments that knock us around in life?  Why does that happen?  What is God’s purpose?  Listen to Isaiah here!  He invites us to…
 
2.  Call On God Because He Is Near Even When Things Are Beyond Understanding!
 
Bad things happen in life for a very basic reason:  sin.   Sin affects everything about our human experience, doesn’t it?  It’s been that way since the beginning of sin.  Adam’s sin of loveless neglect in his wife’s hour of need affected her response to Satan’s temptation.  That loveless neglect was compounded by his blaming her before God.  Eve’s relationship with God was turned on its head.  Where once it was “God friend, devil enemy,”  that day became “devil friend, God enemy.”  Their relationship was affected by the hurt and anger and guilt and fear that stemmed from sin.  Crime reared its ugly head shortly thereafter when one of their sons murdered another for no other reason than jealousy and frustration.  Marriages are broken, homes are broken into, and the peace is broken by man’s sinfulness and sin.  But to make it a more personal – and honest – that brokenness is caused too often by our sinfulness and sin.  People do bad things to each other because people are sinful.  It sounds simplistic, I know, but it is the hard and simple truth.
 
But sin has not only affected people’s behavior; it has also affected the created universe.  It just doesn’t work like the perfect system God created in the beginning.  It wobbles out of control.  Whether it’s the human body or the ocean’s waves or winds or the ground under our feet…they don’t always work as originally designed.  Paul remarked about that long ago in Romans 8.  He says that creation is “subjected to frustration” and held in “its bondage to decay.”  Think of it this way:  You know what happens when a tire is out of round or when the load in the washing machine gets all lopsided?  It shakes and thumps and bangs around.  Our universe is out of round, bent out of shape with sin.  No wonder the angry seas swallow cities, the ground snaps and jerks, the clouds pour too much rain in one place and not enough in another; no wonder the winds are sometimes so calm a ship’s sails luff uselessly and other times snap trees and homes like match sticks.  Hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, illnesses…those things happen because sin has broken our world.
 
So when the sins and the brokenness of the world touch our lives, we want answers, don’t we?  Why this Lord?!  Why now Lord?!  Why me Lord?!  Like Job we summon God and demand that he explain himself.  We want to understand.   But is it even possible to understand such things this side of heaven?  Listen to what Isaiah says in our text:  {8} "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. {9} "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
 
Let me put it this way.  We take our little children to the doctor for immunizations because we know that the momentary pain caused by th shot they will get is important to avoid more serious harm and discomfort later.  At the moment that needle pokes our little one, they are not aware of any of that good that’s being done.  All they feel is the pain.  As much as it may pain us to see they cry, we know that we are providing care for them because we love them.  All they feel is the sharp “Ow!”  But we know that measles, mumps, rubella, and who knows what else is not going to claim our child.
 
God calls us his children.  He dearly loves us for Jesus’ sake.  He sees the present perfectly, but also the future.  Only God is in a position to know what I need to experience in the present to prepare me for the challenges that will come in the future.  There are things he does and permits that I cannot understand.  I don’t know what he knows; I don’t see present dangers that he sees; I can’t know the future as clearly as he sees it.  All I can do is trust.
 
But it is not blind trust.  God gives us promises to hold on to:  ” “…in all things God works for the good of those who love him…” (Romans 8:28).  “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5)… (Romans 11:33-34)  “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! {34} "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
 
So, in the end, our God does lots of things in his grace and power that I do not understand.  The Scriptures are filled with them:  he created all out of nothing in six days, he sent a worldwide flood, he parted water  neatly in two so Israel would escape Pharaoh’s deadly army, a man named Jonah was swallowed by a fish and then barfed up on a beach alive and ready to serve, a man named Joseph was sold into slavery so that he would be in the right place at the right time to save millions of lives.  I don’t understand how God could have managed to use such troubling events to work such good things, but he did and he did it in his love and grace. 
 
Dear friends, look at the cross and know that our God is near with his patient and pure love.  Look at our lives, and trust that his ways, while far above our own, are still moved by the grace that holds us in the hollow of his hand.  And then, in confidence every day, call on the Lord because he is near!