Two Journeys

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 36:1-22. The sermon's main subject is ensuring we depend on God and not ourselves for victory in spiritual warfare.

As I listened to Nathan read that historical narrative, I thought, “OK, finally—it's on.” Basically, what I thought. For 30 chapters, it's almost like Assyria and God have been kind of circling and getting ready, and now when we come to Isaiah 36-37, finally the battle is joined, it's on. And you hear the words, these are in my opinion, satanic words that came into our sanctuary today, the words of the devil, basically, that's what we got to listen to as Nathan was reading that text. The words of a taunter and a boaster and a blasphemer, the words of an enemy, the words of a bully, and if our eyes were open to see the surrounding, the spiritual realm around us, we would realize we are still surrounded by evil, wicked enemies, bullies that would seek to intimidate us out of our secure position in Christ, in effect to come out of the walled fortress of our holiness, the walled fortress of our security, open the doors and go out and surrender to the enemy. Frankly, I look on every temptation about the same way, and so what I'm gonna do in Isaiah 36-37 is we're gonna take these chapters and we're going to feel the weight of the history here, we're going to embrace it as history, we're gonna say it really happened, we believe in the inerrant word of God, and we think that the actual historical events are important, and we're gonna deal honestly with the history.

And then, please don't tell anyone, but we're gonna go straight allegorical after that. Alright, we're gonna go right into spiritualization and allegory, in which I'm going to say that the words of this field commander represent Satan and the walled fortress of Zion, the citadel of Zion, the city of Jerusalem represents your soul. And I'm going to talk about how God wants you to resist the flaming arrows of the words of the evil one as you stand in your secure position in Christ. That's what we're gonna do. Now, I was talking to an Old Testament professor at Southeastern yesterday at the 20/20 conference, Heath Thomas, and he said I'm allowed to do it. So we're gonna go ahead and do it. Frankly, I don't know really how else we can take the lessons of a history 27 centuries ago and make it applicable to us today without drawing out spiritual principles and applying them to us. And so that's what we're going to do.

This is one of the darkest nights of Israel's history, one of the darkest nights of the history of the Jews, they are rendered very low at this point, their sin has brought them low, the judgments and chastisements of Almighty God have brought them very low. And yet, God is about to unleash a deliverance so spectacular and so glorious that it still, really for me, just takes my breath away, and we'll see the account of that in the next chapter. So chapter 36 just kind of sets the table for what's going to happen, the deliverance of Almighty God in chapter 37.

So let's do the setting, let's try to understand the setting. Scholars tell us, the year is about 700, 701 BC. About a little over 20 years before that, the Assyrians had invaded the northern kingdom of Israel and shut it down. They deported it because of the wickedness of that northern kingdom of Jews, the 10 tribes that were there, and so that's the backdrop, they fully had the power to do it, they were awesome, militarily strong, and they did it. In the year 705 BC, about four years before the events of this chapter, Sargon, the second king of Assyria died, and his son, Sennacherib, took his place on the throne of the Assyrian Empire. Hezekiah, at this point, King Hezekiah, king of the small kingdom of Judah, was a vassal king, a submissive king, and so the great king, and you hear that title given, “the great king,” is a ruler of kings in some way, a king of kings, and he expected tribute and submission from these vassal kings, but Hezekiah at this point led, it seems, some kind of a rebellion against this new king, this young king of Assyria, testing him to see his resolve.

Hezekiah, it seems, was a ring leader in this. It seems that he did it as an act of his faith in Almighty God. His father Ahaz had made an unholy and ungodly political alliance with Assyria. And the story's told in Isaiah 7, as he was afraid of Syria, a different nation, a small nation, and the northern kingdom of Israel, as they allied together against him. Ahaz, trembling in fear, was being tempted to make an alliance with the mighty Assyrians to deliver him from these two smaller kingdoms. Isaiah at that point, in Isaiah 7, went out to him at the exact same location as in this chapter, the aqueduct in the Upper Pool of to the road to the Washerman's Field, that place, that's where Isaiah challenged Ahaz and told him. Because it says in Isaiah 7, the hearts of the people were flattering like leaves of a tree shaken by wind, so they're all terrified of Syria and Israel, the northern kingdom. He said, “Be careful, keep calm, don't be afraid. [Don't do what I think you're going to do, don't send out for an alliance with Assyria],” and then he gives them this warning in Isaiah 7:9, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.”

Well, that was Ahaz, Hezekiah's father, and he went ahead and made the faithless, the godless alliance with Assyria. But it says about Hezekiah, his son, he fully trusted in the Lord his as God, he followed whole-heartedly after the pattern of his father David. And it says in 2 Kings 18:5-7, “Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.” So you just see the flow. It says, “He's faithful, he's trusting, he's doing everything God said, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria. It's clear that that's what God wanted him to do. Break that unholy Alliance, stop serving the king of Assyria.”

Well, the King of Assyria didn't take it kindly, to put it mildly, and it wasn't just Hezekiah. Other small kingdoms and their kings also sought to challenge the authority of the Assyrian Empire at that time. One of them was Merodach-Baladan, king of Babylon. Babylon at that point was just a small subject people, part of the Assyrian empire, and Sennacherib in 703, about two years before the events of this chapter, took an army, a mighty army and went down the Fertile Crescent and chased Merodach-Baladan the king of Babylon and defeated him put down that rebellion. When that was done, he comes back up with his army and starts to make his way down the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea to take on all of these small nations, these vassal states that have rebelled against him, it seems under Hezekiah's leadership. And so he turns to attack and to assault these small kingdoms.

Now, Hezekiah at this point is leading, in effect, a religious revival in Judah, turning back with a whole heart to true worship, worship in the old covenant pattern, and turning away from the worship of the high spots and the high places. This is the clearest display of Hezekiah's piety. It seems these high places, there were hills, mountains where the people, the Canaanites and Perizzites and Hivites and Jebusites, all those people, had set up shrines. And when the Jews were about to cross the Jordan into the promised land, the Lord through Moses, in the book of Deuteronomy said, “You must not worship as the people in the land do, everyone under every spreading tree or on the top of every hillside, to the one place I choose for worship, there you must go and there you must make your worship.” But unfortunately, the people, when they took over the promised land, took over the high places and started using them for worship, and so there came a kind of a pattern of syncretism, which is using pagan worship practices to worship the true God and frankly, eventually, even idolatry, worshipping false gods at those high places.

Now, what's sad is in the Book of Kings, in 1 Kings and 2 Kings, there's this regular pattern of godly kings who would come along, but they wouldn't remove the high places. It was a blind spot. And again, at the risk of spiritualizing, I think that it's just a truth, in sanctification, you can just have blind spots, there's just areas you just don't see that it's an issue. You can be godly, you can be walking with the Lord, but you just don't see that this is a problem. So you're not reading God's word carefully, you're not reading it properly. And so Asa for example, in 1 Kings 15, it says, “Although he did not remove the high places, Asa's heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life.” So here's someone fully committed the Lord, but a blind spot, he doesn't remove the high places. Jehoshaphat was the same way. “In everything [Jehoshaphat] walked in the ways of his father Asa and did not stray from them; he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. The high places, however, were not removed, the people continued to offer sacrifices on them and burn incense there.”

And it's a steady drone of 2 Kings as well. “Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord… The high places, however, were not removed.” “[Amaziah] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord… The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to burn sacrifices and incense on them.” “[Uzziah] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord… The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.” “Jotham did what was right in the eyes of the Lord… The high places, however were not removed; the people continued to burn sacrifices and incense there.”

Finally, along comes Hezekiah, and I don't know what he saw or how he understood or how the Lord worked in his heart, but he realizes, “We have got to get rid of these high places, and we have got to worship as the Lord commanded before this one in this one place, the Lord has chosen from all the tribes there we must worship.” And so it says in 2 Kings 18, “[Hezekiah] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places.” Amen! Hallelujah! I can't do that much with my voice, if I do two or three more of those, I'll be out, so, no more, that's it. I'm really happy about the high places, they're gone at last. “He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones, cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had used for the healing of the people, do you remember that? They were worshipping it, and they called it Nehushtan—broke it into pieces. “Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the Lord had given to Moses.” And his faith led him to break his alliance with the King of Assyria. And so it's on. The king of Assyria is jealous for his glory, he's jealous for his kingdom, and he is taking on all of these small little vassal countries, and he's going to punish them for this rebellion, and so he comes with his awesome army down the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

First, he crushes the kings of Tyre and Sidon and leaves an outpost there. Fear and panic start spreading among all these small kingdoms. Ashdod and Ammon and Moab and Edom all sent emissaries to Sennacherib with gifts, begging for peace. He invades the land of the Philistines and destroys them, and subjugates Ashkelon, turns his attention to Ekron. Ekron had a pro-Assyrian king, but his people toppled him and sent that king to Hezekiah as a prisoner. At that point Sennacherib was confronted by a small allied army of Philistines, Egyptians and Ethiopians, a small force against him, and he knocks them aside like a gnat, crushes them about 20 miles west of Jerusalem. And then after all of these victories, all of this carnage, there's only one rebel leader left. And that's Hezekiah. And so he invades Judah. And as he invades Judah, that's where our story begins. In verse 1, “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria, attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.” Look at the word all. He basically destroys everything but Jerusalem, now he's besieging Lachish at that point. But he just comes in, and this is exactly what God through Isaiah had said that Assyria was going to do. Like I said, we've been dealing with Assyria on and off for 30 chapters in Isaiah. And so he makes it very, very plain, in Isaiah 8:7-8, this is the prophecy, “Therefore, the Lord is about to bring against them [the sinners and Judah] the mighty floodwaters of the River—[parentheses] the king of Assyria with all his pomp. It will overflow all its channels, run over all its banks and sweep on into Judah, swirling over it, passing through it and reaching up to the neck.” Do you not see the precision of this prophecy. Everything in Judah will be gone, but the head, right up to the neck, and the neck, the head is the king and Jerusalem. And so the Assyrians come, Sennacherib comes, and he is besieging these cities, he conquers 46 cities in Judah, or towns or cities in Judah, and he's got just one left, the second most powerful city, Lachish, and he's besieging in, and it's only just a matter of time.

And at that point, the King of Assyria levies money on Hezekiah, implication is “Send me some money, I might think about going away.” And so 2 Kings 18:14-16, “Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: ‘I have done wrong. [I'm sorry, please forgive me.] Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me.’ The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace. And at that time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped all the gold with which he had covered the doors and door posts of the temple of the Lord and gave it to the king of Assyria.” Now we covered this a little bit in some chapters earlier in Isaiah 33, where he talks about woe to the betrayer and the treacherous one. I don't think he should have sent the silver and gold. Let him come because that's what's eventually gonna happen anyway, and when the king of Assyria received the gold and silver, he then sends this field commander with a detachment of his army to say to Jerusalem, “You need to surrender too.” So what did the gold and silver accomplish? Nothing. What did all the emissaries down to Egypt accomplish? Nothing, All that's left now is Hezekiah and God, Hezekiah and the remnant within the walls of Jerusalem, and the Almighty Ruler of the universe, Almighty God.

So the field commander comes with a large detachment of soldiers, not the whole army, but just a portion of the Assyrian army, and his mission is very clear. He is there to intimidate and to bluff Hezekiah into coming out of the walled fortress of Zion, the city of Jerusalem, to open the gates and come out and surrender, that's what the mission is, and he's going to use intimidation, he's gonna use words, he's gonna use what you heard Nathan reading in Isaiah 36, he's gonna use that.

So here he is, “Then the king of Assyria,” verses 2-3, “sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And when the commander stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman's Field, Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to him.”

And now it begins, we see the psychological warfare, verses 4-17. This is just sheer propaganda. You guys remember in World War II, the use of propaganda like Tokyo Rose and Axis Betty or whatever her name was, that just putting over the airwaves, all the bad things that were gonna happen to the Allies, if they would continue to fight against the undefeatable forces of Germany or of Japan. Propaganda. Well, why is this going on? Is Assyria... Is the king of Assyria, afraid of Jerusalem. No, but let's be honest, siege warfare is costly, it's is dangerous, it's is gonna take time and money, it's gonna lose some soldiers. If you can talk them out of the fortress, that's better. And that's what he's trying to do.

Now, in verse 4-5, the field commander amazingly asked what I think are two of the most important questions that you could ever ask of yourself. It's really quite interesting when you think about it. And in fact, God speaks through him to us. What are those questions, in verse 4, “On what are you basing this confidence of yours?” What's the basis of your confidence? Verse 5, “On whom are you relying?” It's really the same question twice. “What are you trusting in? On whom are you relying? What is the source of your confidence?” So I kinda wanna unfold that, but let's keep it in the history here. The field commander says, “Tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours?’” So the field commander acts incredulous, “So I don't…” he's saying, “I don't get it. Is there something I'm missing here? Do you not know who we are? Do you not know who Sennacherib is? Do you not know who this great king is? We are the undefeated and undefeatable Assyrian army, it’s who we are. Where in the world did you get this arrogance, this confidence to rebel against my master?”

Notice the disrespect, he says, "Tell Hezekiah." “Oh, you mean King Hezekiah?” “No, tell Hezekiah.” The disrespect. So this is not an envoy of peace coming to negotiate a peace treaty or whatever, this is just absolute intimidation, is what this is. And then he says, "Tell Hezekiah, this is what the great king, the king of Assyria says." That almost sounds like, "Thus says the Lord," doesn't it? This kind of arrogant taking of God's place. This is what God says, this is what your God says, in effect. And he asked this question, “On what are you basing this confidence of yours?” And so what he's gonna try to do is chop down the tree of confidence, he's gonna try to figure out what could they be relying on that they're not coming out of the city. Perhaps in verse 5, it's some secret military strength, there's some kind of hidden strategy that we don't know. Perhaps in verse 6, it's an alliance with Egypt, maybe that's what it is that you're relying on? Really, maybe in verse 7, you're relying on your religion, relying on the Lord to deliver you. So he wants to try to strip away, step by step, any confidence they may have in these things.

First one in verse 5, secret military strength or are some kind of hidden strategy. Verse 5, he says, "You say you have strategy and military strength—but you speak on the empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me?" “On whom are you relying, here? So maybe Hezekiah thinks he has some tricks, a military trick that he can use, some device maybe, maybe his inventors have invented some kind of an invention, a device that'll win the battle, but actually, ultimately, you Judeans who are still inside the walled fortress of Jerusalem, you're just relying on words. Mere words.” So the ESV translation is just mere words, he says, "Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now, trust that you have rebelled against me?" So Hezekiah is a talker, but he doesn't have anything behind it. By the way, notice how the field commander is using “mere words” to try to open the citadel of Jerusalem. Aren't you grateful that mere words have power? Because that's what your soul is relying on today, the mere words of the gospel, the mere words of Almighty God. The gospel, which is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. And faith comes from what? What does it come from? Hearing the word. And so as you hear the word, that's where you get saved, and yet he says, you're relying on mere words.

Secondly, that alliance with Egypt cannot save you. Mere words cannot save you, and the alliance with Egypt cannot save you. Verse 6, “Look now, you're depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man's hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such as Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him.” Well, it's amazing that frankly, the field commander and Isaiah and God are all in agreement on this one. Aren't they? We've been talking about this for a while, Isaiah 30, and then Isaiah 31 both say, "Why are you sending emissaries to Egypt? They can't help you. They won't help you." That was Isaiah's message to Hezekiah and to his counselors. And I love, actually, love what the field commander says it's like a false assurance is like a splintered reed of a staff, which as you lean on it, it's going to pierce your hand. So hold on to that image 'cause I'm gonna use it later in the allegorical section of the this sermon. But that leaning, it's like stepping on a board and putting your whole weight on it, and it's rotten and it collapses and you fall to your death. Such is a false confidence or false trust, and Egypt is that. God frankly says the exact same thing about Egypt in Ezekiel 29. He says in verse 6, and following, “You [Egypt] have been a staff of reed for the house of Israel. When they grasped grasp you with their hands, you splintered and you tore open their shoulders; when they leaned on you, you broke and their backs were wrenched.” So that's a false assurance, something you trust in that will not hold you up when you need it to. In any case, the field commander’s striking at whatever he can to demoralize the people of Judah.

So mere words cannot save you, Egypt cannot save you, and the Lord will not save you. Verse 7, “And if you say to me, ‘We are depending on the Lord, our God’—isn't he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar’?” Well, he's going for the jugular, right here. At this point, they are trusting in God, that's exactly what they're trusting in, and so he said, “Let's talk about that. Hezekiah has initiated these religious reforms, and God's angry about those religious reforms and doesn't want them done.” Well, praise God for the faulty theology of the field commander, it's going to end up destroying him. So this is the first time he has a twisted interpretation of what's happened. It is true, he does have information that Hezekiah destroyed all the high places, but he doesn't have it right what God thinks about that. Now, he could be doing a political trick and saying, in effect, “Some of your own people are really tweaked at you Hezekiah for removing the high places, They liked them, and they're angry at you for removing them,” and so he's trying to drive a wedge between Hezekiah and his people, that's quite possible, but at any rate, he's going for their faith in Almighty God.

Well, let's get to the real issue from the point of view of the Assyrian field commander, “You know what the real issue is? You're pathetically weak compared to us, and let's just get the that brass tacks. You can't beat us in battle, and therefore you need to surrender to us. I mean, all the rest of the stuff is just theory, until you come to your senses and realize you can't beat us.” That's verse 8-9, he says, "Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can even put riders on them! How then can you repulse one officer of the least of my master's officials, even though you are relying on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?” So this guy actually has some good information, that's exactly what they sent money down to Egypt to get is a cavalry. They have good infantry in Judah, they just don't have a cavalry. He said, “I tell you what? Let me help you with that. Can I help you with that? I tell you what, we'll give you horses. We'll go ahead and give you some horses. Do you have anybody that can ride them? Actually, we're excellent at cavalry. We do this very, very well. The fact of the matter is, you can't even come close to defeating us in a battle. Simple mathematics, difference, simple mathematics.” And frankly, at one level, this makes perfect sense. Jesus himself said it, didn't he? In Luke 14, “Suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand men? And if he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and ask for terms of peace.” That's just the mathematics of battle.

Do you know how many times in the Old Testament God blows the rules of the mathematics of battle? So in one sense, it makes perfect sense. To the king of Assyria and to his underling, it makes perfect sense, but God's gonna do something different. It's gonna be 185,000 versus one and the one's gonna win. See, I told you again, I hate letting it out, the plot spoiler, but you already read it. You know what's gonna happen. The mathematics don't line up. And then he says in verse 10, "Furthermore, [God actually told us to come. God told us to come.] have I come to attack and destroy this land without the Lord? The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it." Actually, that's true. God sent the Assyrians. He sent them to discipline his people for their idolatry and their sin. That's actually true. It says in Isaiah 7:20, "In that day the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the River—the King of Assyria—to shave your head and the hair of your legs, and to take off your beards also." In Isaiah 10, he calls the Assyrian “the rod of [his] anger, in whose hand is the club of [his] wrath.” God uses them against the godlessness of his people.

Well, at this point, the envoys, deeply intimidated, terrified by this man's words, make a simple request: “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don't speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.” I think, you know, a reasonable request. Yeah, but they're missing this guy’s mission, they don't understand what his mission is. He said, "Alright, good idea, let me raise my voice,” and I can't do it, you guys know that, but he raises his voice at that point and starts calling out in Hebrew to the men on the wall. “Thanks for reminding me about the men on the wall, let's talk to them.” “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these words, and not also to the men sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?” Well, that's just flat out disgusting. But it's reality, because when you are besieged by a mighty force and you can't break out, you're going to starve to death, and so he's intimidating them and saying, “You're going to starve to death if you stay in there.” And so he calls out, “Divide and conquer.” He wants to separate the people from Hezekiah. “Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, [O people on the wall]. He cannot deliver you. Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’" “He's trying to deceive you. Hezekiah's lying to you—he can't defeat Assyria.” And he's trying to divide them, not only from faith in their king Hezekiah, but trying to divide them from faith in Almighty God.

Then he gives them a satanic sweetener. And what do I mean by that, a satanic sweetener? He says, "Tell you what? Let's make a deal. Why don't you surrender? Why don't you come out? And life is gonna be really, really good for you, it's gonna be great." Look at what it says in verse 16-17, "Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: ‘Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards." “So it's gonna be really good if you surrender to us, it's gonna be great, you can keep your own land, you'll be able to eat your own food, and we'll just go away, and then later we might take you on a vacation to Assyria, and it's gonna be wonderful. And you can could just have a great time.” Do you not hear how diabolical this is? It's the allure, the temptation, the enticement. Do you not know the reputation the Assyrians had and what they did to those that rebelled against them? They put them up on sharpened spikes of wood, they decapitate them, there were piles of heads in one places and headless bodies in the other. This is what the Assyrians did all the time. They loved cruelty to those that opposed them. It says in Nahum 3, concerning Nineveh the capital city of Assyria, "Woe to the city of blood, full of lies." This is a lie. “Full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims! The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses, jolting chariots! Charging cavalry, flashing swords, glittering spears! Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses.”

Now we get to the good part at last. Verses 18-20, blasphemy, "Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? Who of all the gods of these countries has ever been able to save his land from me? And how then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?" Here, the field commander, in his blasphemy, overreaches himself. Evil always overreaches, it always goes further than it should go. The field commander filled with national pride, with arrogance and blasphemy takes on God, Almighty God. Earlier, in effect, he said, “The Lord will not save you.” But what does he say here? “The Lord cannot save you.” That is the fatal error that will bring down the Assyrian Empire. That's what happened. The Assyrian Empire came down after this. Babylon took its place.

“The Lord cannot save you. No god's ever done it before.” It's that polytheistic mentality. “Each nation has its own gods. Those gods fight in the heavenly realms reflected in the way their armies fight on earth, and so your god must not be very powerful, you have a very small country, and so you probably can't win very big battles. Our gods have defeated everybody else is gods, and we're gonna defeat your little Yahweh God too.” But they don't understand who God is or who Israel is. They don't understand that relationship. They don't know what's going on. They don't understand that God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth and its people are like grasshoppers, and the nations are like a drop from the bucket, and that God is manipulating and pulling the strings and the chords of human history, and that it was because of the will of God that Assyria conquered all of these nations, and that when he's done with Assyria, he's gonna crush them and raise up another nation. It's what God does. And we're gonna get to all of that in chapter 37. Final act in 21-22, “The people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded them, ‘Do not answer him.’ Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.”

So now we get to application, call it allegory if you want. But the central question in your life is this: on whom are you depending, on whom are you depending? And now let me tell you who the true bully is. It's like a three-headed bully: Satan, sin, death. It's a three-headed bully there, they all work together in effect, I take them the same. Satan as he allures you to sin and sin as it puts you to death. And so here's this bully standing outside, intimidating you, dominating you. Sin is portrayed as a tyrant that reigns. It says in Romans 5:21, “Sin reigned in death.” They're linked together. Sin and death are like dominating tyrants, and no one could take the hobnail bloody boot of death off of our necks, we could not throw off sin, we weren't strong enough. Let me ask you a question, when it comes to Satan and sin and death, on whom are you depending? What's your answer to the problem of Satan and sin and death? They besiege your soul and they threaten you with eternal loss. In whom are you trusting?

Now, there are some false faiths, there are some splintered reeds you can lean on when it comes to death, you can lean on them, but they're gonna pierce your hand in the end. False religions, the false faiths of the cults, at the heart of all false religions and cults is human effort, self-righteousness and effort to pay for sin by good works. Every false religion has that at its core. The five pillars of Islam are works righteousness in the Islamic pattern. So it is with Hinduism and Buddhism. So it is with Mormonism. The Jehovah's Witnesses are seeking to earn their salvation by good works. These are false reeds that you can lean on. Then there's the splintered reed of atheistic materialism. They face death by saying, “It's part of life,” ironically. “We are just made up of atoms and molecules, that's all and when you die, whatever it is you were, goes away, there is no conscious existence after death.” Friends, that is a splintered reed of a staff that will pierce you eternally, if you believe that, because it is appointed to each one of us to die once and after that, to face judgment, Hebrews 9:27. So apparently there's an “after that.” Or there's the splintered reed of a staff of nominal Christianity, people who really don't understand the gospel and think that because they come to church or because they say, “Lord, Lord,” on judgment day, that he's going to welcome them. “Many will say to me…, ‘Lord, Lord,’” and he will say, "I never knew you. Away from me." It's a splintered reed of a staff.

So what then can we rely on? How about the Lord Jesus Christ? How about our Defender against the bully? I get this picture now of the walled citadel of the people of God, and the gate opening and out goes the champion to face the enemy. That champion is Jesus. He fought our battle for us. He went to the cross and he died in our place. His blood was shed for our sins. “The wages of sin is death.” Jesus paid the death penalty, but he didn't stay dead. On the third day, he rose again, throwing off the yoke of death, and he wants to give you the victory, full forgiveness of sins, a life forever more. Jesus is our champion. Are you relying on him? On whom are you depending? What are you relying on to face your enemies? And guess what? On the walls of Zion, on the walls of salvation, we may smile at all of our foe, we can look down and say, "We are safe and secure here because of the blood of Jesus, the imputed righteousness of Jesus. We are safe and secure." So we get to taunt death a little bit. Maybe even a lot. Let's taunt it forever. Amen. “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” That's taunting. We're gonna do some taunting, let's taunt back. Death cannot touch us. We're not afraid of death, we're not afraid of any of these things.

So what's left? What's left is you are in the citadel fortress of salvation in Christ, but you're not in heaven yet, and so up comes the satanic messenger and he starts to try to talk you out of your secure position. He tries to entice you through his words, to open the gate of security and come out and sin. John Bunyan wrote an allegory, not his more famous allegory is Pilgrims Progress, but he wrote an allegory called The Holy War, and he likened individual people to a walled city, the city of Mansoul. It's kind of cool, you guys gotta read it, Holy War, and Mansoul has five gates, five gates, to enter in. The five gates are Ear-Gate, Eye-Gate, Mouth-Gate, Nose-Gate, and Feel-Gate. But he said that the most important one, first and foremost was Ear Gate, and this is what Bunyan wrote, Ear-Gate, “This was the gate of audience, and through the gate, the words of the temper must penetrate, if the temptation is to be successful. Into the ears of our first mother did the wily serpent whisper the…words of his seductive wiles and through Ear-Gate, he assailed her heart and won it [over]. To give audience to the temper [then] is the next step to yielding up obedience to his will.” So what does Satan do to get in through Ear-Gate? Well, what did he do to Eve? Do you remember what he said? How he began the whole encounter? “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” Okay? “God did say that we can eat, we're free to eat from any of the trees, but we must not eat from the tree of the knowledge good and evil, for when we eat it, we will die.” “You will not surely die. For the Lord knows, God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.”

There are three categories of satanic communication. Category one, “Did God really say?” That's just questioning. “I'm just asking a question here. I'm just raising up an issue. This is what the scholars do, I'm just raising... I'm just raising a question now. I'm just raising an issue. Did God really say?” Raising a doubt. Category one. Category two, “You will not surely die.” Friends, what do you call that? That's just a lie. That's a deadly lie. Jesus said that Satan was a liar from the beginning, an assassin of souls. And that's just a lie. “You will not surely die.” And then the third statement, “For God knows that when you eat of this tree, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil,” what is that? Friends, that's the truth, but it's truth in service to a lie. These are the three abiding categories of satanic communication to your souls. Satanic communication. Questioning “Did God really say?”, lying about what God really said, and telling the truth, but twisting it for the purpose of serving a lie.

And so, how can we resist? Well, first of all, see yourself in a walled citadel of holiness and know that temptation is coming and stand firm and extinguish all the flaming arrows of Satan's temptations, his allurements. He's going to entice you. He's gonna say, "Hey, make a deal with my master if you come out. It's gonna be really good. You can have a good time." It kinda reminds me of Proverbs 7 with this seductress. Remember her? In Proverbs 7:16-18, she says, “I've covered my bed with colored linens from Egypt. I perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let's drink deep of love until morning. [My husband's away, he's not coming back for a long time.] Let's enjoy our fill of love until the morning." “It's gonna be really, really good. So why don't you make a bargain with my master once you come out of that city of yours and eat from your own vine and fig tree and enjoy yourself.”

Yeah, but you don't know that when you come out, they'll decapitate you immediately. Just know what he's doing—he assaults your holy resolutions. He says, "Okay, I know you resolved to change this sin pattern in your life, you can't do it. Sooner or later you're mine, baby. Sooner or later you're gonna yield. So why don't you just do it today?" He's assaulting your holy resolutions, he's assaulting what you've resolved to do and be in Christ, by telling you you'll never be able to keep it up. “Sooner or later you're mine.” But that's a lie. You're not a slave to sin, you're a slave to righteousness. You can keep this up by the power of the Spirit, absolutely. And then he'll accuse you of sin, he'll assault you with sin, causing you to focus more on your sin then on God's provision. He'll assault your hope; he'll assault our unity, seeking to sever us from confidence in our leaders and in each other, just like this field commander did. He'll assault our doctrine; he'll teach blasphemous lies about God's ability or power or sovereignty. So what do we do to stay safe? Resist him standing firm in the truth you have in Christ. “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm.” And as Jesus said, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written…" Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the time we've had to study Isaiah 36. I pray that you would help each of my brothers and sisters here to stand firm in the security of Christ's righteousness, and I pray if there are any here that do not yet know Christ, that they would turn to the cross, to the blood that was shed, and believe that Christ has died in their place and risen again, and that they would not walk out of here unregenerate, walk out of here instead, a child of God, in your name, we pray, Lord, amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 35:8-10. The main subject of the sermon is how God provides a rich way of purity for those who wish to take it.

In Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah had an extraordinary vision of God. “In the year that King Uzziah died, he saw the Lord, seated on a throne high and exalted; and the train of his robe filled the temple. And above him there were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings each one of them covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.’ And at the sound of their voices, the doorpost shook and the temple was filled with smoke. And then Isaiah said, ‘Woe is me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the Lord the King, the Almighty.’” And in that vision, in that calling of Isaiah the prophet, we have the two grand themes of the Bible: the greatness and the holiness of God, as an exalted being worthy of all worship, and we have the wickedness, the sinfulness of our own hearts, as we feel ourselves to be unclean, that we ourselves, our lips, our whole selves are unclean. And not only us, but we live in a land of people who are similarly unclean and we must have a savior. And the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the holy God who was seated on the throne, left that throne of glory. The Lord took on a human body and lived a sinless, holy, perfect life. Jesus Christ died an atoning death, and was raised from the dead on the third day that we might walk in newness of life, that we might be holy in his sight and blameless, and live forever, praising and honoring Him.

And friends, that's what's in front of us today as we look at the Highway of Holiness. In verses 8-10 of Isaiah 35, we have depicted for us this Highway of Holiness, this Way of Holiness. Look at the words again in Isaiah 35:8-10, “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed to the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

This morning, we're gonna be talking about the internal journey of sanctification, of progressive holiness. We believe that along with the external journey of worldwide evangelization and missions, these are the two great works that God has laid before every individual Christian, that we would glorify God by making consistent progress in both. And I think here in Isaiah 35:8-10, we have pictured for us in poetical and visionary language that internal, infinite journey of holiness, the Highway of Holiness.

Now, the context here in Isaiah 35, we looked at two weeks ago, the transformation of the entire universe, creation transformed from sterile desert to fruitful garden. Verses 1-2, look at that, it says, "The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; and they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God." The transformation of the physical universe, which presently is groaning in bondage to decay, but some day will be liberated from that bondage and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God, and we ourselves in our bodies, these bodies, the bodies of sin and death, we will be liberated from that as well, and we will be living forever in perfect bodies, resurrection bodies in a resurrected world.

So therefore, verses 3-7, talk about a people transformed, moving from cursed weakness to blessed strength. Look at verse 3 and following, it says, "Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knee, that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution, he will come to save you.’ Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground, bubbling springs. And in the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow." And so the centerpiece of God's transformation is the work that he does on human beings, we who have been cursed because of our sin, we who suffer and struggle with blindness and deafness and illness and ultimately death, are liberated by the work of Jesus Christ, in the transforming event in all of us, right here in verse 4, "Say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come with vengeance; with divine retribution, he will come to save you.’" And Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of that prediction, that prophecy. Jesus Christ has come to save us and to rescue us, and to bring us into the glorious freedom that he has in mind. That's the transforming event.

Now, two weeks ago, I said there's just not enough time to go through verses 8-10 to speak of the journey of the transformed. We who have been redeemed, we who have been rescued by Christ, we have laying before us, this incredible Highway of Holiness, and it's described here beautifully. Now, I think the backdrop of this is the religious life of Israel. We're talking about this in the Bible for Life class, Old Covenant worship made provisions for a three times a year pilgrimage, where the Jews would go up from wherever they lived in the promised land, and they would move up three times a year to that one place that God had chosen for them to worship. Deuteronomy 16:16, "Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the Lord empty-handed." And so three times a year, there would be a pilgrimage, a movement in the promised land, and the Jews would assemble and they'd start to move and they would go up. In history or redemptive history, eventually, it became identified as Jerusalem, the City of David, which came to be known as Zion, the place where God dwell together with his redeemed people. And so three times a year, the people of the Jewish nation would assemble and start to move up. As a matter of fact, many of the Psalms in the Psalter called songs of ascent, and these would be psalms that people would sing as they were ascending to Jerusalem and they would sing together. Psalm 84, for example, in verse 5, it says, "Blessed are those whose strength is in you, and who have their hearts set on pilgrimage." And so there is in the Old Covenant provision for a pilgrimage and they would be moving up to worship God at the temple.

After the exile of the Babylon, however, the temple was destroyed and the Jews were scattered, and there was a prediction, a prophecy, made in Isaiah and Jeremiah that the people would be restored back to the promised land, they would come back. And some scholars think that this Highway of Holiness, talks about the return of the redeemed, coming back from Babylon, back from the distant place where they were, coming back to Zion, where God would be worshiped. And so in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the temple was rebuilt and the wall was rebuilt and Jerusalem resettled. And 42,000 Jews would make this pilgrimage from Babylon and from the distant lands in exile, and they would make their way back to Jerusalem. But I think both of these pilgrimages are pictures of our salvation in Christ. They are pictures of the full salvation that God intends, a movement from the land of Babylon, the land of sin and the land of wickedness, that distant land where the Jews were told, "Come out from her…so that you will not share in her…plagues.” “Come out and be holy and come back to Zion, come back to the promised land. They're pictures of our salvation in Jesus Christ. And so Jesus said to the woman at the well, "Believe me…a time is comingwhen you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem….God is spirit and he is seeking those who will worship him in spirit and truth." So it's not just one location we have to go to, but it's a spiritual pilgrimage that we're on now. It's not a locational thing, it's not something you have to physically get up and go on, it's not somewhere you physically have to walk, but it's a spiritual journey.

So look at the words, it says, "A highway will be there;" verse 8, "it will be called the way of holiness." So picture a raised, a graded road, a highway built by the king for the economic unity of his empire, making it easy to travel within the Empire, enabling commerce, enabling him to dispatch soldiers to get wherever they needed to go, if there are hotspots, enabling communication from the throne out to the hinterlands of his empire. The Romans built a quarter of a million miles of roads by which their empire was united, and so picture that kind of a highway built by the king, but it's called here the Way of Holiness, this Highway of Holiness. But what do we mean by holiness? What does that mean? The word, I think, implies a separation, when the seraphim were crying, "Holy, holy, holy," they're talking about the infinite gap between God the creator, and they as created beings. There's an infinite gap between God and everything that he made. God is God, he is high and exalted above us. Even though the seraphim were not in any way wicked, they were not in any way to defiled, still God was high and exalted positionally above them. The word holy is used over 600 times in the Bible. If you add words like holiness or sanctify, or sanctification, we have over 700 uses of this word group, and so this is an incredibly important idea: the separation of God above us as a creator. And then for us also the separation that God has from all wickedness, separation from all evil. “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” And so the idea here is a movement away from uncleanness, a movement away from the unclean city or the unclean land, and going to be in the presence of a holy and pure God. It says, “Wicked fools and the unclean will not be permitted on it.” There is an exclusive nature of this highway, it says, “Only the redeemed and only the ransom to may travel on it,” and it says, “It's a picture of safety, no lion or ferocious beast will get up on it,” a picture of protection and security.

I think no Christian has ever had such a clear idea or vision of this Highway of Holiness as did John Bunyan, the Puritan writer in the 17th century who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, and he depicted the movement of an individual Christian from the City of Destruction across a highway, a road to the Celestial City. That's the Highway of Holiness, that journey that we travel, from death to life, from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. And at one point, as Christian, that's the main character in Pilgrim’s Progress, is traveling, he looks ahead and he sees a lion on the left-hand side and a lion also on the right-hand side of the road, on each side, and he is terrified. As a matter of fact, two other travelers have already run, have turned back, and they're terrified and they don't wanna make progress. But on the other side of these lions is a guide, a voice, a man saying, “Don't be afraid of the lions. They're chained though you can't see the chains, so if you stay on the road and don't get off it, left or right, you'll be safe. Walk right through.” I can imagine Christian feeling the hot breath of the lions on his face, and maybe hearing their claws as they swipe by, but they couldn't get at him, and so Isaiah says, "No lion will be on this road, no ferocious beast. It's a place of security and safety."

Now, I believe that this Highway of Holiness is picturing the way of salvation that is ours in Jesus Christ. Salvation comes to us in stages, we don't get it all at once. Justification is the beginning of the Christian life, but inevitably, justification, the beginning whereby all of our sins are forgiven and the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed or credited to us, and we are adopted into the family of God and seemed to be perfectly righteous and holy in his sight, is merely the beginning of the salvation process. Inevitably after justification comes sanctification. Every individual who is justified immediately begins this Highway of Holiness. And this is a process. And some people struggle with this idea. The idea of salvation is a process, but it's taught very plainly in the Bible. Philippians 2:12-13 says, "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." And so there it is, very plainly, we are told to work out our salvation. We have a journey to travel, and that's the way of holiness. Jesus taught this as well in John 14, the night before he was crucified, he told his disciples many things to prepare them for life, after he would ascend to heaven, after he would die, and then be raised again, and ascend to heaven. He said he was going to the Father, and he said, “‘You know the way to the place where I'm going.’ Then Thomas said, ‘Lord, we don't know where you're going, so how can we know the way?" And Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." And so early in church history, Christianity itself was called the way. It was a sense of a lifestyle, a pattern of life, that followed after Jesus, our head, and we are following Christ in Christ is the way. He is the Highway of Holiness.

Progress is made in this Highway of Holiness gradually. Romans 6 teaches us very plainly, the painful process of the mortification of the deeds of the flesh. Romans 6:19 says, "I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness, leading to holiness.” So there's a parallel being set up, just as you used to do habits, bad habits, and that led you to ever-increasing wickedness, so now present the parts of your body to God and yourself in service to righteousness leading to or ever-increasing holiness. So I think Romans 6:19 is the clearest verse in the Bible on progressive holiness or progressive sanctification. Friends, that is the Highway of Holiness that we're talking about today. And where will it all lead?

Well, look at verse 10, how beautiful is this? It ends up in glorious Zion. "They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away." After we have finished this laborious warfaring journey on the Highway of Holiness, all of us appear before God in Zion. Not they might enter Zion was singing, they will enter Zion, all of them was singing and everlasting joy will crown their heads. They will celebrate forever the goodness, the greatness of God in their own salvation. They will realize it was not by their own righteousness, and it was not by their own works, but it was by Christ, by his work and his righteousness that they made it. “And sorrow and sighing will flee away.” They'll be happy forever. There'll be no more death. No more mourning, no more crying, and no more pain. And when it comes to this, no more struggle, we will not struggle with sin any longer, but will be free at last, and so at the end of our lives, we will be able to say with the apostle Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord will award to me—and not only to me, but also, all who have longed for his appearing.” And so that's Isaiah 35:8-10.

Now, what I wanna do, is I wanna give you biblically 10 teachings concerning the Highway of Holiness, and we wanna talk about each one of these aspects so that you have a fuller, more complete and more biblical understanding of the doctrine of sanctification. The problem is, I just can't count very well, and I didn't know what letter corresponded to what number and they turn out to actually be 11 of them. So I said Tom, “I don't know what we're gonna do.” So we just put the 10 in quotations. Alright, so you get 10 plus one for free. And as I looked at the 11, I couldn't decide which one to get rid of, so you're gonna get them all, and there's probably some others we could do besides, but here's your 10 insights concerning the Highway of Holiness. And we won't have time to do all of them thoroughly, but I wanna give you just a sampling of what the New Testament teaches on the issue of sanctification

First, coming right from the text, only the redeemed may travel on this Highway of Holiness. Justification must precede this journey, it must. Passage itself makes it plain. It says, "The unclean will not journey on this road; it will be only for those who walk in this Way. Wicked fools will not go about on it." Again, verse 9-10, "Only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed to the Lord will return." So it's very, very plain. The redeemed are those that have been bought with a price. The price is the blood of Jesus. Only by the blood of Jesus can we be redeemed from slavery to sin, or ransomed from our captivity in sin, and only those who have been so redeemed may travel on this journey. The beginning of the Highway of Holiness is what Jesus calls the narrow gate. He says in Matthew 7, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many travel through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Friends, Matthew 7:14 is the Highway of Holiness, that narrow road that leads to life is the Highway of Holiness. But you begin by entering through the narrow gate, and Jesus is the gate for the sheep, he is the way by which we enter.

And we must enter humble, and lowly and broken and say, "I'm a sinner, I have no other hope, I have no other Savior, but Jesus died in my place. He shed his blood that I might be forgiven all of my sins, past, present, and future, laid on my sin bearer, laid on the Lamb of God, and he died for me, and I am forgiven." If you don't do that first, then you'll be seeking to earn your own salvation by acts of holiness, and that is no different than any other religion in the world. We preach a religion of grace, sovereign grace by the goodness of God through Christ. It is so important. The last thing I want is for any of you to walk out today feeling burdened or crushed by the Highway of Holiness. I want you to be elated by what you get to do, rather than burdened as though you have to do it to pay for your sins. Legalism, when it comes to justification, legalism is the idea that my present or future obedience to the law will pay for my past disobedience to the law. I'm going to trade present obedience or future obedience for my sins and God will accept me based on my present or future obedience, that's legalism, and it's a lie from hell. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. And you need to know as you're making progress in this highway to holiness that already I am redeemed, I'm already ransomed, I'm already clean. It's very, very important that you keep that in mind.

So, point two, there's an already, but not yet aspect to our progress on the Highway of Holiness. In effect, the New Testament says to us, "You are holy, so be holy. You’re already holy, so be holy." Justification gives us perfect holiness, positionally in God's sight. Probably the best passages that teach this, Romans 4:3, 5. Romans 4:3 says, "What does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." So you believe in Christ, you believe in the gospel, and a trillion dollars of righteousness is credited to your bank account, and it's more than enough, and it's a gift, a free gift. And again, Romans 4:5 says, and this is just shocking, if you don't understand justification by faith apart from words, these words just make no sense to you. Romans 4:5, "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited to him as righteousness." That's a solid rock under your feet while you make progress. I'm already holy, I can't be any holier in God's sight than I am. And so therefore, the Highway of Holiness is a call for us to live up to what we already are. Ephesians 4:1 says, "As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." You need to understand that you will not improve your standing in God's sight one inch by putting sin to death or by doing any good deeds. You're already perfectly righteous in Christ because Christ's perfect righteousness cannot be added to at all, and it's been given to you as a gift.

So the Highway of Holiness is for only the clean. Do you see that? The unclean can't go on it. Isn't that marvelous? It says, “Unclean can't go on it.” If you're not clean, you can't go on it. John 15 teaches us in the exact same language. In John 15, Jesus says, "I am the vine and you're the branches. My father is the gardener,” or a vine dresser. And John 15:2-3, it says, concerning the Father, "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." Now, the word prunes is the exact same Greek word usually translated clean. So they just went with prune because it's more of a horticultural image, but it really literally is saying, "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he cleans so that it will be even more fruitful." Next verse, "You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you." Isn't that marvelous? The Father cleans those who are already clean, that's the Highway of Holiness, that's what it is. He is making progressively more and more clean those who are already clean because God's word has been spoken to them.

So third, the Highway of Holiness is Christ-centered. Union with Christ leads to imitation of Christ, union with Christ spiritually leads to imitation of Christ in every way. Jesus is the Highway of Holiness. He doesn't merely teach the Highway of Holiness or display the Highway of Holiness, or encourage us to follow the Highway of Holiness—he is the Highway of Holiness. "I am the way and the truth and the life." And so therefore, through spiritual union with Christ alone, do we make progress in this Highway of Holiness. It's completely Christ-centered. Christ is the highway. Now, Romans 6:1-5 teaches the mystery of our spiritual union with Christ by faith. Paul says in Romans 6:1 and following, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? May it never be! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who are baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life." Now, here it is, Romans 6:5 teaches the union, "If we have been united with him [with Christ] like this in His death, we will certainly be united with him also in his resurrection." Do you see that? We died in Christ by faith, by baptism union, we died, we're dead to sin forever. And now we also were raised with Christ spiritually to walk in newness of life. And so the rest of it, friends, when it comes to this union with Christ, it's a matter of a battle for the mind. You gotta think rightly. So Romans 6-11 says, "We should consider [reckon] consider yourselves.” Think this way. “Consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Just think that way.

Fourth, this Highway of Holiness is Spirit-empowered. We make progress on this journey by the power of the Holy Spirit alone. Moment by moment, the power of the Spirit pushes us on in the Highway of Holiness. The Spirit enters our life at justification. At the moment that we had faith in Christ, at that moment, the Spirit entered and he will never leave us. He will never forsake us, he'll be with us forever. We were sealed with the Spirit, adopted as sons and daughters, and that will never change. And the Spirit has entered our lives now, and he gives us energy, power, drive to grow in holiness. He gives you a holy ambition. He makes you hunger and thirst for righteousness. Amen. Don't you yearn to be holy? I do. Isn't your own sin the greatest grief in your life? It's not other people's sins, it's your sin, mine. And so you have now through the Holy Spirit, a holy, pulsating ambition, an ambition to be holy, you just want to be holy, you want to please Christ. And along with that comes some new insights, the Holy Spirit teaches you from God's word what that holy life is to look like. He uses gifted people, he uses other people to teach you, or he just teaches you yourself as you read the Bible, but he is in you and illuminating the Scripture, and he's instructing you, and he's guiding you into all truth. And is it said in Isaiah 30:21-22, you have this sense of the spirit, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left,” off the way of holiness, right? “Whether you turn to the right or the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” That's the Holy Spirit, he’s saying, "Here's the way of holiness; walk in it." "Then you will defile," this is Isaiah 30-21-22. "Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you'll throw them away like an unclean cloth and say to them, 'Away with you!'" You're gonna purify yourself of wickedness because of the power of the Spirit in you. And so the Holy Spirit is with you, he's inside you. At key moments, he gives you strength to fight, when the alluring world with its siren call of destruction is beckoning on you to sin, when Satan flashes a fiery arrow to shoot right at your heart, the Holy Spirit gives you the power at that moment to rise up and put that sin to death. And though you may not see it, in Romans 8:13-14 is described again, this same Highway of Holiness. You just have to look for it, it's there, but Romans 8:13-14, it says, "If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." Listen, "Because those who are led, [led, led] by the Spirit of God are the children of God." Led where? Well, what does Isaiah 35 tell you? It's called the Highway of Holiness. He's leading you to put sin to death.

Fifth, this Highway of Holiness is bounded by God's laws, left and right. It's completely described by the law of God. There's nothing lacking. You're never gonna get to a foggy place where you're gonna say, "I don't know what to do, I don't know where to go." That's never gonna happen. The Highway of Holiness is completely described by the laws of God, bounded left and right. Now, we have to be so careful here. We are not justified by the law, we are not justified by keeping precepts of the law, we are not. Some people reduce holiness to mere rule-keeping. If you get the right five or 10 rules, you can be really holy today, perfectly holy today, if you choose them correctly, things you're good at, you know? And you can be really holy by keeping that small list, but the heart goes unchanged, it's not transformed. You've not had an encounter with God, that's counterfeit holiness.

Kevin DeYoung in his book, The Hole in Our Holiness, which he argues that Evangelical Christians are greatly underestimating the importance of holiness, having been justified by faith. He does a great job with it. But he's talking about the law, and he says, "Jesus didn't say, ‘If you love me, you'll give up on rules and religions and do whatever makes you happy.’" No, he didn't say that. “He said, ‘If you love me, you'll obey what I command you.’" So God's holy laws completely describe or bound this Highway of Holiness left and right. Deuteronomy 5:32-33 says, "So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. Walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you." So basically, I look at it this way: left and right, these things are bounded by the word of God. 1 John 2:3 says, "We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments." 1 John 5:3 says, "This is love for God: to obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." You know what's burdensome—sin, sin is burdensome. God's commandments are not burdensome. They're delightful. And so the psalmist in Psalm 119:32 said, "I run in the path of your commandments, for you have set my heart free." Could that be the Highway of Holiness? I think it is. "I run in the Highway of Holiness because you have set my heart free."

Now, the internal heart attitude that is essential to holiness is completely described by the law of God. Remember how the religious expert, the lawyer came to Jesus and said, "Which is the greatest commandment in the law?" And Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Now, you must know that freedom from the law doesn't mean you don't need to do those two things. Could it even be, "Oh, thank God, I'm saved and delivered by the blood of Jesus—I don't need to love God now"? It doesn't make any sense. "Thank God, now I don't need to love my neighbor at all." No, not at all. So the internal life is completely described by love for God and love for neighbor, but the external life also completely bounded by the laws of God, lots of them. We know the Old Covenant ceremonial laws have been fulfilled in Christ, we don't do them anymore. Circumcision, the thrice annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem, we don't do those things. You know, we don't do the animal sacrifice, those things are fulfilled. But there's a lot in the old testament that we know is still binding us, just like that one, “Love the Lord, your God with all your heart,” still binding.

And then in the apostolic writings, you have all kinds of commandments coming from the apostles, and so there are commandments about money, commandments about our time, commandments about our speech patterns, commandments about marriage, parenting, commandments about church involvement, about spiritual gifts. Your life is covered thick with commandments from God. As a matter of fact, I would say there's not a single good deed you could ever do that God didn't first command you to do. He just wants you to obey him. And so the key text on this is Romans 8:4. Romans 8:1 says, "There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, those who live not by the flesh, but by the Spirit…in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” The Spirit enables you to walk in God's righteous law.

Sixth, negative, holiness is purity from all evil. There is a negative side to holiness. You know how Isaiah is a bunch of do’s and don'ts. Friends, there are do’s and don'ts in the Christian life. There are in fact, do’s and don'ts in the Christian life. So let's talk about the don'ts. There are things we must not do as holy children of God. I'm talking now about issues of purity, that we will be pure from all evil. 2 Corinthians 7:1, "Since then, we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” Get rid of all contamination that make you impure.

When I was doing some thinking on this, I came up with four key areas of purity, I'm just gonna mention them quickly, alright? Sexual purity, speech purity, relationship purity, and purity in lawful pleasures, these are the four key areas of purity. First, sexual purity, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality among God's holy people, Ephesians 5. So that's fornication, adultery, lust. "If you even look at a woman lustfully," Jesus said, "you've committed adultery in your heart." Lust is the root of these things, nor should there be the actions that flow from that lust. Sexual purity. Speech purity, God wants you to put a filter over your mouth. Amen? He wants you to let no “unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” So purify your mouth of slander and gossip and complaining. Purify your mouth of false doctrine and discouraging words and attacks. Purify your mouth of these things. Conversely, you let your mouth be filled with praise and thanks to God. And relationship purity, what I mean by that? Get rid of all bitterness and rage and anger and all unforgiveness, get rid of those things that defile relationships. And what do I mean by purity in lawful pleasures? I mean that God's given us a rich world filled with good things to enjoy: food and drinks and entertainments and gifts of his grace, and we get addicted to them and become glutinous with them. And we must live a life of self-control and lawful pleasures, not eating too much, not drinking too much, not being enslaved by anything that God's given us freely of his bounty. Those are four areas of purity.

Seventh, positively, the way of holiness is energetic. actions of love, every step of the way. It's not just a bunch of don'ts, but it's also a bunch of do’s. You've heard the two great commandments are to love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. One guy trying to justify himself said, "And who is my neighbor?” “I wanna know the loop holes, so I don't have to love.” Do you remember what Jesus said in reply? “Well, there was a man going down from Jericho and he was beaten up by some highway robbers and he was left for dead by the side of the road, and eventually along came a man, a Samaritan, who saw him and took pity on him, and cared for his wounds pouring on oil and wine and put him on his donkey and carried him to an inn and said to the inn keeper, ‘Please take care of him,’ and he cared for him all night and then in the morning he said, ‘Take care of him, and look after him, and if he incurs any more debts, I'll pay it when I get back.’” That's what it means to love your neighbor as yourself, it's a life of active energetic service to others, that includes evangelism, missions, relief of the poor and needy, everything that God would call us to do, a life of self-sacrificial service to others.

Eighth, this Highway of Holiness is bitter warfare. Every step of the way. Do not expect an easy ride, do not expect an easy ride, and you already don't. You know what I'm talking about. The world, the flesh and the devil will oppose you every step of the way. Now you say, "Now wait a minute, didn't it say that no lions would be up there and that no wicked fool and safe." "Yeah, it's safe. It's a safe war zone." "What does that mean? A safe war zone?" Well, this is kind of how it works in sanctification. Sin can't kill you, and you can't kill it, you can put individual temptations to death, but you need to be vigilant against sin patterns the rest of your life, you'll never be able to say, "Well, thanks be to God, I know I'll never slander again. Thanks be to God, I know I'll never lust again. I've been delivered from that." No, if any man thinks he stands, he better take heed lest he fall. But individual firey arts of temptations, you can put those out, but it's gonna be a fighting journey that we're on here, it's gonna be hard. So expect the world, the flesh and the devil, and what that means is you have to make exertion, you have to make an effort in sanctification. You can't coast, it's going to be hard work. Your deeds, your works are essential to your progress, not in justification, there's no progress in justification, you are, you aren't, but if you have been justified, you make progress by Spirit-empowered efforts on your part. You are to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Ninth, the upward call of God, every moment in Christ Jesus is this, "Be perfect…as your heavenly Father is perfect." The Spirit is never going to cut you a break. You know what I'm saying? Never, he's never gonna say, "Look, I know you've had a really hard time. It's been a hard week. I'll tell you what, I'm gonna just say, don't worry about these three areas, we're working on that. I want you to just work on these two areas today." He's never gonna say that, and why is that? Because sin is poison and hurts you, and he doesn't want you to drink any of those six or seven or eight vials that are laid out in front of you, don't drink any of them. And if at any point you yield and you sin, then you confess your sin under the power of the Holy Spiri,t and the blood of Christ will minister to afresh to your conscience, and you will know that you are forgiven. But the spirit is going to constantly say this, "Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Be totally conformed to Christ in every area."

Tenth, it's a community journey, friends. We travel in a group. We're not alone on this Highway of Holiness, therefore, we should care about one another and “Watch over,” as our church covenant says, "Watch over one another in brotherly love.” We are to strengthen the feeble knees and the arms that are ready to give way. Hebrews 12 says, we're to look out for each other and watch over each other as we make progress in this journey, and pray for each other, and hold each other accountable, we will give and receive correction. We will give and receive encouragement, we will give and receive accountability and instruction and advice in prayer on this way for one another.

And finally, and here's the good news, we're gonna make it, we're gonna get there, we're gonna get to Zion, verse 10, every single one of us. No one's gonna drop out, not one. “How do you know that, pastor?” Well, a lot of ways, but Romans 8:29-30 is probably the best way. "For those whom God foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son," that's sanctification. "He predestined us to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined." Or let me say, “everyone he predestined,” "he also called; those whom he called, he also justified; those whom he justified, he also glorified." Now, what is glorification? Glorification is the end of sanctification. After years and years of making slow, painful progress, what's gonna happen is you're gonna go suddenly into warp drive on that. God by his power at your death or at the second coming of Christ, when at last you see Jesus face to face, you'll be instantaneously transformed and made like him, for you will see him as he is, 1 John 3:2-3. You're gonna purify yourself as he is pure, but someday you're gonna instantaneously be rescued from the body of sin and death, and it won't trouble you anymore. And then if it isn't the second coming, it's not the end of all things, you will be a disembodied spirit mentioned in Hebrews 12, the spirits of righteous men made perfect. "What are they doing up there?" "They're praising God and waiting, waiting, waiting." "What are they waiting for?" "For you—finish your race. And for all of the elect chosen before the foundation of the world to finish their race, and when they are all finished, then the end will come, and we will be raised from the dead.” We're gonna make it friends, we're gonna make it. So don't be discouraged. I know it's hard, but keep making progress.

Now, I wanna finish with just a couple of words of application. First and foremost, I fear that there may be some listening to me today who are on the outside of this Highway of Holiness, they haven't begun it because they're lost. And God brought you here today to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Hear it now, and hear it simply. If you trust in Christ, his blood shed on the cross, you put your trust entirely on him, he will forgive you of all of your sins, and he's going to raise you up from the dead spiritually and set you on this Highway of Holiness. Don't leave this place unregenerate. I fear what will happen to you if you do, don't leave this place unregenerate, just right now, you don't need to physically move anywhere, I already said that, there's no geographical change needed, trust in him.

But secondly, understand that in every case, justification is followed by sanctification, every case. So just look at your life. Are you on the Highway of Holiness? Are you making progress in the Highway of Holiness? Is there a pattern of growing holiness in your life? Are you more like Christ than you were a year ago? Is your thought life pure? Is your heart growing in love for God with all of your heart and the love for neighbor? Is your conscience accusing or defending you? Are there areas of sin that are troubling you, besetting you? Look at those four areas of purity. How is it going for you sexually? Are you sexually pure? Or is your conscience smiting you right now, the Spirit convicting you? Look at your speech language. Are you arguing? Are you complaining? Are you gossiping, slandering? Are you lying? Is any filthy language coming from your lips, any off-color jokes?  Look at your relationships. Is there any bitterness, any rage, any unforgiveness, any judgmentalism, any attitudes of superiority or pride toward others? Are there any broken relationships horizontally between you and other church members here at this church? And what about lawful pleasures? Are you tasting and seeing the honey of the Lord and sampling it at the appropriate amount? Like the proverb says, "Taste honey, oh my son, for it is good. Honey from the comb is sweet." Yeah, but he also says, yeah, "Don't eat too much or you'll vomit." I feel like American Christians are drowning in a swimming pool of honey, and it's in our nostrils and our ear canals and going down our throats. We need self-control in lawful pleasures. So just look, are you over indulging in food or in drink, or in entertainment or hobbies or material things.

And look at the positive areas of your life, are you living a life of cheerful, self-sacrifice to benefit the body of Christ internally here, and then as we reach out others who haven't come to faith in Christ? Are you involved in evangelism? Are you involved in mission? Are you involved in relief for the poor and needy? Are you involved in various patterns of ministry? Now, if in your assessment, you come up short, good, good, you're seeing yourself rightly. The standard is absolute perfection, but in those areas where there's a gap between what you know God wants you to be and what you are, confess it as sin, don't paper over and say, "I know I've not been like Christ, the way I wanna be. Lord, would you now fill me with your Spirit and give me strength by the power of the Spirit to make progress in this Highway of Holiness, to run this race with endurance until at last you take me to heaven." Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for Isaiah 35:8-10, we thank you for this Way of Holiness, I pray that we would not turn to the right or to the left, but that we would make the progress you want us to make. I pray that we would know that we are forgiven, we can't make any progress in our position in your sight because of the imputed righteousness of Christ, but I pray that we would put sin to death and grow and become more like Jesus as we travel, in Jesus name, amen.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Ephesians 6:10-18. The main subject of the sermon is how we extinguish Satan's attempts to destroy God's image.

 So 2 Corinthians:6, I'm preaching from Ephesians 6, but this phrase has been much in my mind this week in reference to the sanctity of human life. Paul talked about, being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Isn't that a powerful phrase? Just a few words. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Notice that he says, always rejoicing, but he doesn't say that, in front of sorrowful, so I could add the phrase... Sometimes sorrowful, but always rejoicing. When it comes to abortion, we should be sorrowful. The grief is deep and profound.

The tragedy is deeper and more profound than we can possibly imagine, and so we should be sorrowful, but we should be always rejoicing. And the reason I say that is because I believe with all my heart, the gospel is more powerful than the Spirit of abortion. I believe that grace is more powerful than all of our sins. And when it comes to this particular topic, I think it's easy to make the case that all of us feel the need for cleansing and forgiveness. We all feel guilty when it comes to this. Sometimes a guilt is deep and profound because you have actually gotten an abortion or you were a man and you pressured a woman to get an abortion, and you don't know what to do with that guilt. Well, here's what to do with it. Run to the cross of Jesus Christ, that's what you should do with it. Because the grace of God is infinitely sufficient for all of our sins, and so my desire is the conviction of that sin would drive you to Christ and to the cross, so be convicted. Grieve over it. Feel the weight of it. Hate it. But flee to Christ.

And then for those of us that personally have never been directly involved in abortion, we still feel guilty because this is a national scandal, really a moral scandal. An ethical scandal. And the church, we’re supposed to be the salt of the Earth. We're supposed to be a city on a hill. We’re supposed to be a light shining in a dark place. And we have plenty of guilt to go around, frequently the sins of omission, things we feel we should have done. We don't pray enough, we're not active enough, we don't give enough money, we've missed out on opportunities to persuade co-workers. People have said things we don't agree with, but we've remained silent out of fear. So again, for all of you, I want to say there's ample grace at the cross.

So today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, we do this every year, it's an annual reminder of the sacredness of human life. That's what sanctity means. That's why we do it, we remind ourselves that human beings are created uniquely in the image of God. Everyone of us are in the image of God, and that's sacred. It’s set apart as special, and we need that reminder because Satan is assaulting the image of God all the time. Satan hates God and he will assault the image of God. It’s been a strategy from the very beginning. We also have Sanctity of Human Life Sunday every year, secondly, so that we can remember and have re-established in our hearts the blessing the children are. One of the great tragedies of this scourge of abortion is that there's been an assault on this basic concept that children are a blessing, that in our lifetime, we've had more of a pressure to consider children as a burden or a curse or something that is unwanted, unplanned, all of that kind of language. Planned Parenthood slogan, “every child, a wanted child.” Who are we to want, or not to want? But it really assaults the concept that children are a blessing. In Genesis 1:28, “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the world.’”

He did the same thing in Genesis:9, with Noah, after the flood. He said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth.” Deuteronomy 7, as they're about to enter the Promised Land, Moses said, “God will love you and bless you and multiply you.” Deuteronomy 28:4, “the fruit of your womb will be blessed.” Psalm 113:9, “he settles the barren woman in her home as the happy mother of children.” Praise the Lord. Psalm 127:3-5, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” Consistently, Scripture is portrayed as a blessing, and no one did it better than Jesus. As always, Jesus leads the way. You remember how some people were bringing, some parents were bringing, little children to Jesus for him to pray for them and bless them, but his hands on them and bless them. But the apostles were rebuking those who brought them and trying to move them away. In Mark's gospel, when Jesus saw this, he became indignant with the twelve, with the apostles, he was upset at them. He was angry at them, and he said to them, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for of such belongs to the Kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child, shall not enter it, and then he took the children in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.” So we do this every year so that we can re-establish biblically in our minds and hearts, and every day what an incredible blessing children are. Thirdly, we do it as an annual reminder of the present scourge of abortion. It says 40 years now, on Tuesday, 40 years since the notorious Roe vs. Wade decision. And it’s chosen, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is chosen every year to coincide with that anniversary date.

You heard what Emily said, 55 million babies aborted. And as Christians, we grieve over this, and as Ron alluded to, it's not a problem only here in our country, but it's a worldwide scourge. There are sex selection abortions in India and in China where girls are selected out and killed because of their gender. It’s the greatest assault on woman hood that there is in the world. I can't think of a greater one. Because they're girls, they're killed. It's that simple.

And in China, in communist China, because they have the one-child policy, there are in many cases, as a government policy, of forced abortions for women who have already had their allotted one child. And so Ron and I were talking about this as we were in that country recently, and how there are party officials that are just keeping track of the monthly cycles of the women in their district. And there are forced abortions in China world-wide, approximately 42 million abortions every year. One in five pregnancies ends in abortion. So it's important for us to keep this issue in front of us and to keep praying for an end to this scourge.

Fourthly, it's an annual reminder of the power of God, the sovereign power of God. It's so easy to get depressed when you look at this issue, and if you're feeling that, then just know—and this is gonna be a major theme in my sermon today—that is a weapon of the devil, that discouragement, that depression that comes on you. And so we're here to fight it. Amen?

Job 42:2, Job said to God, “I know that you can do all things, no plan of yours can be thwarted.” We need to remember that, don't we? Isaiah 14, “This is the plan determined for the whole world, this is the hand stretched out over all nations. For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out and who can turn it back?” And then Daniel chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar, after his conversion, his transformation from an animal to a man again, and I think to a believer in God. He said this of the eternal God, “His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the peoples of the Earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the Earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” So this is an annual reminder of the God who sits on the throne of the universe.

We're gonna see in a few weeks as we continue our study in Isaiah, Isaiah 37, just how unstoppable is the power of this almighty God. And it's good for us, as we face a seemingly unbeatable foe like legalized abortion, to remind ourselves that God is greater and he is powerful and he is able to make changes.

Fifth: it’s an annual reminder of the truth of God's Word. We have to stand in the middle of this because Satan is just continually pouring out lies. He is a liar and the father of lies. He is a murderer. He was from the beginning. There's a combination in Jesus's statement in John 8:44, combination: lying, murderer. And then that really comes down when it comes to abortion, he's a lying murderer. And so this morning, I'm going to take some of the lies that the devil tells, some of the things that you hear in this debate, in this discussion, and lay them alongside the truth of God. And to give you, I hope, answers that you can take in that situation. Jesus said in John 17:17, “Sanctify them by the truth, your Word is truth.” So we need to remind ourselves of the truth of God here.

Sixthly, it’s an annual reminder of the wickedness of Satan. Satan is in the midst of all of this. I think again and again, some of the wicked religions that have started in the world have had child sacrifice at the heart of it. He just seems to be blood thirsty. It's even in the Bible in 2 Kings:17, the Israelites even sacrifice their own sons and daughters to Baal, and that's not the only religion, Baal worship is not the only one, but there's a regular history of this throughout the world.

Satan seems to be bloodthirsty, I remember when I was involved in the pro-life ministry in Brookline, Massachusetts, and I would go every Saturday morning, and we would go there and just try to talk to women as they would go into the abortion clinic. But facing us, opposing us, were counter-demonstrators and those are some of the scariest days of my life, still. Those are some of the scariest people I ever dealt with.I really sensed a seething rage inside them, where if they could kill me, they would. Very, very tough time. And we were there for five hours every Saturday, and then it was done and we would go home and I would drive like a maniac, like an idiot, out of Brookline. I felt like I was being chased. It was just a satanic place. I'm not overstating. It was an evil, satanic place.

You know how Jesus said in Revelation, “I know where you live,” where Satan has his throne. I think there are just some concentrations to satanic power and influence, and that abortuary, that abortion clinic was one of them, and I used to go home—Christi will tell you this—I used to go home and sleep all Saturday afternoon. I had nothing left.I was just so exhausted and so tired and so sad, and it was just such a satanic assault on me just standing there testifying to the truth. I still think that the boldest, greatest thing I ever did was to unload our ugly green Volkswagen van that we used with our signs, surrounded by 20 or 30 of these counter-demonstrators, and I was the only one there so far. It was like 6:30 in the morning. I was terrified just to open the door and start unloading the signs. We need to know that Satan's involved in this, and that's why I brought us to Ephesians 6, 'cause we need to see the greater power of God in all of that. So we need to see both. You have to see it, satanic, Satan's at work. And God is more powerful. Gotta see both sides.

Seventh, this is an annual reminder, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is an annual reminder of the future world. The future world is bright and good, and I believe that with the power of God, with the changes that I see even in our culture, let's be honest, abortion’s a very tough sell. And the younger generation isn't buying, for the most part. The feminists, the pro-abortion feminists, are losing ground. They're having a harder and harder time recruiting young women to their views. There are more and more pro-life feminists, interestingly enough. And so the old guard, those that were involved in the ‘70s and all that, there's a bigger generation gap in that movement.

There's a Time cover article in Time talking about how it's harder and harder to get an abortion in America. There are more and more local laws, local registration restrictions, funding issues, and they're just, wonderfully, crisis pregnancy centers like PSS springing up all over, and they're 50% more of them than there are the abortion clinics. Planned Parenthood’s being propped up by half a billion dollars of federal funding, and they're just losing, losing, losing.

I read a story about a woman who was involved in the Planned Parenthood PR wing, and her job was to go after crisis pregnancy centers in particular and try to discredit them. She eventually resigned. She said the only way I can do it is to lie about them and I don't wanna do that anymore, because none of what we say is true about those crisis pregnancy centers. They're not misleading women. They're very plain, “We don't want you to get an abortion. We’ll do everything we can to help you keep your baby.” They're honest, they're doing that kind of work, and it's all life and positive. Christian dollars are flowing in, Christian resources, energy, time and energy and money flowing in to help women keep their babies and to help them, perhaps, give them up to adoption or keep them and raise them. It’s just a beautiful thing. Now, there's always more that could be done, but this woman resigned. She said, “I can't say anything more about it. I'm a liar, and I just don't wanna live that way.” I'm not saying she came to faith in Christ. I'm not saying she changed even her views on abortion. She just couldn't do that job anymore, because all she could do is lie about them.

So I think the future's bright, even from here to the second coming of Christ. I hope and pray that someday it'll be seen, like Ron said, like chattel slavery. I hope at some point it will be seen that way, and that the Roe vs. Wade decision will be seen like the Dred Scott decision before the Civil War. Just a miscarriage of justice. Wickedness. But the future, the ultimate future is, even brighter. Amen? As Christians, we know abortion’s temporary. Don't we know that? Because death is temporary. Death itself, some day,is gonna wipe every tear from our eyes and there'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. And so the future is bright.

And eighth, it's an annual reminder of the grace of God in Christ. Already talked about that, but I can't talk about it too much. God's grace is greater than this sin or these sins? And we need to focus on that.

So let's look at Ephesians 6 briefly. It's not an exposition on Ephesians 6, but I wanna just put the firm foundation of God's Word under our feet, so we can understand it. I wanna talk about the shield of faith, but just briefly, what's going on in the Book of Ephesians. Ephesians is a short and very efficient display of the grace of God in Christ. The first three chapters focus on the Gospel and on God's eternal purpose to save people by the blood of Christ. Chapters 4-6 talk about the ethics of the Christian life that flow from that redemption, that salvation that comes in Christ. So Ephesians 1 says that God should be praised and glorified and honored because he has determined to bless us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. That's incredible, the generosity of God, because we are sinners of the darkest stain and yet God desires to give us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

And the centerpiece of that is God's redemptive work by the blood of Jesus Christ. So it says in Ephesians 1:7-8, “In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” And so the centerpiece of everything is the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross.

So I don't know if you knew when you were coming here today that it was Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. I don't know if the abortion issue has touched your life much. This is the most important message that I have to give today: “In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” And maybe that's why God brought you to church today, that you might understand that there is full forgiveness for all sins. From a painful experience I had early in my ministry in preaching on abortion and forgetting that there might be women listening to me who actually had abortions, I have, since that day, never forgotten to give you this grace. There is no sin you can commit that's greater than the value of the blood of Christ, and it is the Father's good pleasure to forgive you and welcome you back by the grace of Christ. So seek that grace in Christ. But even if you haven't been involved in this at all, you still need forgiveness and there isn't just forgiveness available, it is infinitely available in Christ. Flee to Christ, trust in him. Plead with him. Say, “I don't wanna leave this place unforgiven. I don't wanna face your wrath on Judgment Day. I want that forgiveness.” And in him, in Christ, that forgiveness is available.

But we also see in Ephesians, in the power of the Holy Spirit of God, to take that blood of Christ and apply it sovereignly to people who need it. The Spirit moves out and applies the redemption that Jesus won that day. And so in verses 13-14 of Ephesians 1, it says, “You also were included in Christ, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory.” And so the Holy Spirit has moved out. And if you're a Christian today, the Spirit made you so. It was the Holy Spirit of God that changed you. It was the Holy Spirit of God that transformed you, that took out that heart of stone and gave you the heart of flesh. It's the Spirit that saved you by the blood of Jesus. And also, we see in Ephesians 1, God's overarching power to bring all things, all this fragmented, broken apart universe together under one head, even Christ. “And God put all things under Christ and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” So Ephesians 1, glorious chapter of God's purposes and redemption in Christ.

In Ephesians 2, he talks about how God has worked on us individually, not only did God raise Christ physically up from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, he has raised us up spiritually from the dead. “We were dead in our transgressions and sins in which we used to live when we followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the Spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” That's Satan. Satan's at work in our world and he's making people disobey. And we were just like that. We were no different. We were dead while we lived. It was a living death. And God, by his Spirit, has redeemed us, has ransomed us, has raised us to life. We're born again by his blood and by the Word of the gospel. God has that kind of power to do that.

Now, in Ephesians 4-6, he says, “Okay, now that you've been redeemed, you're born again, you're alive, now you must live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” And I'll talk in depth about this next week, the “highway of holiness” from Isaiah 35. But Ephesians 4:1 says you need to live a whole different kind of life, and the centerpiece of that life is be being filled with the Holy Spirit. Don't get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery, but be being filled with the Holy Spirit, and it's at least a whole new kind of life, a whole new kind of life in marriage, a new kind of life in a parent-child relationship, in a master-slave relationship, he talks about there. Everything changed, but then at the end, in Ephesians 6, he talks about a whole different kind of life as we stand firm against the devil and become spiritual warriors.

It's not gonna be a peaceful, comfortable journey on this highway of holiness. I need to be careful because I'm gonna go right over in Isaiah 35, and then what'll I do next week? But it's a fighting march to heaven, it's not easy. And so we have to be filled with the Spirit, and we have a responsibility.

Ephesians 6:10-11, to “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, and to put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against the devil's schemes.” So the word ‘scheme’ is an evil plan, an evil plot, and the devil has schemes and we are not unaware of his schemes, Paul says in another place. We know what he's doing, and we have to stand our ground. And our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world. You have to see with the eyes of faith. Those people that surrounded our ugly mini-van, they weren't my enemy. They were, I think, to some degree, breathing out murderous threats against me, but they weren't my enemy. The enemy was unseen, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms against the powers and principalities, against the divisions of the satanic kingdom.

We have to be strong and we have to “put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, we may be able to stand our ground, and after we've done everything, to stand.” And so Paul goes on from there to describe the Christian soldier, fully equipped. Verse 14-17, “Stand firm then,” he says, “with the belt of truth buckled around the waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”

So we've got all this powerful defensive weaponry, the shielding that we have, this armor of God. We need to be aware that we're in a war. We need to take our stand, stand our ground. It's kind of static. We're gonna stand here. This is where I'm gonna stand and fight. This is truth under our feet here, and we're gonna, like it says in James 4, resist the devil and he'll flee from us. We're gonna stand our ground.

The elements I could describe briefly, and if you know anything about the Puritan movement, know there was a man named William Gurnall, and he wrote a 1200-page book on these elements, 1200 pages, and it's small print too. I stopped being able to read it without glasses a few years ago; now, I'm not even sure I can read it with the glasses, 1200 pages of that. The Puritans didn't spare any words, friends. But I can't go in that great detail. If you wanna get the full armor of God, Gurnall's treatment on that, go ahead and read it and I think it would benefit you. But just briefly, the belt of truth represents our commitment to the Word of God and to Christ. Both are portrayed in John's Gospel as truth. The breastplate of righteousness, fundamentally, the imputed righteousness we have in Christ so that nothing can kill us. Satan can't kill us because we are righteous in the sight of God, and nothing can penetrate that.

And the shoes of the readiness of the gospel of peace. Next week, I'm gonna talk about the two infinite journeys, we are traveling, we are moving and we need good traction, and when you stand and fight, you've gotta have good traction. And so the readiness of the gospel of peace, it's not an easy expression, but I think what it means is the gospel that has made us be at peace with God gives us a firm footing under our feet where we can fight, and we know God is at peace with us and we're reconciled to God, and we have a message, a story to tell the nations, and so that we're ready to tell that, and so that's the footing under us.

And the helmet of salvation, I think again, focuses on the mind, the thoughts. So much of this battle is a battle for the mind. Ephesians 4 says, “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They're darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that's in them due to the hardening of their hearts. That's all mental, mental, mental. It's a battle for the mind. So we put on the helmet of salvation. We think differently now. We just have a different way of thinking now. We're “transformed by the renewing of our mind.” 2 Corinthians 10, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.”

And we have the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, how powerful the sharp, double-edged sword in our hands. We can see how Jesus wielded it in the desert against the temptations of the devil, and with that we can both block his false attacks and we can do damage to his kingdom with the sword of the Spirit.

I'm gonna focus for a moment on the shield of faith, verse 16. Do you see the cover photo? Tom picked that one out. It's pretty scary. If you really look at it, it's pretty scary. There's an archer with a flaming arrow, taking aim at you, that's scary. You are in Satan's crosshairs. He wants you, he wants to kill you, he wants to attack you. In Ephesians 6:16 says, “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” The shield was given to the soldier to protect him and to save his life both from sword thrusts, but also especially from arrows. If you were in the middle of a field and a volley of arrows was coming down to you, the sword would do you no good. If you didn't have a shield, you’d die. I mean, those archers, they could fire from 3-400 yards away, and if the velocity was high, and when it's coming down at an angle of 30-degree, 45-degree angle, whatever, it will penetrate and kill you.

And so we have this shield of faith, and faith means we see in the invisible realm and we understand the truth, we know that the devil's coming after us, but he's a defeated foe. We see the invisible realm around us, we know that “if God is for us, and who can be against us?” And we've got this confidence, this assurance. We're filled with hope as we fight because of the Word of God, and so we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. It's interesting how Paul comments only on this one article here, its effectiveness. He didn't talk about the effectiveness of any of the others, he talks about the effectiveness of the shield of faith. It is effective to the extinguishing of every flaming arrow the devil fires. Isn't that marvelous? How encouraging! 100% effective.

And what are these arrows, these flaming arrows? Well, false doctrines. 1 Timothy 4:1 speaks of the doctrines of demons. False teachings are flaming arrows coming after your vital organs, spiritually. Temptations to sin are flaming arrows, and with the shield of faith, you can see through them, you know what they are. We know behind the abortion question is the question of sexual sin, isn't it? And it's by the shield of faith, you can stand firm in the day of temptation and not give in sexually, so that it's not even an issue for you. You don't even need to wonder about it. You just know you're going to be sexually pure, and you're not going to sin in that area.

And so you're able to stand in the day of testing and the shield of faith is effective to see through the moment and see the consequence, to see what's coming, and see God, the Holy One, who sees everything we do. And you're able to put out that flaming arrow of temptation. And then on the flip side, the flaming arrow of accusations of sin, he does both. How evil is our enemy! He's the very one who tempts us into sin, and then after we sin, he turns around and gets all righteous on us and accuses us of the very sin he lured us into. As it says in Zechariah 3:1, “Then I saw Joshua, the high priest, standing at the right hand of God, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. That's what the word Satan means in Hebrew, he's the accuser, and he's there accusing Joshua the high priest of his wickedness and his sin. He's the accuser of the brethren, it says, and that's a flaming arrow.

You know, I think that what a church, a healthy church, a good pastor, I think what the Bible does is, before the temptation, it gets all tough with you and urges you, pleads with you not to sin. But then after the sin, it's tender and gentle and affirming and gracious to welcome you back and tell you there is forgiveness with Christ. And we need both, don't we, in the Christian life? Before the sin happens, you need to be strong and not sin because sin is poison, but afterward you need to know how forgiving and gracious God is. You know what Satan does? He switches them so that in the time of temptation, he tells you God will be forgiving, he'll be gracious and all that, and afterward then he tells you God's a monster and ogre, and he's gonna send you to hell, and he'll never forgive you.

Flaming arrows of discouragement and despair, I feel that in this issue. I actually asked the guys, elders, should I preach a Sanctity of Human Life Sunday sermon? Forgive me for asking that. It's like John the Baptist saying, “Are you the one who is to come? Or shall we expect someone else?” Of course, I should preach this sermon. Abortion's still legal. People are still dying. God's truths haven't changed. But you get discouraged like, Is anything ever gonna change? It's changing. False arguments, all of these things are flaming arrows.

All right, so what are the specific flaming arrows that Satan launches our way? Well, first of all, I wanna encourage you to look at this book, this book, Randy Alcorn’s “Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments” the best single resource I found in dealing with the mental aspect, the defense of the faith aspect in the pro-life cause. And I had our folks get 15 copies of this. It's in the North Tower Resource Center. I don't know if somebody may have already grabbed some. I have this one but I'm gonna put it back. So somebody come and grab this one and just take the folder out and pay the price, put it in there, but you can have it. And a lot of the sermon from here on out, other than the Biblical part that I put in, will be from Randy Alcorn's defenses and arguments.

I think we need to know 2 Corinthians 10 how to “demolish strongholds and extinguish flaming arrows.” I think we need to know how to argue in this. I don't mean have an argument, I mean make an argument, you know the difference. So we're not being ugly, we're not being negative, we are telling the truth when it comes to the pro-life issue.

So, I'm gonna zero in on two aspects briefly in the time we have left: arguments concerning the life and the humanity and the personhood of the pre-born, of the baby. And secondly, I'm going to zero in on questions of rights and fairness and the freedom of a woman to choose, and those things. I'm gonna focus on those. There are other main topics that Randy Alcorn addresses, but those are the ones I'm gonna zero in on.

The fundamental biblical truth in this issue is that life begins at conception. That's the most important biblical truth there is. Human life begins at conception. The Bible settles that forever. Probably the best text on that, in my opinion, is Luke Chapter 1, when the pregnant Mary goes to visit the pregnant Elizabeth and they have an encounter together in Luke:1. So Elizabeth is further along in her pregnancy with John the Baptist, than Mary who has just received news from Gabriel that the power of the Holy Spirit would come upon her, and so Jesus is just then conceived. It's very significant because first of all, concerning Elizabeth's baby, she says in Luke 1:44 to Mary, “As soon as your greeting,” the sound of your greeting, “reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” The keywords for me are, for joy. Joy is an emotion. It can only be done by a person. John the Baptist was a person, he just wasn't born yet, and so he could feel joy, and so he jumped up and got all excited about Jesus, which he would be doing his whole life. But perhaps even more significant is the statement made just before that in Luke 1:43, Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, said, “Why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” So Mary is just now pregnant, first few weeks, I would guess, and she's already a mother, and the one inside her is already Elizabeth's Lord. To me, that's very significant.

So also is it significant God's direct activity in the assembling together of the human body in the womb. This is taught in two places; in Job:10 and in Psalm 139. In Job 10:9-12, it says, “Remember that you molded me like clay, will you now turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence, you watched over my Spirit.” A very significant statement. Psalm 139:13-16, “You created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the Earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Now, the question has to come in here, what makes us think we have the right to interfere with that process? God's actively putting the baby together, and we step in and stop that. Where did that power come from? Where does that right come from to interfere with that process? Now, in the Roe vs. Wade decision, Justice Harry Blackman, who wrote the decision, the majority of the decision, he said these famous words: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” That's what he said. Barack Obama and the campaign trail and all that, when he was asked on abortion, etcetera, it was an interview back and forth, and he said, “That question is above my pay grade.” That was his answer. Well, the Bible answers differently, the Bible answers it.

Alcorn goes beyond biblical arguments to just talk about scientific and medical arguments for the humanity of the pre-born. So a pro-abortion argument would run like this: “It's uncertain when human life begins, that's a religious question that can't be answered by science.” Well, first, Alcorn says, if there's uncertainty, to what side of the benefit of the doubt go? What side should it go? If there's uncertainty, I would think you would protect it, not kill it. Alcorn said if you're driving down the road and there's a shadow, kind of a moving shadow on the road, do you assume it's a person or an animal? I think as a driver, you're going to assume and do you can to miss it because it might be a person. Alcorn also said if you see a person by the side of the road and their eyes are closed and they seem like they're in very serious trouble, if not dead, do you assume they're dead or do you assume they're alive? You assume they might be alive and try to save them.

So the benefit of the doubt should go on that side, but he doesn't stop there. He says, “There's clear medical, scientific, biological evidence for the humanity of the pre-born.” It's not a little, it's a lot. And so he gives just one quote after another from experts in this area. Professor Mathews-Roth of Harvard University Medical School, many of these people have no agenda in the abortion issue, they may not even agree with us, but they're saying on the question of when human life begins, that's been settled. Starts at conception. He said it's incorrect, this professor said, it is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception. And quote after quote, I've got them here, we don't have time. Probably the most famous change of mind on this is Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who founded NARAL, which is the National Abortion Rights Action League, one of the truly evil players in all of this. He founded it, he was the leading OB/GYN, leading doctor of the most prolific abortion clinic in the western hemisphere, personally involved in over 60,000 abortions. Until the clinic started using ultrasound, and he looked at the actual people that he was killing, and his mind was totally changed forever on abortion. He came to realize he had been personally involved in killing 60,000 people. There's no doubt in his mind, and this was not a religious transformation. He was an atheist when he changed. He did not die an atheist, but at that point, it was just a medical decision, and he is the one that did the film “The Silent Scream”, which used that same technology to depict the recoiling and the effort a fetus, a baby was making to stay alive and the pain that the baby could feel.

A second kind of argument along this line says the fetus is just part of a pregnant woman's body, like her tonsils or appendix. “You can't seriously believe that a frozen embryo is an actual person,” so they say. It’s like an arm or a leg or a tonsil or something like that. But the problem is that it's individual personhood is defined genetically, there's a definite genetic code to that baby that's different from the mother's. And it’s there at conception, every cell in the mother's body or tonsils or appendix, all that clearly belong to the mother genetically, that's how DNA evidence can be used in crimes and all that, 'cause we know it's connected with that one human being and it's unique, it's like a fingerprint. And so also it is that the pre-born is a distinct, unique person from conception.

I don't know if you know this, but in July of 2000, the United States House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill making it illegal to execute a pregnant woman. Okay, I'm gonna pause for effect, now just think about that. What is the ethical foundation of such a law? You're dealing with two persons, one of them guilty under the law and the other one not, and as a result of that, the law was passed unanimously including pro-abortion advocates voted it. Alcorn says, do they not realize how incredibly inconsistent they're being in voting for that legislation? To us it makes perfect sense. By the way, this is interesting. There’s only one nation on Earth in which it's legal to execute a pregnant woman, and that's Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean. I think someone might wanna go down there, say, I want you to know, you're the only ones. Even the Muslim nations, other nations, are aware to not do this. Hopefully that legislation will get changed, but the foundation of it is the personhood of the unborn, is it not?

Or this one, perhaps you've heard this kind of argument: “The unborn is an embryo or a fetus, or a product of conception, abortion is terminating a pregnancy. Not killing a child.” This is just rhetoric. Do you not see the tricks? They're using a word embryo rather than a baby, they're using the word fetus rather than baby, they're using the even more depersonalized word, product of conception, POC, rather than baby. Why are they doing that? Well, you know why? And Alcorn said, semantics can change perceptions, semantics can solve consciences, but they can't change reality.

Concerning the development of the child, prior to the earliest abortions, the unborn already has every part he or she will ever have. At 18 days after conception, the heart is forming. Eyes are starting to develop. By 21 days, the heart is not only beating but pumping blood throughout the body. By 28 days, the unborn has budding arms and legs. By 30 days, the baby has multiplied in size 10,000 times. The baby now has a brain and blood is flowing through the baby's veins. By 35 days, mouth and ears, and nose are already taking shape. At 40 days, the baby's brain waves can be measured. The child's heartbeat, which started three weeks previously, can now be heard by an ultrasonic stethoscope. By 42 days, the skeleton is formed and the brain is controlling the movements of muscles and organs. By eight weeks, the hands and feet are almost perfectly formed, fingerprints are developing, by nine weeks, a child will bend fingers around an object placed in the palm. Interestingly, Alcorn cites the case of a politically liberal professor in the Northeast, and his wife, she was a little bit older, when they had their first child. They were uncertain about the baby's future health and in life, so they decided to do an amniocentesis. They used ultrasound to do it while they were watching the baby grabbed the needle, and they did not go through with the abortion and changed their views on abortion from that point forward. All of this happens before the time that most abortions occur. All of this development.

Another argument like this is “it's not really a person until it breathes on its own.” I mean, are we gonna get to that level? You're gonna say that a baby the day before it's born after nine months and one week, it's not a person 'cause it's not breathing air in its lungs? Have you ever heard of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? I'm talking of like people, 18, 28 years old, their lungs are filled with water, their hearts are beating. It's not a person? I'll tell you what every person that's ever given someone like that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, did it 'cause they thought that was a person, and they wanted to save their life. No, it's not the breathing of air that makes you a person, that's not true. It's dangerous when one category of a society starts denying personhood to another category. That's really dangerous. That's what the Nazis did. That's what, you know, the Dred Scott and all that, saying that slaves were three-fifths of a person. I don't know, what does that mean? Three-fifths of a person. That's politics, that's not reality. You’re a person or you're not, and they are persons.

All right, secondly, let's zero in on arguments concerning rights and fairness and with this we'll be done. They say, even if the unborn are human beings, they have fewer rights than the woman. No one should be expected to donate her body as a life support system for someone else. Well, listen, once you concede that that pre-born is a human person, that settles the matter of whether they should die, so then you're basically comparing a quality-of-life argument and the difficulties of pregnancy and delivery, which are significant, and then of caring for a child, which is significant, against life itself, and that's how you make those ethical choices.

Every person has the right to choose, we're told. It’d be unfair to restrict a woman's choice, her right to choose, by prohibiting abortion. Well, the problem with that, ethically, is we need to know freedom to choose what? Suppose you just went up to somebody and said, “I have the right to choose.” I'd want more information. Choose what? All laws are based on that. We don't have the right to discharge a firearm if there's someone in the line of fire. We don't just have that freedom to do that. Interestingly, the pro-abortion movement, and that's what it should be called, 'cause that's what it is, the pro-abortion movement does not say anything, as far as I know about forced abortions in China, I'm not aware of any movement to try to get that to stop, it's difficult for them to make that case. They don't like talking about it, but there's no choice over there for those women, so is it really freedom of choice they're looking for or is it just pro-abortion.

Randy Alcorn, and I think you ought to remember this one, you may be able to use it in the future. He always says the same thing when he talks to people that say, “I'm not pro-abortion, I'm pro-choice.” He was on a talk show with a woman and he identified or referred to her as pro-abortion. She said, “Wait a minute, wait, wait, I'm not pro-abortion. I'm pro-choice.” He always says the same thing, “Why would you say that? Is there something wrong with abortion?” Try that one. “Why would you say that? Is there something wrong with abortion?” And she candidly answered, “I think if we're honest, we would have to say, ‘As women, we’re very uncomfortable killing our babies.’” That discussion is over. It really is, the only reasons to be against abortion personally come from the arguments I've already made the personality of the pre-born, and so it makes no sense to say “I'm personally against abortion, but I'm also pro-choice.” It doesn't make any sense. Ethically, you need to think it through.

Friends, ultimately what I want is, I want our church, I want Christians in America to be messengers of hope. We are to give people hope in hopeless situations. The most hopeless situation has nothing to do with abortion and all of that, it has to do with sin and judgment before a holy God. And there is a remedy for that, and thatis the blood of Christ, and we are, 1 Peter 3:15, “always to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks us to give a reason for the hope that we have.” We should be filled with hope. Abortion's temporary. It's a loser thing. It's a hard sell, even for the pro-abort feminist, it's hard to sell. It's ugly and evil. And people know it. We're going to win this one friends, but even bigger than that, Jesus is going to win the souls of all who trust in him, so let's in the midst of someone's darkest night they've ever had, when they have an unplanned pregnancy, or what's called sometimes a crisis pregnancy, Christians need to be there to speak hope into that situation, and say, “Do you realize how good God is and how much he's going to bless you if you'll just stand firm and trust him?” We need to be messengers of hope.

Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time we've had to look at this today to consider it, and I pray that You would bless and strengthen each one of us in the midst of this very, very difficult battle. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Isaiah 35:1-10 and how God will, in the future, restore the universe to its original purpose and remove from it the stain and effects of sin.

When I was in Bible interpretation class, they told us an important principle of interpretation is that we should always seek the author's original intention in every text, we should try to find out what the author's original intention was. I came to find out later the reason that they taught us that is that in history, there were some that went in for things called allegorical interpretations that were very fanciful and not in any way tied directly to the Bible texts, they floated away like one of your kid's helium balloon floated away last time you got one at Kroger's and they weren't tied around their wrist, they just floated right away, and we had no idea what they were rooted in, such is allegorical interpretation. So they taught us we need to go to the author's original intention. I was thinking about that phrase when it came to Isaiah 35. I think it's important for us to understand what Isaiah meant with this, I think it's more important to understand the true Author, God and what his intention is in this text.

But I didn't stop there, I went beyond it to say, what was the author of creation's original intention in creating the universe?  Why did he make this world? Why did he make heaven and earth? What did he intend when he separated the sea from the dry land and he caused living creatures to multiply on both? In the sea and the dry land? When he created it, he caused the land to blossom and to flourish with living things, with seed-bearing plants. What was his original intention in creating the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, all of the different species? What was his original intention in making an incredibly, magnificently, beautiful world, filling it with his glory, with beauty and majesty? What was his original intention in all of that? And what did he intend when he created man to walk the surface of the earth? And he made man with special attributes and abilities. What was his original intention when he created the eye? What did he make the eye to do? Why did he create the ear with all of its abilities, its complexities? What was his purpose?

Now, there's a text, Isaiah 45:18, and we'll preach…and I'm looking at Isaiah 35 today, but in Isaiah 45:18, there's an important verse that gives us insight into the text we're looking at today. There it says, “For this is what the Lord says—he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it.” Now listen, “He did not create it to be empty, but he formed it to be inhabited—he says: ‘I am the Lord and there is no other.’” Note the words, God did not create it to be a desert. That's not why he made it. He did not want a howling wasteland. This begs the question then, why is so much of the earth the desert? Why are parts of the earth then a howling wasteland? Now, in Isaiah, again and again, the image of the desert is used as a picture of God's judgment on man for sin. Parts of the earth are a wasteland, are a desert, because of human sin.

But let's extend this idea still further. Why did God create the eye with all of its complexities? He did not form it to be blind, but he made it to be able to see. When God said, “Let there be light,” he also by implication said, “Let there be sight.” There's no point in the universe being filled with radiance of God's glory and there being no sight, no receptors of that glory. What's the point? Why then are maybe 256 million people vision impaired? Why are 39 million people, completely, totally blind? Same reason—human sin ultimately caused disease and brokenness to enter this world. Why did God create the air? Why did he make the eardrum and all the tiny little bones, and all those little hairs and all of that, that make hearing possible? Was it not so that we could hear the sounds that God wanted us to hear? The chirping of the birds, the crash of the ocean, the blowing of the wind and the trees, all of those things are just beautiful sounds. The sound of a baby crying or laughing, giggling. All of these sounds. He did not form the ear to be deaf, but he formed it so that it could hear. Why then, are 275 million people in the world hearing impaired? Same reason, because human sin has entered the world and moved it off of the Author's original intention. From the beginning, God formed Adam and Eve with perfect sight, perfect hearing, and perfect everything else, and put them in a perfect world to look at all of God's glorious beauty that he had woven into physical creation. He put them there so that they would see it and worship him, their hearts would be filled with joy at what they saw and what they heard, and God would get the glory. And it wasn't enough for just that first couple, God commanded them saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the world with my image.”

But sin entered the world, and death through sin, and in that way, corruption and decay in futility has come to all the earth. Romans 8:19 and following, it says, "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to [futility,] frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to this present time. And not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” So I just put in equal in there, "Adoption as sons equals the redemption of our bodies," and we're waiting for that. It hasn't come yet. And we're groaning, because sin has devastated this universe, God's original intentions are not being met. And so, this is the glorious good news: God sent his only begotten Son into the world to make it all right, to restore it, to redeem it, to buy it back, to bring it back and make it what it should have been. And to Jesus Christ alone be the glory for all of that. What a wonder-working God he is.

And so as Jesus began his earthly ministry, he went to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, and Jesus stood up on a certain Sabbath, and the scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. And opening the scroll, he found the place where these words were written, “‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.’ And then he rolled up the scroll, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and he began by saying these words, ‘Today, in your hearing, this scripture is fulfilled.’” Wouldn't you love to have been there at that moment? Fulfilled? That scripture fulfilled? Yes, as they heard Jesus speak, as they heard him preach from Isaiah, the scripture was fulfilled. But Jesus went on from there to live out of ministry, rich with the power of the Holy Spirit, infinitely rich with the display of the power of the Spirit of God, doing signs and wonders in the sight of all the people.

And these signs and wonders, these miracles proved that he was unique, he was special, unlike anyone that had ever lived before, he was God the Son, God incarnate. It proved that he was who he claimed to be, the Son of God, those miracles. But they were also signs, like on a highway, pointing to a reality we haven't reached yet. They were signs, they're called signs and wonders. There were signs pointing to something we don't have yet—a place where all death and mourning and decay and suffering are gone forever, a place where there are no blind eyes and no deaf ears and no lame people and no mute tongues anymore. He didn't banish those things from the Earth, he healed individuals of those maladies, case by case. I was joking with some people, I don't mean to be disrespectful, I was just thinking about it, there's no account ever of anyone getting more than one healing from Jesus, I think he probably could have done it, but imagine, let's say a blind man, he's saying, "Oh, this is incredible, this is greatest, best day of my life. You know, I have actually been having trouble my lower back recently. I mean, while you're at it, would you mind? Just something on the back, 'cause I know you can do it." There's actually no record of that. I don't know if any of those healed people went home and said, "You know, I wish I had asked him about that too." And all of the people that Jesus healed are dead now. All of them. They're all dead, all of those seeing eyes are blind by death, all those hearing ears now, they are deaf by death, all of them. They're just signs, pointing ahead to something that isn't here yet, a reality that is coming.

When John the Baptist was languishing in prison and wasn't sure whether Jesus really was who he claimed to be, he was weak. Just like our text talks about, his hands were feeble, his knees were giving away, it happens to everybody, maybe it's been happening to you, maybe this sermon will strengthen your hands and your weak knees. I pray so. But the messengers came, and remember what John's messenger said to Jesus? "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" Someone else? “Go back and report to John what you see and hear: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. And blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” Go back and tell him that.

And so we come to today's Scripture. And today's Scripture predicts 700 years before it happened, this very ministry that Jesus did, predicts it. Look at verses 5-6 in Isaiah 35, "Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy." The—actually, the whole chapter extends to all of creation itself, the desert blooming like the crocus, and what a stunning contrast Isaiah 35 is to Isaiah 34, which we looked at last week. Isaiah 34 represents the wrath of God on all nations, Isaiah 34:2. And then we had the picture of Edom, the reprobate nations, the reprobate people. And it says that, "Edom's streams will be turned into pitch, and her dust in the burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch! It will not be quenched night and day; its smoke will rise forever. From generation to generation, it will lie desolate." That's in Isaiah 34. Another word for that is a desert. It will lie as a desert, and “no one will ever pass through it again.” But this chapter, Isaiah 35, speaks of the blooming of a desert, a howling wilderness turned into the garden of Eden all over again, the judged land restored and made beautiful again.

Now, many scholars have different interpretations of Isaiah 35, telling us what the author originally intended. So then they take their crack at what the author's original intention was. Isaiah was speaking, they say, about the restoration of the Jews back to the promised land, when they would come back out of Babylon and they would take again their places in the promised land. Others say, it refers to the salvation of the gentiles by the proclamation of the gospel to the ends of the earth. Or others say it may be applied individually, to the personal spiritual experience of individual sinners that are saved and their eyes are open and then they can see at last. I once was blind, and now I see. I was deaf and now I can hear. And it’s speaking metaphorically of the salvation work of God and Jesus and individual sinners. Some scholars say it refers to the millennial kingdom, when after Christ returns, he will set up a perfect world and he will make all of these things physically happen in the millennial kingdom, and he changes the curse to a blessing. And some say it's just talking about the joys of the new heaven and new earth, the joys of the new heaven or new earth.

Well, I say, why not all of the above? What do you say? I don't know about all of that, but why not? Why not just say, this is poetry, and we probably don't need an engineer to preach on it, we just need more of a poet kind of person to preach on it, and we're not gonna get meticulous about whether it's this or that or the other, let's take it all. Well, this engineer says “amen” to that. Let's take it all. Let's say God intends rich, lavish blessings, both on the physical creation and on human beings, and he is intending to bring us to a world that is gonna be so rich and so beautiful and so full, that you can't even describe it, no words can capture it right now. 'Cause it's the purpose of the word of God to cause faith and hope to rise up in your heart and to give you a renewed strength so that you make it there, you finish your journey and get there. So let's do it.

Look at verses 1-2, creation transformed from a sterile desert to a fruitful garden. It says there, "The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy."

So you know, at the beginning, God made the earth, and he made it beautiful and fertile and perfect in every way, but he had a special place called the Garden of Eden, and that was where man was to get his start, and it was beautiful with all kinds of fruit trees, and it was just a lush and lavish garden, flourished with all manner of growing things, it was perfectly fruitful. And the whole world was radiant with the glory of God, and Adam and Eve to fill the Earth and to explore it and to move out on its surface and find out all of the beauties that God had wrapped up into the physical universe. In a similar way, lesser of course, 'cause it's after the fall, but in a similar way, the Jewish nation, when they crossed over the Jordan, they were entering what was known as the promised land, and it was described in similar terms. In Deuteronomy 11, "The land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks in the rain from heaven." Doesn't that sounds beautiful? Just drinks in the rain from heaven. You're not gonna need to irrigate it with a foot pump like they do in Egypt, but “it's a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.” Take special care of it, and therefore in that same chapter, it's called “a land flowing with milk and honey.”

But in both cases, both in terms of the Garden of Eden and the Promised Land, there was an unbreakable link between the people and the land. And when the people sinned, the land was cursed in both cases. In Eden, God cursed the ground because of Adam and it would not produce fertile, lush harvest any longer, but thorns and thistles. And so also in the case of the promised land, one of the curses on it was a curse on the land itself. In Deuteronomy 28, said if you turn away from me and if you violate my covenant, and if you do not keep its stipulations, I will curse the land that you're living in. Deuteronomy 28:23-24, “The sky over your head will be bronze and the ground beneath you iron. The Lord will turn the reign of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.” So the turning of that fruitful land into the desert represents the cursing of the land because of the sin of the people. Verse 1 speaks, in our text, speaks of a desert and a parched land. How did it get to be that way? God didn't create it to be a desert. How did it get to be that way? Psalm 107:33-34, it says this, "God turned rivers into a desert, flowing springs into thirsty ground, and fruitful land he turned into a salt waste, because of the wickedness of those who live there." You see? The same thing happened at Sodom and Gomorrah. The same thing. A very lush fertile ground, that's why Lot chose to go there, God turned it into a salt ground. Cursed by God, why? Because of the wickedness and the sin in the people who live there. As we saw in Isaiah 34, God stretched out over Edom the plumb line of...measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of desolation. What's another word for desolation but a desert? God turned Edom into a desert because of their wickedness and their sin.

And so it is in the world we live in today. You can just hear, if you know what to listen for, you can hear the groaning of creation because of man's sin. Earthquakes claiming the lives of thousands of people, a third of a million people died in that earthquake in Haiti. Tsunamis and tidal waves like happened in over a year ago in Miyagi, Japan, killing 19,000 people and displacing again about a a third of a million people from their homes. Volcanoes in the world like Mount Marapi in Indonesia, that erupted and killed 122 people in November of 2010. Hurricane Katrina, as you know, killing over 1800 people and causing 81 billion dollars of damage. Heavy rains in the year 2010, heavy rains and floods and Gansu, China resulted in a devastating mud slide, leaving 1407 dead people. Floods in the Philippines in December last month related to a typhoon, again, killed over 500 people. In our own country last year during tornado season, just one killer tornado after another, just ripped through that part of our country, killing 19 people in Kentucky, 12 in Indiana, three in Ohio. Blizzards, droughts, wildfires, hailstorms—these are the sounds of the groaning of creation, with an attended death toll.

So what then is the blooming of the desert? What does it mean that the desert will bloom? Well, it's a supernatural act of intervening grace by a sovereign God. He steps into our groaning creation and changes everything. Isn't that magnificent? Look again at the words, “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; and they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.” This is just a magnificent blooming of creation, where once there was nothing but sterility and dust and thorns and thistles and curse, it's just totally reversed, and instead, now it's just this flourishing garden of Eden all over again.

And the desert here is personified, the desert itself is rejoicing greatly and the desert is shouting for joy, so instead of the sounds of groaning, you're hearing the sounds of creation shouting for joy. And the natural beauty is lavish, and he uses terms that we might be able…if we had been Jews in Isaiah's day, we would have understood, and we can extend our minds a little bit to understand it, the glory of Lebanon will be given to it. Lebanon was known for its cedars, it's huge trees, its forests. So maybe you've never been there, but maybe you've seen the redwoods in northern California, some other magnificent forest, and it's just gonna be incredibly beautiful like that. And Carmel and Sharon, we don't know that much about them, but just picture beautiful places on earth, you see, God didn't make the whole world a desert. He didn't make everything look openly cursed, he left enough beauty in this world so that we've seen it haven’t we? We've seen some really beautiful scenery, and we can imagine maybe like one of those islands in the South Pacific, like Tahiti or Bora Bora, some place like that, and it's just lush and beautiful or maybe the Amazonian rain forest, and you can imagine all of that without any of the groaning or decay that happens there.

So these things are going to happen, and this is a prophecy. God is putting his word, his power behind this. This is going to happen. It's going to flourish. And it's gonna be beautiful. And it's going to be, as it says in this text, they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God. And this is already getting on to my second point, but the minds of the observers will be changed, and no longer will we worship and serve created things. We're not gonna look at it and worship the tree, we're not gonna worship the whale, we're not gonna worship the rainbow or worship any of that stuff, we're going to worship the God who made those beautiful things. And the earth will be filled at last with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. It's gonna be magnificent.

Nature will be redeemed, and so will our eyes, our hearts to be able to receive it. So that's the second point. Look at verses 3-7. People transform, not just nature transform, but people transform from cursed weakness to blessed strength. Verse 3 and following, “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; here God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.’ Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then with a lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts were jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.” So now we get to the human condition, still a lot of natural language here, but here we're talking about people, hands and knees and hearts, eyes, ears, legs, we're talking about people.

Now, human weakness is a result of the Fall, human disease is a result of the Fall. Now, the weakness of the human race is of two kinds: physical and spiritual. Our bodies are diseased and our souls are diseased, and we must have a full salvation from these. People's bodies are weak through injury and disease and aging and fatigue, just simple fatigue. People's souls are weak through sin and rebellion and guilt and unbelief, and then discouragement and despair. And both of those together make life very, very difficult to live in this world, and some people so bad it feels like a curse just to be alive. But here God addresses, he speaks directly into the weakness of our human situation and sin, and he speaks to us a word of redemption, a word of salvation through Jesus Christ, and so we have human weakness transformed to strength. Look at verses 3-4, “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come to you.’” So I took that as a personal message this morning. I said, “God was saying that to me.”

Just like Isaiah 40, when he spoke to Isaiah the prophet and said, “‘Comfort, comfort my people,’ says your God.” So I wanna do that for you if I can. So I just wanna be a conduit of strength and steadying and banishment of fear by the word of God. But this isn't just something the pastor can do behind the pulpit. Why don't you all do that for each other the rest of the week? Why don't you just speak God's promises to each other the rest of the week, and why don't you steady those feeble knees that are about to buckle? Why don't you find some weak hands that are about to give up, and strengthen them? And isn’t it amazing what strengthened them, right in the text? “Say to those” etcetera, just the word, just the word, the feeble word. Just speak the word, 'cause it's not feeble, “it's the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.” I think this is going on right now while I preach. I think your hope is getting stronger again, you're actually eager for the future, you're actually saying, “When will it come, O Lord? I wanna see all that. It's gonna be beautiful. I wanna get there. Not there yet, but I wanna get there.” So it's already happening.

Now, for the Jews in Isaiah's day maybe it would be you are in exile like Daniel was or some of the others that were carried off into exile and you're wondering, when can we go back? But that's not enough for me. I wanna speak even beyond that to say to all of God's people throughout history, we know the real battle is not with the Assyrians or the Babylonians. The real battle is with the world, the flesh and the devil, and oh, how weary we get when we're fighting it. And we need to be reminded that God's commands are actually promises when he says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” some day you will be, some day you will be by the sovereign power of God, because your God will come, and he will come to save you. And you may feel feeble and weak on the external journey too, say, “How can I do anything for anyone else? How can I lead anyone to Christ? They never seem to come to Christ. How can we plant churches and unreached people groups? It just seems impossible for us to do anything.” Banish those thoughts, they are from Satan himself. God will be exalted in the world, he'll be glorified, and he will save all of his elect and those churches will get planted and those people will get saved. All of them, not one will be missing.

And so here's the message of encouragement to strengthen us, and we have a responsibility to do this for each other. I preached on this, kind of, a few months ago in Hebrews 12, as the author quoted this, Hebrews 12:12-13, it says, “Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.” Does that sound familiar? Now we're getting it from the back side. On that Sunday, I quoted Isaiah 35. Now, in the Sunday, I'm quoting Hebrews 12. Isn't that fun, how the Bible's interconnected? But it says to the church, “Strengthen each other, build each other up, encourage one another. Speak words of blessing to one another.” “‘Make level paths for your feet,’” he says there in Hebrews 12:13, “so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.” What path are you on? We'll get to that in a minute, but it's called the Highway of Holiness, that's the path you're on, and it's a long, long journey. But let's strengthen each other.

So not only do we get a message of encouragement, we also get a promise that our bodies will be radically, supernaturally transformed. Look at verses 5-6. Those of you that are fans of Handel’s Messiah, you can hum along, but do it quietly. “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then with a lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” Shall we just cut to the chase? This is a clear prediction of the ministry of Jesus Christ. That's what it is. It's not metaphorical alone. We'll get to that in a minute. It is a clear prediction that someone would come to do this and that someone is Jesus. Now, isn't it amazing when you contemplate the wonders of Jesus, the signs and wonders, the miracles. I believe in every case, you can make a case, every time it was a restoration to the author's original intention. He is basically restoring back to the way things should have been, what sin has done in the world.

Think for example of the stilling of the storm, God it did not make the storm to make the sea to be a killer. He didn't intend for his apostles to drown in a boating accident, it's not the world God intended, where nature eats you alive and you drown. And so he got up and what did he do? He rebuked the wind and the waves, and he stilled the storm. Or think of the feeding of the 5000 out in that desert place, and there was nothing to eat. God did not make your body your stomach to starve, he didn't create you to die by starvation, that's evidence of the Fall, but instead he fed you. Think of the changing of the water to wine at the banquet. I believe this represents the flowing of the Holy Spirit, and God did not intend for us to sit at a banquet and to be sterile of joy and have no presence of the Spirit, etcetera, but he lavished blessing on them. But notice I kind of didn't mention the real miracle is 90 percent of them or more were what? They were healings. Most of them are healings, and that is so obviously a restoration back to what God originally intended, he did not create the eye to be blind. He didn't have all of those magnificent functions, the retina, the cornea, and the optical nerve, and all the capability of sight—he didn't make all that so that it wouldn't work.

Four different times in the Gospels there are accounts of Jesus healing blind people, the best by far, of course, John 9, in which John creates space in his very tight gospel, he only had certain things in there, but he has a whole chapter on this one miracle, whole chapter. On the healing of a man born blind. And it's such an incredible thing that the man himself said, “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened eyes of a man born blind.” This has never been done before. Utterly astonishing display of the power of God. But there are other miracles listed here as well. The ears of the deaf are unstopped, like when Jesus puts saliva on the tips of his fingers and touched the man's tongue, and then he put his fingers in the man's ears and said, “ ,” which is, “Be opened.” It's direct fulfillment of this, Isaiah 35, “Then will the ears of the deaf be unstopped…and the mute tongue will sing for joy.” Supernatural display of the power of God.

Or the lame leaping like a deer in Matthew 9. You remember the story of the paralyzed man, they brought him on a mat and they couldn't get toward...they couldn't get near Jesus, there is too many people, and so they dug through the roof. Those are great friends. You need friends like that, friends that don't give up and they dig through the roof. I don't know if they later fixed the roof and paid for it or what happened with all that, but they dug through the roof and they lowered this man down right in front of Jesus. I often wondered if pieces of the roof were falling in front of Jesus while he was teaching or whatever he was doing, that they all looked up wondering what was happening, I wonder if it took like 10 or 15 minutes to finish the job, I wonder if Jesus used that time well to keep teaching and then finally the opening was big enough, I think about things like this. And it took a while, but there it was, and the man was descended, he was lowered down right in front of Jesus.

And it says, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.’” Still paralyzed. Still paralyzed. Let me give you what you really need. You know what you really need? You need forgiveness by Almighty God, and I'm here to give it to you. And remember how the people were offended, and they said in their own hearts, “This fellow is blaspheming!” Who can forgive sins but God alone? And he said, “Why do you say these things in your hearts?” That's a bit eerie, to be in the presence of Jesus reading your mind. “‘Which is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say to this paralyzed man, “Rise and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins,’ and he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Rise and walk.’ And he did.”

Jesus still has power to forgive sins, that's what Isaiah 35:5-6 is ultimately about the power of Jesus to forgive your sins, and you are a sinner and so I am I. And we need that forgiveness, without it we will be lost. Read about it in the last chapter. And the smoke of the torment rises forever and ever. Flee that. Flee to Jesus, who has the power to heal you from sin, but actually, I believe that these healings were not just physical, I believe they were metaphorical. How can you believe both? I think they pointed to a higher healing, which was spiritual. Not only were our eyes physically damaged, our ability to see God, to see his glory was damaged. We were blind toward God. Because later in that same chapter, in John 9, you remember Jesus' enemies come out, the very ones that kicked the blind man, now seeing out of the synagogue 'cause he testified to Jesus, they kicked them out, Jesus goes and finds them like the Good Shepherd, that's the very next captor, he goes and finds him to bring him in. And the enemies are there, they're the wolves and the enemies, and they're right there. And Jesus says to them, “‘For judgment I have come into the world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.’ Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and said, ‘What? Are we blind too?’ And Jesus said, ‘If you were blind you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” So it's not just a physical blindness that Jesus is dealing with there; clearly, it's a spiritual blindness too.

And it's not just that he's able to open physically deaf ears so they can now physically hear sounds, it's that we were deaf to the word of God, we were not listening to him, you see? So at the end of each of Jesus' parables, what does he say every time? “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Have I given you the ability to hear me? Then listen to me. And it's not just that physical lameness was going on, people couldn't get up and walk around—it's that we had no power to walk in the way of God, we had no power to walk in the commands of God, we were paralyzed toward his commands. And it's not just that our tongues were physically mute and we couldn't speak physically—it's that we could not speak the words of God, we could not speak the praise of God, we saw sunrises and sunsets, and we said, “Praise be Baal. Praise be Molech. Or isn't that a beautiful sunset?” and never thought about God and we did not speak and say, “To God be the glory for all of this.” All of that needed healing, we needed to be healed, so that we could spiritually see God and hear him speak by his word, and walk in the path of his commands and speak the words of God to one another and the praises of God. That's the healing we needed, and so do you see how perfect it is that Jesus did these healings as these miracles? It did everything all at once. Pointed to both the physical salvation of the universe and the spiritual salvation of the universe.

And so the desert comes alive. Look at verses 6-7, “Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.” Physically, this is a clear picture of what the new heaven and new earth will look like. It's going to be incredible, lush, and beautiful. But I think it's also a clear picture of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit of God. I believe often the Spirit is likened to water. With the Samaritan woman, he's likened to water. In John 7, “Out of your inner being, streams of living water will flow,” by this he meant the Spirit. Later in Isaiah, listen to this, this is so clear. You get that Hebrew parallelism that beautiful poetry and it's so clear that the Holy Spirit equals water. Isaiah 44:3-4, “For I'll pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.” See, that's just directly parallel. “They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams.” So the agricultural images go right over to people, we are like green grass, we are like poplar trees by flowing streams by the power of the Spirit.

And what is the transforming event? Verse 4, I already said, this is what it is. Verse 4, “Say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come.’” Friends, these transformations I've been talking about, they do not come by human power, they don't come by human ingenuity. I don't wanna hear about what the Jews are doing with irrigation in the promised land. That's marvelous and incredible—that's not this. You understand? It's a supernatural transformation that only God can do. We can celebrate the skills of friends of ours, church members, at giving sight to blinded people, but I believe this text is talking about a day when there will be no blind people at all, and there'll be no deaf people and no lame people and no mute people at all, when disease itself will be banished forever. And the key to everything is your God will come. God's gonna intervene, he's gonna step into history, says Isaiah, the prophet, seventh century BC, he's gonna step, he's gonna come.

Well, you know, the ultimate expression of this is the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, born of a virgin. And the angel Gabriel said to her very plainly, “‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel,’ which means, ‘God with us [or similar to your God has come].’” He is here, now, and he comes to save his people. Says, your God will come, he will come not to wipe you out, he will come to save you. And so in that same chapter, Matthew 1:21, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Jesus is the Savior of the world, he is the one who comes to do these things, 1 John 4:14, “And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” Now, the text also says he will come with vengeance and with divine retribution, he will come to do that too. There are sheep and there are goats. There's wheat, and there are weeds. There are good fish, and there are the bad fish. And there's going to be a vast separation, Jesus has taught this very plainly, and he will come it says “with the vengeance and with divine retribution,” we saw that in the last chapter.

Now, these things were fulfilled at the first and will be fulfilled at the second coming of Christ. The two comings of Christ fulfill these prophecies. He will come to save you. He saves you by dying on the cross, by taking on our sins in his body and dying on the cross into the wrath and judgment of God, he comes to save you that way. And not only that, but being raised from the dead on the third day in a resurrection body that is our future. Those are the eyes that will never be blind, those are the ears will never go deaf, the resurrection body. Second coming, he will come with vengeance and with divine retribution. In Revelation 19, heaven will stand open and we will see One on a white horse leading the armies of heaven back to bring wrath and judgment on all those who have not repented and trusted in Christ.

So, for me, I urge you to flee to Christ, now, to listen to these words, to allow these words to transform your heart, that your eyes will be opened and you will see in Christ crucified—you can't see any images or pictures, nothing's flashing up on the screen, we're not looking at tha—just in your mind Jesus Christ is publicly portrayed as crucified this morning, dead for you in your place. But not only that, on the third day, risen from the dead, as though you are in the upper room and you're able to put your fingers in the nail marks and your hand on the side and say, “He's not just a spirit, he's not a ghost, he's been bodily raised from the dead, he is my Savior.” And say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” If you walked in here lost, you walked in here unregenerate, you walked in here blind and deaf and lame and mute, don't walk out here like that. You can walk out seeing and hearing and walking spiritually and speaking the praises of God. What do you have to do? You don't have to do anything. Believe him. Believe him. You don't have to move a muscle, just believe him. Look at the order in Matthew 9. First, to the paralyzed, man, “Your sins are forgiven.” Second, “Rise and walk.” There's your priority structure. Let Jesus speak into your soul, your sins are forgiven. Confess him as your Lord.

Is that the end of it? No, it's not even the end of the chapter. You're wondering how can even the pastor can't get through 10 verses, well I think you know. Just look at it—it's a magnificent. This morning, I decided it would be two sermons. How can I describe the Highway of Holiness in four minutes? It can't be done. So it won't be done, but what I will do is I will read it to you and I'll say it points toward the rest of your life after you come to faith in Christ. Look what it says, “And the highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransom of the Lord will return. And they will enter Zion with singing.”

The moment you trust in Christ, your eyes are opened and you can see him at last, you begin, God sets you on a journey, and he calls it here in this text, the Highway of Holiness. And you're not allowed to be on that unless you're redeemed, only the redeemed can be on it, they're the only ones on that highway. And it's a place of safety and security and protection, no lion can get there, and you're going to make it, friends, you're gonna make it right to the end, and at the end you're going to enter Zion, the Holy Place of God, and there will be a rich, warm welcome for you, and you will be singing and they will be singing, and you will spend eternity in bliss and joy. “Everlasting joy will crown your head…and sorrow and sighing will flee away from you.” That's the future. So next time I preach in Isaiah, not next week, two weeks from now, I'll finish this chapter. So let's close in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the marvels of salvation, thank you for the marvels of Jesus' power. We thank you for the marvels of the promise. “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” Oh God, make it happen. I pray it would be happening spiritually right now. I pray there wouldn't be a single person leaving this room unregenerate, not one person leaving this place not believing in Jesus. I pray that they would trust in him and that they would get up from that, and then begin walking the walk of holiness. Oh God, I pray, give us time, if it be your will, that two weeks from now we can talk more about that. Oh God, make us holy. Help us to yearn to put sin to death and to walk that way until at last we come into Zion forever. In Jesus name, Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Isaiah 34:1-17. The main subject of the sermon is God's guarantee that He will bring wrath on all the wicked to the ends of the earth.

Well, 2012 is over and we made it, especially past December 21st, 2012, 3:21 Pacific time, that Mayan experts told us was when the end was going to come. I don't even know what I was doing at that point. I guess it would have been like 6:20 or so in the evening. I think I was just doing whatever I was doing on that day. Wasn't too troubled by the Mayan apocalypse. I guess I was convinced that God had not communicated his will for the future to the Mayans and not to us. For God has spoken through the Prophets by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. And this church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And about that day and hour, Jesus said, “No one knows what's coming, not the angels in heaven, nor even the Son, but only the Father,” he said in the days of his incarnation on Earth. But it brings up this question of just the tendency that we have for an interest in doomsday scenarios, an interest in the future, a deep seeded yearning to know where are we heading? What's to become of us? And even deeper is the fear that it's not going to be good, that we're heading towards something really, really terrifying, something that really will bring the human race to an end, called doomsday scenarios.

Perhaps some monstrous meteorite is hurdling toward us, and there's nothing that we'll be able to do, to stop it, and it'll smash the surface of the Earth and change the climate so significantly that no human life will be able to survive. Or perhaps radiation blast from solar flares on the surface of the earth will heat up the core of the Earth so significantly that life on earth will be impossible. Or a gamma-ray burst somewhere in the galaxy, which cosmologists tell us is the most powerful event that there is in the cosmos, will make its way to the Earth and end at all. Or maybe the gradual destruction of the earth's ozone layer. Global warming will change the climate enough to make the human race become extinct. Or perhaps the eruption of a super volcano will do about the same thing, all those scenarios basically come from physicists and environmentalists and cosmologists. There are doomsday scenarios that come from the science of politics, as well, and military might. In my childhood, when I was growing up, it was the Cold War between the West and the Communist block, the Soviet Union, specifically United States and the Soviet Union. When I was an infant, I don't remember this, of course, but the terror of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and students were trained how to huddle under their desks or how to go to a fallout shelter. Sometimes you see in old urban areas, those fallout shelter signs.

In 1983, when I was a junior in college, there was a TV program called The Day After, some of you may remember it, in which the story line runs...it was a TV movie. Tensions between NATO and Warsaw Pact escalated to the point where there was a full nuclear exchange, resulting in nuclear holocaust. And the TV movie focused on what would happen specifically to citizens of two communities in Lawrence, Kansas and in Kansas City, Missouri. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, those kinds of expectations shifted a bit and moved over to the possibility of terrorist groups, irresponsible terrorist groups, getting hold of thermonuclear weapons and bringing an end to the human race, or perhaps the threats of biological, like an airborne pathogen that could just spread like wildfire through our race and bring us to extinction. Amazingly, some movies even depict the threat of robots of artificial intelligence, which will rise up against their creators and take over the planet, winning that war and ending the human race. Now, all of these doomsday scenarios and many others have been the fodder for movies and other things like that, showing the tremendous interest that people have for that, shows that the human heart is fixed on the future in a dark sort of sense.

What's interesting to me as I look at all of these things, I find that with all of these popular depictions of the end, they're leaving one thing out, and I think it's the greatest threat that there is to the human race, and that is the wrath of God. And frankly, the clearest, doomsday scenario that there is, is unfolded in the pages of the book you carried with you in here this morning, the Bible. There is a clear doomsday scenario unfolded for us in the pages of the book of Revelation, most specifically there. And that book is filled with the outpouring of the wrath of God on the sinful human race. Our dark fears about the future have their origins in the Garden of Eden, when Adam was told, as I prayed about a moment ago, that he must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in the day that he ate of it, he would surely die. And Adam sinned, he ate from that fruit, and he heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and he was terrified, and he hid from God. And God cursed him and cursed the ground because of him, but he didn't kill him that day. Instead, God had a purpose, a plan for history to unfold, and God decided to defer the death penalty that Adam did experience later on. And so that's where it starts, the looking ahead with fear to a dark future and wondering when is it going to come?

And so history is unfolded in the Book of Revelation, you have one judgment after another, one seal of the seven seals being broken after another, one trumpet or one bowl being poured out on the surface of the earth after another, and phenomenon, just appalling, startling, terrifying phenomenon. The sun dark and the moon not giving its light, the stars falling from the sky and the earth being removed, shaken and terror striking the entire human race. And judgments on the fresh water and on all the oceans and everything in the sea, dying and all of the water turning to bitterness to wormwood and people dying, just huge, huge numbers of people dying—a third of mankind dying in some of these plagues. Just think about that! Billions and billions of people, several billion people dying at the same time, you just... We can't even conceive what that's like. Chapter after chapter of this doomsday scenario, which is portrayed as prophecy, it's going to come. The Bible says it's going to happen.

And as we come to Isaiah 34, we have in microcosm, some of the themes that are unfolded for us in the Book of Revelation. As a matter of fact, Revelation quotes Isaiah 34 for some of it. We see in miniature the themes of the terror of the wrath of God being poured out on all nations on the face of the earth, right here in Isaiah 34. Now, next week, God willing will have the chance to look at the other side of the equation, Isaiah 35, which talks about the joy and delights of the redeemed. Some pastors take the two together, but I've chosen to preach this week on Chapter 34, and next week on 35, so please come back next week. And I won't fail to give you the good news in Jesus this week as I desire to do every week.

But today we have the difficult business of looking at the wrath of God on all nations as depicted in Isaiah 34, and it begins in verse 1 with a summons, God gives a summons to all nations to hear him and to listen to him. Look at verse 1, “Come near, you nations, and listen; pay attention, you peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that is in it, the world, and all that comes out of it!” God is summoning the peoples of the world to listen to him and the pages of Scripture here, and he raises up people like me to proclaim it and to speak it so that you hear the sound of these words. And this is incredible, this is God's grace, his indescribable grace to his enemies. To say, “I want you to know what's going to happen. I wanna tell you what the future holds.” He's the only one that can do it. God doesn't have to warn us, doesn't owe it to us to warn us. He can merely wipe out the sinners as he chooses to in his own time and in his own way—he does not have to warn us. But here he does give a very clear warning. He's gracious and he summons the earth to listen to him. Just like at the very beginning of this book, in Isaiah 1:2, “Hear, O heavens; listen, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.” He wants people to hear him speak.

We can also see in this word, the incredible patience of God toward his enemies, who are seething with hatred toward him, who are living in rebellion against him, and yet God so patient. This chapter written over 27 centuries ago, it's a long time for God to wait. He is very patient. Not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance, as it says in 2 Peter. Sadly, so many of the people are not mindful of the fact that God's kindness and tolerance and patience is meant to lead you to repentance. That's what it's for, God's grace. And the warning here of this chapter, what it's all about in the words of John the Baptist, as he called out to the sinners of his generation, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” That's what this is about, the coming wrath, the wrath to come. And he said, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”

We also see in this summons in verse 1, the power of the word of God to deliver our souls. It is by listening to God speak that you will be saved. If you will just here and believe his word, you will be saved. Faith comes by hearing God's word, and this scripture gives enough warning of what's to come. He's told us what's coming. And if we heed that warning, if we hear it and believe it. Remember how I said in Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, but also the [rebuke] of things not seen.” To be brought up short to be convicted, to be convicted of sin by things not seen, to deal seriously with Judgment Day and the wrath to come, that's a gift of faith, and God gives it by hearing the Word.

So Isaiah 34 has the power to lift up in your heart the themes you need to deal with, so that you don't go in for the satanic illusion that things are always gonna go on is they always have. It's a lie. There's going to come an end. God himself will be the one to bring it about. But the good news in the center of all of this, faith in the crucified and resurrected Lord, has the power to deliver you from the wrath to come. If you will flee to Christ, he will welcome you. “All [that] the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never drive them away….[But] I will raise them up [on] the last day.” So you flee to Christ, and he will protect you from the wrath to come. You know why? 'Cause he is the wrath to come. He is the wrath to come, he is the wrath of God. And if you flee to him, he will deliver you. So that's a summons and he wants everyone to hear... And we're part of that, we're part of the world, we're part of the nations on earth. We who are living here in the United States of America, we here in North Carolina in Durham, we're part of the Earth. And God's summoning us to listen to him today in verse 1. What does he say?

Well, look at verse 2-4, “The Lord is angry with all nations; his wrath is upon all their armies. He will totally destroy them, he will give them over to slaughter. Their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will send up a stench; the mountains will be soaked with their blood. All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved and the sky rolled up like a scroll; [and] all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree.” That's the message. And so there are two shocking kind of themes or ideas in this chapter. First is that God is a God of overpowering wrath. He's a passionate being, and he is angry about sin. It's very disturbing to people. Secondly, the fact is that God is angry with all nations—not just some of them, but with every single nation on the face of the earth. His wrath is against all their armies. And why is this? Why? What's the cause of this? Well, the Bible's answer is very clear: God is angry about sin. It makes him angry when we sin, and “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23. And why are there no exceptions? Why are there no exceptions? Well, it's because there's not a single political nation on earth that exists solely and exclusively for the glory of God in Jesus Christ—not one. That's why.

It's very black and white, very simple, Jesus made it black and white, “He who is not with me is against me, and [whoever] does not gather with me scatters.” It's really that simple. What does he mean? Whoever “does not gather with me scatters.” What is he gathering? Well, as I said before, sin had a scattering effect on the universe an explosive effect, like a fragmentation grenade just blowing up this beautiful, orderly, perfect world that God made, and God in Christ is bringing all of those pieces back together and making them one under one head, God himself. And so he is gathering together all the scattered children of God and making them one, he says in John chapter 11, and in Ephesians 1:10, he is bringing “all things in heaven and earth together under one head, even Christ.” Is there a political nation on earth that's interested in those things, that's exerting its time and treasure and talents and efforts toward doing that? There's not one. And therefore they're against him, you see? If you're not gathering with them, you're scattering.

Now, this chapter also gives stark pictures of judgment and wrath, armies, armies given over to slaughter, literally dedicated to destruction, there's a Hebrew word that's very significant theologically, it's related to the word for harem in English. The giving over, almost in a sacred...a solemn sacred ceremony, a giving over to something, for a sacred purpose. In this case, it's for the purpose of destruction. And so God in his holiness wants the toxic waste in one place and he wants to destroy it, and so it's given over to destruction. He uses the same word with Joshua when they crossed the Jordan River and he put the harem, he put that devotion to destruction on the city of Jericho and everything in it. He said, “Don't take any of it, it's all devoted to destruction, all of it.” Or again, the command that God gave to Saul with the Amalekites, they were under the same thing. Well, here he's doing it to all nations and all their armies; they're all given over to destruction in his mind. Verse 3 is horrible, it's horrible. Dead bodies, giving up a stench, mountains soaked with blood. This is not metaphorical, this is talking about dead people, lots of them, and the stench that comes from them.

In Verse 4, even the host in the heavens will in some sense come under the judgment. In the ESV in verse 4, it says, “All the host of [the] heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.” Part of this I think is just in some amazing way, the end of the cosmos, as we know it. Copernicus is right, the sun doesn't revolve around the earth, the other way around. But this doctrine teaches that the earth is still the center of God's attention, and when events on Earth come to their end, the stars will fall from the sky. Now, that may seem like mythology to atheistic cosmologists, but the Scripture says it multiple places, not one or two. And so the stars will come to an end, when events on Earth come to an end, when God decrees it. Perhaps, and by the way, it says they shall rot away or dissolve, John Newton picked up on this in one of the not as commonly sung verses of “Amazing Grace.” They'll dissolve like snow. The sense is that all the elements in 2 Peter will melt in the heat, they will come apart and cease their present existence, they'll dissolve.

So the stars—but this could also in some way, and I think prophetic language can do double duty, that there's a physical side, but there's also a spiritual side. And the host in the heavens could also refer to Satan and his armies as well. Because it says in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” And so there are hosts in the heavenly realm, Satan and his demons and all that, and they're going to get judged, God has spiritual enemies in the heavenly realms, and he has been very tolerant of them to allow them to continue to roam about the Earth and cause trouble and to tempt, and to accuse and to do all kinds of wickedness and evil. The heavens themselves, both physical and spiritual, are coming to an end. Hebrews 1, “They will perish….they will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed.”

Now, in verses 5-15, we turn our attention to the nation of Edom, to the Edomites, and I believe that Edom represents not only an actual physical nation that lived near Israel, but also, spiritually, they represent all of the reprobate human beings. These are people who hate God, who rebel against him, who stumble over the stumbling stone, which is also what they were destined for, as it says in Peter, 1 Peter. These are the rebels seething with hatred against God and against Christ. So it's not just that God is gonna do all this punishing of Edom, it's that the language just soars above that, and Edom then represents sinful humanity on mass, all those nations. Edom is all the nations. Does that make sense? So it's representation here. So we go from universal talking about the universe, to have focused on not just all the nations and all their armies, but zeroing in on Edom. Look at verse 5, “My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; [behold], it descends in judgment on Edom, the people I have [devoted to destruction].” Do you see that? They're given over to destruction, the people of Edom. Again, in verse 6, “The sword of the Lord is bathed in blood, [and] it is covered with fat—the blood of lambs and goats, fat from the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in Edom.” Bozrah is the capital, a city of Edom. Again, in verse 9, look at it, “Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch, [and] her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become a blazing pitch!”

So Edom as I have said, is both a historical nation and they are a spiritually representative nation, both in the Bible. Edom was made up of the descendants of Esau, Jacob's brother. Esau was the twin brother of Jacob; in the Bible, he is a symbol of the reprobate man, the godless man who sold his birthright for a bowl of stew, who has no faith at all. No interest in redemptive history, no interest in a birth right, no interest in a blessing, except that it meant a good relationship with his dad. Loved meat, loved the good life, that's Esau. He's a representation of the reprobate, there are many prophecies of judgment against his descendants, the Edomites. Amos chapter 1 says, “For three sins of Edom, [and] even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. Because he pursued his brother with a sword, stifling all compassion because his anger raged continually and his fury flamed unchecked, I will send fire upon Teman that will consume the fortresses of Bozrah [capital city].” The whole little book of Obadiah is given over to a prophecy of destruction of Edom, who set their city up on a high place and thought that they could never be destroyed. God said, “I'm gonna bring you down.”

But the most significant Old Testament prophecy about Esau is in Malachi 1:2-4. There God says to the Jews, to the Jewish people, “I have loved [you].” He says to the descendants of Jacob, “I have loved [you].” And they answer back, as they do throughout the book of Malachi, they answer back, “How have you loved us?” So he's gonna give an answer to that question, “‘Was not Esau Jacob's brother?’ says the Lord. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated.’” So how have I loved you? Because I elected you, because I chose you and chose not to treat you the way I treated Esau. That's how I loved you. Not because you're so great, because you're not. But just because I chose you. So how have you loved us? Answer, I loved you in election, unconditionally. So to continue, “‘Was not Esau Jacob's brother?’ the Lord [said]. ‘Yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated. And I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.’” Same language as Isaiah 34. Do you see it? The desolation language. Edom may say that we have been crushed, we will rebuild the cities. But this is what the Lord Almighty says, “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord.”

Now, the Apostle Paul takes that quote and drops it right into Romans chapter 9 to talk about God's sovereignty and salvation. You're familiar with the quote in Romans chapter 9, he uses this quote to talk about reprobates, or non-elect people, whom God has devoted to destruction. Romans 9:10-13, he says, “Not only that, but [Rebekah,] Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works, but by him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’” Well, I'm not preaching through Romans 9, I've done that, you can listen on the internet, but basically, the lessons of that is unconditional election. God's purpose in election is that he would get the glory for human salvation, and that no one who ends up in heaven will boast against him for anything. And so he makes the election before they do anything or can boast about anything, good or bad. God's sovereign purpose, that's why that God alone would be glorified in salvation, that's the whole lesson of Edom of the descendants of Esau. So here in Isaiah 34, Edom is a real nation, they're facing real judgments from God, but they're also representative nation standing in the place of all of the reprobates mentioned in Romans chapter 9.

In verse 5-7, it speaks of the sword of God's wrath. It says there, “My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; [behold], it descends in judgment on Edom, the people I have totally destroyed. The sword of the Lord is bathed in blood, it is covered with fat—the blood of the lambs and goats, fat from the kidneys of rams, for the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in Edom. And the wild oxen will fall with them, the bull calves and the great bulls. [And] their land will be drenched with blood and the dust will be soaked with fat.” So the sword of the Lord is his judgment against his enemies, and he does battle up in the heavenly realms and wins and then descends down to do battle on Earth with his human enemies.

And the language here is very bloody, it's very sacrificial, there's a real sacrificial feel here, so I was meditating, what are the bulls and the oxen and the fat from the kidneys and all that. That's all sacrificial language. And I guess as I am meditating on this is how it works: basically, the whole purpose of animal sacrifice was to teach the lesson of substitution, right? The animal died, and the man or the woman didn't. You see? And all of that points to the cross. Don't you see that Jesus died and we don't. That's what animal sacrifice was to teach, but here, what's getting sacrificed, it's not animals. I know it's all talking about animals, but it's not animals. It's not the blood of animals, that's making the dust in the sand of Edom red with blood. These are people, because they would not follow him and they would not believe in him, and there was no substitution for them. It’s a great sacrifice, a terrible slaughter performed by the sword of God's wrath.

In verse 8 it says there is a day of the Lord in which he will uphold Zion's cause. It says, “For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of retribution, to uphold Zion's cause.” So here we come to the idea of the day of the Lord, deferred judgment. It's not here yet. And so for all the Edoms there are in the world, it's just not here yet. Just God's patient and he's bearing with great patience, it says, the objects of his wrath prepare for destruction. Same teaching in Romans 9, he's patiently bearing with them, but he does have a day of vengeance, he has a day of the Lord that is coming, and people think as it goes on and saying, “It's not coming, nothing's gonna come. Everything's gonna go on as it always has.” That's what they think, but it's not true, because God has a day in store for judgment and for wrath. And it says specifically he is gonna take vengeance on the enemies of his people to uphold Zion's cause he's going to beat up on those who have beat up on his people. He's going to kill or shed the blood of those who shed the blood of his people. I think that's the home base of understanding, verse 8, “The Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of retribution, to uphold Zion his people, to uphold their cause.”

If you read about it in Daniel chapter 7, there are these four beasts that come up out of the sea, and they represent vast empires, human nations, organized and terrifying, and the fourth one, the terrible beast, not even described, we don't know what kind of beast it is, but it's worse than all the others. And there are these horns and there's this final horn, and it says that the saints were given over to the horn, he wages war on them and he conquered them, He shed their blood, he killed him, he was allowed to win for a while. Daniel says, “for a time, times and half a time.” Now, many scholars believe this is talking about the Antichrist, the final world ruler who will organize the world in one government and use all of that political power and military might against the people of God. And I think that's true, but I also think John says, “You've heard that there is an Antichrist coming, and many Antichrists have come,” so there's been lots of them. I think Hitler was one, I think he organized a nation, military power, and governmental structure against the people of God. He crushed them and killed them, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer for example. But when they die, when they get separated from their bodies and they go up, according to Revelation chapter 6, they go up and say, “OK, God, how long? How long until you avenge our blood?” Revelation 6, “When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who'd been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. [And] they called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the Earth and avenge our blood?’ Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer until the full number of their fellow servants and brothers who would be killed as they had been was completed.” Patience, more people have to die.

But there is a day of vengeance that will come later in Revelation, “The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and in the springs of water, and they [turned into] blood…. [And] the angel in charge of the waters [said]: ‘You are just in these judgments, you who are and who were. the holy One, because you have so judged,” that's enough, but there's a reason too, “‘for they shed the blood of your saints and prophets, and you have now given them blood to drink as they deserve.’ And I heard the altar respond: ‘Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.’”

Now, Edom's judgments are a foretaste of hell, look at verses 9-10. It says, “Edom streams will be turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch! It will not be quenched night and day; its smoke will rise forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever pass through it again.” If you know what to look for, this sounds a lot like hell, lot like hell. Revelation 14, it speaks of those that receive the mark of the beast and worship the image. And it says, if anyone does that “he, too, will drink the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest, day or night.” It's almost the exact same expression. And so, Edom's judgment, in Isaiah 34 is a foretaste, a picture of hell of eternal judgment, unquenched fire, smoke rising, burning sulfur, unresting aspect day and night, etcetera.

And in Verses 11-15, The once flourishing land of Edom is turned into chaos and emptiness, a picture of complete desolation and rejection by the Lord. Look at the verses, it says, “The desert owl and screech owl will possess it; the great owl and the raven will nest there. God will stretch out over Edom the measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of desolation. Her nobles will have nothing there to be called a kingdom, all her princes will vanish away. Thorns will overrun her citadels, [and] nettles and brambles her strongholds. She'll become a haunt for jackals, [and] a home for owls. Desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and wild goats will bleat to each other; there the night creatures will also repose and find for themselves places of rest. The owl will nest there and lay eggs, she will hatch them, and care for her young under the shadow of her wings; [and] there also the falcons will gather, each with its mate.” Many times Isaiah speaks in this kind of language, natural language of desolation, desert life, etcetera, coming on the land as an active judgment from God.

So I think in space and time in history, God judged the people of Esau, the Edomites and turned their land into this. But look at some of the details, it says, “[I'm going to measure] out over Edom, the plumb line of chaos and the measuring line of desolation.” These are the exact words that God uses to describe the creation after Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Verse 2, “Now the earth was formless and empty.” Same words used here, so what God's saying is, “I'm going to deconstruct what I have constructed. It's the opposite, I'm going to take my power and go the opposite direction, not building up into beauty and order, but breaking down into chaos and desolation.” And he says, “I'm gonna use a measuring line and a plumb line.” It's a very meticulous careful work. He knows what he's doing. It's not accident, he knows what he's doing. And he speaks in the language of thorns. Thorns is the language of God's curse. It's gonna overrun her citadels, and nettles and brambles her strongholds, and desert creatures will live there undisturbed from generation to generation.

So summary, Edom represents not merely one nation of God's enemies, but all nations, ultimately. Nations that fought against the people of God and persecuted them and oppose God's glory in the world, God will judge them completely, in effect speaking them out of orderly created existence, not annihilation, but just the end of that beauty of creation that they have known, and their land will become desolate because all of them will be dead.

Now finally, in verses 16-17, we have the book of the Lord referred to here, “Look in the scroll of the Lord and read: None of these will be missing, not one will lack her mate. For it is his mouth that has given the order, and his Spirit will gather them together. He allots their portions; his hand distributes them by measure. [And] they will possess it forever and dwell there from generation to generation.” So this is God's scroll, it refers to his sovereign plan. He has worked all this out, “All the days are ordained for [the world] were written in [God's] book before one of them came to be,” according to Psalm 139. And so you look in the scroll and it's all been figured out, all of it, and not only that, but we have his Spirit moving out to take what was written in the scroll to make it happen.

So as you had early on Isaiah 14, you have God's plan and God's hand, as we've talked about before, God's plan and in his hand, God's plan plus his hand equals the future. Isaiah 14:26-27, “This is the plan determined for the whole world; [and] this is the hand stretched out over all nations.” See plan and hand. “For the Lord Almighty has purposed,” that's planned, “and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out,” there's his power, “and who can turn it back?” So there's gonna be a lot of wild animals there, and desolation will be there, and judgment, and that really happened, I think, to the Edomites, it happened to their nation, and all of it according to the purpose of God. Paul had it right in Athens, when he said, speaking of all of human history, “From one man [God] made every nation of men…and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. [And] God did this so that [people] would seek him and…reach out for him and find him, though, he is not far from [each] one of us.”

Now, how does this chapter prepare us for the second coming of Christ? Well, it's going to happen, these things are going to happen. Jesus quoted this in Matthew chapter 24. Matthew 24, he said, “Immediately after the distress of those days ‘“the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” ‘[And] at that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all nations…will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” It's going to happen. It's not a metaphor, it's a prophecy.

Revelation 6 picks up in the same language, “I watched as he opened the sixth seal. [And] there was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red…the stars in the sky fell to the earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. [And] then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks and the mountains. [And] they called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of that the their wrath has come, and who [is able] to stand?” They're gonna be looking for a refuge, like a cave at that point, there's no cave that will be a refuge. Oh, but there is a refuge. It’s right now today, it’s faith in Jesus is the refuge.

Finally, at the end of the Book of Revelation, there is the the dragon, the great dragon, that gets thrown down in Revelation 12, because he's defeated in the heaven, comes down to the earth, and he calls forth this beast from the sea. As I've said the Antichrist, he comes forth, and in Revelation 17, sub-rulers, 10 Kings come together to give him their power and to make him chief among them. And it says in Revelation 17:14, “They will make war against the Lamb.” Think about that. They will war against Jesus. They'll have a war against Jesus. Can I just say bad idea, bad idea. They're gonna war against the Lamb and against his followers, but the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and with him will be his called, chosen, and faithful followers.

And so Revelation 19 depicts that final battle, and that's the fulfillment of Isaiah 34, that's the sword of the Lord, that descends. Jesus is the sword of the Lord, he is the wrath of God descending in Revelation 19. He comes back, the heavens are open, and he comes down with the armies from heaven, and they descend on the Antichrist and on the dragon and the false prophet and all of the armies of people that are assembled there together against the Lord and against His followers. In Revelation 19:19 and following says, “I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs in his behalf. [And] with these signs, he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.” Does that sound like Isaiah 34? It's exactly the same, Revelation 19.

Now, that's the second coming, that's that final battle. But, friends, the deeper issue is deliverance from hell itself. It's just one day when the sword comes down and lots of people die, but the real danger is the second death. Now, I just wanna stop and say, I know for a fact, many people struggle with this doctrine, they struggle with the picture of God as a wrath-filled being. They do, it's repulsive to them. I even know some that have walked with the Lord for a while, very conspicuously and fruitful, who have recently turned away from evangelical Christianity because of a hatred of the doctrine of the wrath of God and hell, they just can't accept it, and other theologians and writers, people like Rob Bell and all that, try to come up with what they consider to be a better story than this. What arrogance to think that we can come up with a better end of human history than this one, we can't. God knows what he's doing, God knows what he's doing. And those people forget some things, they forget, for example, the very nature of God, that “God is light; [and] in him there is no darkness at all.” And he will have the darkness out of his universe, he will get rid of it, 'cause he hates it, and frankly, if he didn't hate the darkness, he wouldn't be good. 

Secondly, all sin is an affront directly to his glory, and sin is proportional to the glory of the individual you sin against. It's weightier to spit in the face of your father than to spit in the face of your brother. It just is. It just has to do with the weight of glory and what is due, what honor is due to that individual. Well, how much honor is due to God? How much honor should he get from us? Therefore, sin against him is of infinite weight and value.

Thirdly, and most significantly, Christ himself received the descending sword of God's wrath on our behalf, he took it inside himself, he died under the wrath of God as our substitute. He is the cave you'll be looking for when that sixth seal is broken, but you won't find any refuge then. Flee now. When I began, I prayed that God would give you faith. Now is the time. Believe that these things are coming. And flee to Jesus. Jesus died not for his own sin—he committed no sin, there was no deceit in his mouth—he died in our place, he bore, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. By his wounds, we have been healed. That's what Jesus has done. He is our refuge. This is the gospel, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as [a propitiation,] a sacrifice of atonement, [in our place] through faith in his blood.” Trust in him, come to him. Flee the wrath to come.

And if you've already fled the wrath to come, if you have already listened to that and your heart was moved with fear, and you know that you early, long time ago, perhaps even fled, the wrath to come, then know this, you have fled successfully. The wrath will not come on you, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But you are surrounded by people who haven't fled yet, you live among them every day, you work with them, they may be relatives, they may be neighbors, warn them to flee the wrath to come. Tell them about it.

Understand this, understand the universality of God's wrath against all nations, all nations, and all their armies. Now, where does that leave? Patriotism and nationalism. Oh, now Pastor, don't go there. Don't touch that one. I mean, this sermon is already too long anyway, and you're gonna start patriotism and nationalism, I just wanna say this one thing, if Isaiah 34:2 is true, don't exempt the United States of America from it, don't. I do believe that there are incredibly powerful witnesses, godly men and women infiltrating—and that's a good word for it—the federal, state, and local governments of this country and are salts in a very corrupt place and light in a very dark world and are doing an awesome job. Like Daniel, they are messengers of the king, like Daniel said, “Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that [God will let you] continue.” That's a great witness for a government official who loves Jesus, but I'm speaking of the political entity, the nation itself. I think there is a right place and a right scope for patriotism and love for your country, but idolatry usually takes a proper affection and pushes it beyond boundaries, you see what I'm saying? Don't go too far. Don't go too far. Our citizenship is in heaven, and we're waiting for our true king to come from heaven, and that's Jesus, and we're waiting for the city that he's building right now. The city that is to come with whose architect and builder is God? This end is coming. It's coming. All right, let's do the work that God's called us to do. Put sin to death by the power of the Spirit and share the gospel with lost people. Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the warning that we've had in Isaiah 34 of what is to come. I pray that we would tremble with it, that we would take it seriously. I pray that it would bring us to tears as Jesus wept over Jerusalem. I pray that we would be deeply troubled by the concept of just the bloodshed that is coming, and Father, I pray that you would please give us power to put sin to death as Peter put it, “Since everything [is going to end] in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed it's coming.” O God, help us to be pure and holy and to speed the day of God by evangelism, by missions, by proclamation of the message. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 33. The main subject of the sermon is how God acts to establish his glorious kingdom.

Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 33. I begin this incredible chapter, I was saying to somebody this morning, it's like a magnificent piece of sheet music, and I get to sit down at the Steinway and play it, and I don't think, don't know that my skill is going to be up to it. If I were literally playing piano, my skill would absolutely not be up to it. I can do some things with my right hand. That's it. But this is a magnificent text of Scripture, and as I meditate on the truths there are in Isaiah 33, I think about another passage of Scripture, 1 Corinthians 13:12, which says, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face." Thinking about that verse this morning, what is the nature of the poverty of the reflection? Why is it a poor reflection? Why do we see in a glass dimly, it says in the KJV. It's because, all we are given are words. That's it. You have the gifts of the Spirit, you have words, and that's all you're gonna get from me this morning; you will not get the vision. Some day there will be the vision; you will see the King in his glory. This morning, all you get are words, and those words will be effective in your life only by faith, only if God gives you faith will these words do anything for you at all.

There are three magnificent, overpowering themes in Isaiah 33. The first is the terrors of hell. Look at verse 14, "The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling seizes [or surprises] the godless: ‘Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?’" And so in these words, I see the terrors of hell. Secondly, the delights of heaven. Look at verse 17, "Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar." And thirdly, overall, though no specific verse talks about it, the marvelous, the wondrous grace of God in accepting such pathetic repentance from sinners like us, and blessing it with full forgiveness of sins and the lavish graces of heaven. So what do I mean by that? Well, the circumstances in this chapter are that God has pressed the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the point where they have nowhere to turn, but God. God has become their last resort, and it is a dishonor to God to be our last resort. He should be our first resort. We should think first about Him and flee to him whenever there's any trouble, and bring all of the issues of our lives to him immediately, but the people of Judah and Jerusalem were stubborn and they tried everything they could to avoid the pressure of the Assyrian invasion, they looked to Egypt, they looked to gold and silver, they tried to buy off the Assyrians. And when there was nothing else left to do, finally they trusted the Lord, and God accepted it and delivered them. And that's incredible, when you think about, it's just incredible.

I was thinking about the testimony of C. S. Lewis. He calls himself the most reluctant convert in the history of Christendom. He was in one sense dragged kicking and screaming into the Kingdom of Heaven. These are his words, his own testimony, he said, "You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had come upon me at last. In the Trinity Term of 1929, I finally gave in, and I admitted that God was God, and [I] knelt and prayed [to him]. Perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what was the most shining and obvious thing: the divine humility, which will accept a convert even on such [pathetic] terms. The prodigal son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can but duly adore that love, which will open the high gates to a prodigal which is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, darting his eyes left and right in every direction for a chance somehow to escape?" Ray Ortlund commenting on this said that “C. S. Lewis is speaking for us all. We come to God reluctantly. We return to God reluctantly…. Isaiah 33 [then comes] out of a setting in which God's people were reluctantly turning back to Him” when they had nowhere else to turn. “Repentance was not their way of life,” they had not up to that point seen God as the fountain of all blessings, but only as a last resort. Repentance “was a last ditch effort to stave off [the impending] disaster. But God received them anyway!”

That may be your circumstance today. It may be that God and life, providence, things that are going on in your life may be so pressing you that you think there's nowhere else to turn, but Jesus, then turn to Jesus! Isn't it amazing how he'll receive you, even on those terms? Turn to Jesus. I'm praying that the eyes of your heart will be enlightened, and you'll flee the wrath to come, and flee toward the pleasures to come, and turn to Jesus.

And so we see in Isaiah 33, the circumstance. So what I'm gonna do in this sermon, is I'm gonna bring you quickly through all 24 verses, if that can be done. I'm gonna bring you through the whole chapter and just give you an understanding of these words in their setting: what was going on in Isaiah's day, what was going on with Assyria. But we're not gonna stay there long, we're going to float above the immediate circumstances, 'cause the words here point to the end, they point to eternity, the words point to hell and heaven, and to the grace of God.

So let's start in verses 1-6 with this “Woe, woe to the destroyer.” Look at verse 1, "Woe to you, O destroyer, you who have not been destroyed! Woe to you, O traitor, you who have not been betrayed! When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed; when you stop betraying, you will be betrayed." So here we have this prophetic woe. From Isaiah 28-31, there are five woes, one after the other. The first five, all of them, were given to Judah and Jerusalem, to the people of God, to Israel, to the Jews. Woe to you for your hearts being far from God, or to turning to Egypt for help and sending emissaries down to Egypt. One woe after the other given to the Jews. This one is different. This one is given to Assyria. It's a woe from God to Assyria, the destroyer who is coming. And why this woe? Because of their wickedness and their treachery, because of how they're treating their neighbors. They're giving a cup of destruction to their neighbors, and like it says in Habakkuk 2, "Now it is your turn, drink and be exposed. The cup from the Lord's right hand, the one that you are handing to your neighbors is gonna come back to you." Proverbs 26:27 says, "If a man digs a pit, he will fall into it; if a man rolls a stone, it will roll back on him." Whereas Jesus said in Matthew 7, "The measure you use is the measure you will receive." Or like we say in everyday speech, "What goes around comes around." How you're treating your neighbors is finally gonna come back to you.

Now, Assyria was the destroyer, the vicious force of evil in the world at that time, utterly malicious, no mercy at all, cruel. And that's the way they treated their neighbors. But what of this treachery? This betrayal? What is this speaking of here? How were they betrayed? Well, they invaded the promised land, they began the invasion and they threatened Jerusalem. King Hezekiah responded by sending them 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. Now, the 300 talents of silver were all the silver they had in the treasury. They emptied the treasury to send it to Sennacherib, king of Assyria. The 30 talents of gold they didn't have until they finally stripped it off of the temple itself and sent that to Sennacherib as well. The idea was to buy him off so he'll take the silver and gold and go back to Assyria. But once Sennacherib received that silver and gold, he told the emissaries that had brought it, "By the way, Jerusalem must completely surrender, or else I'll crush it."

So what was the point of the silver and gold? There was an understanding that, "If we send this tribute to you, you'll leave us alone and let us continue." And so you can see in verses 7-8, the emissaries come back, the treaties, the messengers come back, they're weeping, they're wailing, the streets are deserted, the warriors are terrified, and the treaty has been broken. That's what's going on here. Those are the circumstances. And so God then speaks through the prophet Isaiah, a woe on Assyria for what they're doing. Up to this point, as I said, the woes have all been directed toward the people of God, they've all been directed toward Judah and Jerusalem and Israel. But God is saying now to Assyria, and He doesn't say, “Assyria, by the way.” This is one of those situations where I think he just lays out the shoe, and if the shoe fits, wear it. It's gonna be the same for Babylon, it's gonna be the same for every nation that treats their neighbors like this. What goes around is going to come around. And God is sovereign, and when their time, their time of destroying has come to an end, then they're going to get destroyed.

"There's a time for every purpose under heaven," it says in Ecclesiastes, "and God measures all things out," and so when Assyria's time at the center stage of human history is over, they're gonna get crushed and destroyed, up to this point, they've not been destroyed, but it's going to come on them. "And you O Sennacherib, you are going to be betrayed. You're going to be betrayed.” Now, the only way you can be betrayed is by someone that you have a relationship with, someone you have a connection with, and so God in his sovereignty saw to it that his own sons would assassinate him while he was worshipping in the temple of his god, Nisroch, back in his home country. Does God's arm reach that far? Yes, it does. It reaches farther than that, and God can move in the hearts of Sennacherib's own sons to kill him and betray him, and then flee and then another son took his place. And so this prophetic woe comes on Sennacherib and the Assyrian Empire as a whole.

Now, in verse 2, we have Judah's response. Like I said, God has been pressing them. When times are good, we don't change, friends, it's just that simple. It's when things are miserable, when things are wretched, that suddenly from us come those prayers of repentance, from us come those pleas to God, and those yearnings that should have come more naturally. But look at verse 2, "O Lord, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, [and] our salvation in times of distress." This at last is the faith that Judah should have been showing all along. Shamefully up to this point, Judah has turned to everything, but God. They trusted in their silver and gold, sent it down to Egypt on the backs of camels and donkeys, trying to win their military power as an alliance to deliver them from Assyria. They trusted in that. They sent off that silver and gold to Egypt with high hopes, but that didn't work. And now in this case, as Sennacherib is on the doorstep of destroying Jerusalem, as he's coming nearer, they send off yet more silver and gold again with high hopes, "Maybe this will turn him aside and he'll just take it and go back." But that didn't work.

Now, finally they turn to God. And God is so patient, God is so, in some sense, humble, to accept this kind of prayer in those circumstances. We could easily say something like, "Yeah, now you turn. Now, you come to me, now when things are so tough, finally you think about me. Well, I'm not gonna have it." But God doesn't do that. How gracious is He? And so look at the prayer, a cry that God would be gracious to them, "O [God], be gracious to us." A yearning that we not be treated as our sins deserve. That's what grace is all about. It's God's determination to not treat us as our sins deserve, but instead bless us with infinite blessings. "O [God, do that for us.] Be gracious to us." And then it says, "We long for you, we yearn for you, our hearts are attracted to you, we're only thinking about you right now. You are our only hope. You are our only thought. We yearn for you, we want to be close to you. And be our strength every morning, be our salvation in this time of distress." They're crying out to God.

In verses 3-6, they speak words have rediscovered faith and trust in God. You think about these words in verses 3-6—if they thought these things were true, then why did they ever send emissaries down to Egypt, why did they try to buy off Sennacherib if they believed these things were true. "At the thunder of your voice, [O Lord,] the peoples flee; when you rise up, the nations scatter. Your plunder, O nations, is harvested as by young locusts; like a swarm of locusts men pounce on it." These are words of faith, of affirmation, of trust in God. "God can do anything, God can destroy the Assyrians, God can destroy any invaders that trouble us. When God rises up, the people flee."

And they acknowledge, in verses 5-6, that God alone is their true treasure. Look at those wonderful verses, "The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness." Verse 6 is a treasure verse, "He will be the sure foundation for your times; [he will be] a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure." So they acknowledge that the fear of the Lord is the key to everything. If they had only feared the Lord like this before, they wouldn't have been in this circumstance; they wouldn't have fled into idols; they wouldn't have broken the covenant; there wouldn't have been any need for the Assyrians to come as a rod of God's discipline and wrath; there would have been no need for it. The fear of the Lord at last, they realize is the key to every good thing.

If I can just pause and say, it's my desire and prayer that the later words in this text will bring you to the fear of the Lord, the healthy fear of the Lord. There is a healthy fear of the Lord, there's a healthy fear of hell, and a yearning to please God, that is the beginning of wisdom, the Scripture says. And in verse 6, it says, that's the key to every treasure: the fear of the Lord.

Now, in verses 7-16, we see the king arising. The king arises. Verse 7-9 is the immediate circumstance, I've already quoted, I'll just read it over quickly, "[Behold], their brave men [the warriors] cry aloud in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly. Highways are deserted, no travelers are on the roads. The treaty is broken, witnesses are despised, no one is respected." So this is the immediate circumstance: The envoys have come back with the bad news, "Sennacherib is coming anyway." Verse 9 describes the effect of the Assyrian invasion on the local nations, "The land mourns and wastes away, Lebanon is ashamed and withers; Sharon is like the Arabah, [it's a desert], and Bashan and Carmel drop their leaves." It's just a time of being stripped by this wicked empire, as they come. So that's the present anguish, and that's the setting.

Now, God says in verse 10, "It is time for me, at last, to rise up." “‘Now will I arise," says the Lord. "Now will I be exalted; now will I be lifted up." Now he rises up in action, he rises up sovereignly and with great power, but the exaltation comes in the hearts, the apprehensions of created beings as they see God rise up and act. As godly people see what God does and give him the praise and glory, and they exalt him in their own estimation, when they see the wonders of God.

He speaks to the Assyrians, I think, in Verse 11, “You conceive chaff, you give birth to straw; your breath is a fire that consumes you." Speaking to the invader, saying, "Your plans are chaff, and you're gonna get burned up." Verse 12, “The peoples will be burned as if to lime.” That's the Gentiles, these Assyrians are gonna be burned as if to lime. “Like cut thorn bushes they will be set ablaze." And then a warning to the nations of the Earth, “You who are far away, hear what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my power!" So God desiring to be glorified in what he will do. He says, "The news is gonna go far. Everybody is gonna hear about this. And you nations, you should fear me, and you should submit to me."

But now, in verse 14, we have this terrifying word, right in the middle, "The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the [hypocrites]: ‘Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?’" Who are these people who are crying this out? Well, they are in Zion, they're Jews, they're Jewish people. They're described as sinners, or hypocrites, they have no right relationship with God, and so it has been in every generation. There is a visible people of God, and in their midst, there are hypocrites that are only going along for the ride. They are the sinners in Zion. In their day, they would be Jews who did wicked things, who accepted bribes, and plotted murders, and committed adulteries, and ran after the idols. They were the wicked Jews who would not keep the covenant, who did not fear the Lord and thought nothing of him. And so the events surrounding Sennacherib's invasion will bring terror to them because they will not flee to God and find refuge in him, they will not find comfort in God. They're actually terrified not ultimately, of Sennacherib and the Assyrians, they're terrified of God—he is the consuming fire. And they're surprised by it. Trembling has seized them, has taken hold of them like a highway robber, like a bandit. They're surprised by this terror that suddenly come upon them; they were confident before, they weren't afraid of anything, but now suddenly terror has seized them, and they don't know how to escape, the sinners in Zion. And they'll find no refuge in God, that they will be destroyed, as we'll talk about it, Sennacherib conquered and destroyed 46 cities in Judah before coming to the walls of Jerusalem. Lots and lots of dead Jews, lots and lots of dead people. And so his wrath is not just on the destroyer who hasn't stopped destroying it; his wrath is on the sinners in Zion, as well as their end has come, and terror is gripping them. For God, it says, is a “consuming fire.”

You remember the account in Exodus 24 of God coming down on Mount Sinai, and he came down in a cloud on Mount Sinai. And in Exodus 24:17, it says, "To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on the top of the mount." So that was the appearance of the glory of God as it settled down on Mount Sinai. As God descended it was like a consuming fire, this cloud at the top of the mountain. Later in Deuteronomy 4, he says, "Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; [and] do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." So when the sinners in Zion are crying out, "Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire?" They're speaking of God.

To me, the best natural picture of this is the sun. The sun is a raging inferno of nuclear power, it's a continual nuclear explosion on full display before our eyes every day, despite the fact that it's 93 million miles away, you can't look at it for very long or you'll go blind. You can't get near to it, as I mentioned in the sermon on this passage in Hebrews 12, NASA has sent a probe and the closest that they can get to it is 32 million miles away. As I mentioned at the time, a probe now can get eight times closer. Well, that's incredible. Now, they are four million miles away, and at four million miles away, it's 2600 degrees Fahrenheit—on the surface of the sun, 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Physicists estimated the center of the sun, 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. As God dwells in unapproachable light, so the sun is unapproachable heat. It's a picture of the wrath of God in hell. And who of us can dwell with that? Trembling has gripped the hypocrites in Zion, it has gripped the godless, and they are terrified. This is a consistent picture over and over in Scripture. John the Baptist speaking of Christ, he says, "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering up the wheat into his barn [but] burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire." And as Jesus says in judgment, when he sits on his throne in heavenly judgment, he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

The text asked this question, who may dwell with that? Who can dwell with a God like that? A God who is a consuming fire? Who can dwell with everlasting burnings? Well, the text answers the question, verse 15, "He who walks righteously and speaks what's right, [he] who rejects gain from extortion and keeps his hand from accepting bribes, who stops his ears against plots of murder and shut his eyes against contemplating evil—this is the man who will dwell in the heights, [this is the one] whose refuge will be the mountain fortress.” Stepping back and looking at the whole of Scripture, the answer that the text gives is the perfectly righteous person may dwell with the consuming fire. That's the answer. Those that are perfectly righteous. The problem is we are combustible sinners. We are combustible sinners, and if we get near this consuming fire, we will be burned up. God said in Exodus 33:3, he said to Moses, "I will not travel with you anymore, you will go unto the land flowing with milk and honey alone without me, because if I continue to travel with you, I might destroy you." Do you remember that? I might destroy you, but yet at his calling into this mission, you remember what site it was that diverted him from caring for his father's sheep? When he was 80 years old, what did he see? He saw a miracle, he saw a miracle. He saw a consuming fire in the midst of a bush, but the bush wasn't getting consumed. And the text says in Exodus 3, it was the Angel of the Lord there. The radiance of God's glory, it's Jesus, who in the radiant glory was in the midst of a very combustible bush, and the bush wasn't getting burned up. So, that gives us some hope, doesn't it, that God through Christ can dwell in our midst and we not get burned up. So we have some early indications of the grace of God in Christ in the gospel. I'll talk more openly and directly about it at the end of the sermon, only the perfectly righteous can survive with this consuming fire.

Now in verses 17-24, we have the beauty of the King and his kingdom, verse 17, the promise of the future, "Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar." Here, Isaiah speaks of the blessedness of the righteous, those who not only can dwell with the consuming fire and with everlasting burning, not only that, but what they will see, the magnificence of what they will see—they will see the king in his beauty, and they will view the land as it stretches afar. Now, if any of you think he's talking here about Hezekiah, he's not. This is not the beauty of Hezekiah that's gonna be in view here, and so we must fly far above the immediate circumstances here to say what King will be so beautiful as to fill our eyes with his beauty, and what land will stretch afar that we will see at that time? I believe it can be none other than seeing Christ in his resurrection glory seated on his heavenly throne in the new heaven and new earth, the home of righteousness. Talk more openly about that in a moment.

And in verses 18-19, "At last your former oppressors will be gone. You don't see them anymore." Praise God, hallelujah, they'll be gone! “In your thoughts, you will ponder," verse 18, "the former terror: ‘Where is that chief officer? Where is the one who took the revenue? Where is the officer in charge of the towers?’” Whatever happened to those people? Verse 19, "You will see those arrogant people no more, those people of an obscure speech, with their strange, incomprehensible tongue." Now that should tell us immediately who are talking about here, you remember plainly in Isaiah 28, how the people of Jerusalem and of Judah were mocking the prophetic word coming from Isaiah, remember that? They were mocking it, saying, “Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; little here, little there.” Remember “Sav lasav sav lasav, kav lakav, kav lakav”, yada, yada, yada, yada. And God said, “Fine, fine. I gave you the grace of the prophetic word, I gave you the grace of the prophetic warning, and you didn't listen. I told you where the resting place would be, I told you where the place of repose would be, but you didn't listen, so I'm gonna talk to you in a different language. I'm gonna talk to you through the language of a foreign people who will come and speak their language in your streets. These are the Assyrians, these are the Babylonians, these are the Persians and the Greeks and the Romans. They're gonna come and speak their native tongue in your streets and in your promised land, and you'll hear what I have to say and I'll talk to you loud and clear through those people, those people of a strange speech with their incomprehensible tongue.”

Yeah, but they'll come a day, according to Isaiah 33, that you won't see those people anymore, they'll be gone. All of the people that God in redemptive history used to chastise his people and to get them to hate their sins and to bring grieves and miseries into them, but not to harm them ultimately. They're captors, they are incarcerated, they're torturers, political officials, and others who use their power and their positions to crush the people of God—you're not gonna see those people anymore, whatever happened to them, whatever happened to that guy, think about people from Nazi concentration camp, whatever happened to that guard that used to whip us with that bull whip? Or the other guy who used to take out his side arm and just shoot people in the head for nothing? Whatever happened to that guy? The text says, he's burning in hell if he didn't repent and find grace in Christ, you'll not...you're not gonna see him anymore. You'll be free at last of your tormentors and your oppressors, you're not gonna see him ever again.

Verse 20-21, instead, we have a vision of the heavenly Zion, city of our festivals. It says, "Look upon Zion, the city of our festivals; your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful abode, a tent that will not be moved; its sticks will never be pulled up, nor any of its ropes be broken. There the Lord will be our Mighty One. It will be like a place of broad rivers and streams. No galley with oars will ride them, [and] no mighty ship will sail them." Now, as I've said before, Zion is the place where God dwells in fellowship with his people. It's the place that he puts his name there, and he dwells there with his people. Now, he did that symbolically by the shekinah glory, the glory cloud that came into the tabernacle, that came into the temple, and God saying, “I'm here in that sense,” in the Old Covenant. But there is a final version of Zion, what the book of Revelation calls the new Jerusalem, it's the city where God and man will dwell together in perfect unity and harmony.

The first Jerusalem was destined to be destroyed, read about it in Mark 13. Remember how Jesus disciples were so impressed with the buildings, remember all that? "Oh, what an incredible city here, Jerusalem, do you see all these stones?” “Not one stone here will be left on another, every one will be thrown down.” That Jerusalem destined to be destroyed again and again. But I think the text refers to a final eternal Zion, an eternal Jerusalem. It says a peaceful abode, a peaceful place where you will live with no fear, no terror. No enemy will come. I think about the ships that come up the river, that was during the Viking era, they had those shallow draft boats and they come right up the Seine to Paris and burn it, and there was just no way you could...you never knew when they were gonna come and there was really no defense.

And so here the idea is no ship will come and trouble that city, it's impossible for any siege to come any longer. Revelation 21, "[And] I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. [And] I saw the new Jerusalem, the Holy City, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying," and this is the essence of Zion here the statement, “‘Now the dwelling of God is with man.’" That's what Zion is. “‘Now the dwelling of God is with man, and he will live with them. And he will be their God, and they will be his people, and God himself will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there'll be no more death and mourning and crying and pain, for the old order of things has gone away.’" Verse 22 describes the perfection of the king's government, the perfection of the king's government. Verse 22, "For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver. The Lord is our king. It is He who will save us." I'll say more about that at the end. It's a perfect government, all of it concentrated in the hands of one man, Jesus.

And we see the overwhelming blessings of the redeemed in Zion. Verse 23-24, 23 speaks to Assyria again, saying, "Your ship is destroyed, your besieging ship is destroyed." "Your rigging hangs loose: The mast is not held secure, [your] sail is not spread. Then an abundance of spoils would be divided, and even the lame will carry off plunder." So that's again, Assyria will be destroyed. Verse 24, "No one living in Zion will say, ‘I am ill’; and the sins of those who dwell there will be forgiven."

All right. So I kinda kept my promise, I kind of quickly went through these 24 verses. How does this chapter preach the gospel of Jesus Christ? I just asked that every single chapter with Isaiah. Do you have any sense it might? I actually couldn't keep myself from some of the themes as we went through it the first time, but I wanna start with the clear depictions here in verse 14 of the terrors of hell. Terror of hell is clearly depicted here, it's spoken of as a surprise that comes upon the sinners in Zion. KJV does the best job of talking about the surprise aspect, usually like NIV, others have seizes, something that comes and seizes you. But there is definitely a surprise aspect KJV says, "The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”

Who are the sinners in Zion? In 1740, Jonathan Edwards, a pastor in Massachusetts, who was a tremendous leader of two waves of revival in Massachusetts, and a tremendous student of the revivals and a great theologian, philosopher, pastor. In between the two revivals, 1740, preached a single 75-minute sermon on Isaiah 33:14. I listened to it this week and it just brought chills down my back bone. An entire sermon on one verse. And the name of the sermon was “Sinners in Zion Tenderly Warned,” and the idea was that the revival had come to North Hampton in 1734, but not everyone was converted by it. And so he's preaching to people who there was just the expectation that they would come to church every week, it was just part of their culture in New England. You were gonna be at church, everybody was in church, but not everybody in church was converted, and the grace of God has so richly been poured out in their community, and yet there's a category of people that Edwards was terrified would go from listening to him preach ultimately to an eternity in hell, and he wanted to do everything he could warn them. And so he preached this sermon, “Sinners in Zion Tenderly Warned.”

Well, let me talk to you a moment about the word tenderly. If you were to read that sermon or even more here it read to you, you would wonder where is the tenderness? I got the picture of one of those industrial washing machines at a laundromat, you know those big steel things, and that I've been thrown in it and tumbled around for about an hour, because he used every power of his intellect and imagination to think what it would be like to be in everlasting burnings and how terrifying it would be. So the tenderness is that you're getting words and not the reality right now—that's the tenderness, that makes sense? You get...today, you get words, you're not actually in hell. And so, what Edwards did is he said, “Make the most of this opportunity. Make the most of this day. Heed these warnings while you have time,” that's what he did with it. Now, these sinners in Zion, both in Isaiah's day and Edward's day and our day, these are people who are in some way associated with the visible people of God, but they are not regenerate, they have not been transformed by the grace of God. They go to church, but they are not genuinely converted. They are sinners among other people who have been converted. Why are they surprised by the terror? Because they never thought it would happen. Or if they thought it would happen, it wouldn't happen to them. Or they never imagined it would be that terrible. How terrible would it be? You say it quite plainly, words can't capture. You can't put it into words. And yet the scripture gives us words, it speaks again and again of fire or everlasting fire, and these sinners in Zion will be surprised, surprised to hear these words spoken of them, “Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Surprised that it's referring to them. They never thought it would come to that. And then the terrible truly seize them.

Edwards put it this way, "When the soul is carried to hell, and there is tormented, suffers the wrath of the Almighty, and is overwhelmed and crushed with it, it will also be amazed with the apprehension of what yet still remains. To think of an eternity of this torment remaining, O how will it fill, and overbear and sink down the wretched soul! How will the thought of the duration of this torment without end cause the heart to melt like wax! How will the thought of it sink the soul into the bottomless pit of darkness and gloominess! Even those proud and sturdy spirits, the devils, tremble at the thoughts of that greater torment which they are to suffer at the day of judgment. So will it be for the poor damned souls of men. Edwards labored to heighten the sense of the everlasting burnings that this text describes. “The flames,” he says, “of a very great fire, as when a house is all on fire, give one some idea of the fierceness of the wrath of God. Such as the rage of the flames. And we see that the greater a fire is, the fiercer its heat in every part. And the reason is because one part heats up another. The heat in one particular place, besides the heat which proceeds out of the fuel in that one place is [actually] increased by the additional heat of the fire all around it. Hence we may conceive something of what the fierceness of that fire will be, when this visible world shall be turned into one great furnace. That will be a devouring fire indeed. [And] such will be the heat of it, that the apostle [Peter] says, “The elements will melt in the fervent heat,” 2 Peter 3:10.

“Men can artificially raise such a degree of heat with burning glasses, as will with quickly melt the very stones and sand [and turn them to liquid]. As it is probable, the heat of that great fire which will burn the world, will be such as to melt [all] the rocks [of the world], and the very ground and turn them into some kind of a liquid fire, so that the whole world will probably be converted into a great lake, or liquid globe of fire, a vast ocean of fire, in which the wicked shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest, day or night, vast waves or billows of fire continually rolling over their heads.

“But this will be only an image of that dreadful fire of the wrath of God, which the wicked shall at that time suffer in their souls. [For] we read in Revelation 19:15 of the ‘fierceness and wrath of Almighty God,’…an extraordinary expression, carrying a terrible idea of the future misery of the wicked. If it had been only said the wrath of God that would be expressed [terrible] and dreadful. If the wrath of a king is as the roaring of a lion, [then what would the wrath of God be]? But it's not only said the wrath of God, but the fierceness and wrath of God, or the rage of his wrath; and not only so, but the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” It’s a piling up of phrases, one on top of the other? “And is it any wonder that fearfulness surprises their hearts when they see this about to be executed upon them?”

Now, John Piper said about this, "I know of [not a single person] who has ever overstated the terrors of hell.” It can't be done. It's impossible with words to overstate this. I am not exaggerating. “We are meant," said Piper, "to tremble and feel dread. We are meant to recoil from the reality. Not by denying it, but by fleeing from it into the arms of Jesus, who died to save us from it."

So flee the wrath to come, dear friends, flee it. Flee it. You're being tenderly warned right now, what's the tenderness? Temperature is pretty moderate in here, you're probably gonna eat a nice meal later on. The terror that pressed these sinners in Zion to tremble and all that was they saw it with their eyes when the Assyrians came to their town and started burning their own house. That's when they were afraid, but they were never afraid when Isaiah warned them that it would come. So the difference between the sheep and the goats, the difference between the wheat and the chaff is what you do at moments like this one right now. Does that make sense? 'Cause you don't see any of this with your eyes; you either believe it or you don't. And if you don't believe it, you're what the Bible calls an unbeliever, and if you do believe it, you're what the Bible calls a believer, and you will never see it happen to you. Praise God for that.

And why is it worse for the sinners in Zion than for the sinners who weren't in Zion, why? Because to whom much is given, much will be required. The more you have, more knowledge you have of the Bible and still are lost, the worse it will be for you on judgment day. Do you understand that if you're raised in a Christian home and from that Christian home go to hell, it will be worse for you than if you've been raised in a pagan home. If you came and heard good preaching week after week and still from that situation, go unconverted into judgment day, it will be worse for you than if you'd never heard that preaching. That's why it's worse. Jesus said concerning Capernaum, they were worse off because they saw his miracles and didn't repent. It would be worse for you than on the day of judgment than for Sodom, and so I just speak to you tenderly, flee the wrath to come. Look at verse 6 again, "The fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure." Do you see that? The fear of the Lord is…what treasure here? Well, just at this point in the sermon, escape from the wrath to come. That's the treasure. Is that a treasure? Oh yes, that's a the treasure, that you wouldn't have to go through that. The fear of the Lord now by faith is the key to escaping and flee to Christ.

Secondly, we have a clear depiction of the righteousness that Christ gives us to enable us to escape. "Who may dwell with everlasting burnings, who may escape this?" Verse 15, just let me sum up, "The perfectly righteous man." There's only been one of those. There's only been one of those, and that's Jesus Christ. He is the only perfectly righteous, law-abiding man, and the incredible grace of the gospel is that his righteousness, he offers you freely as a gift, and that if you will just simply believe in Him, you can receive perfect righteousness as a gift. And we need it. Why? Because in Romans 3, it says, "There is no one righteous, not even one, no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they've together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one." That's us. We are combustible, but Jesus means to give us what some preacher called an asbestos robe of righteousness to cover your combustible nature. So put on that perfect righteousness of Christ and trust in Him, 2 Corinthians 5:21, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." And Romans 5:17 speaks of those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness, that they will reign in life through Jesus Christ.

Thirdly, we have a clear depiction of the king in his beauty. Look at verse 17, "Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches a far." Well, just like the terrors of hell, you will only see this one with eyes of faith. What will we see? We will see Jesus, we will see him in glory, we will see him seated on his heavenly throne in glory, and he will be, according to the text, beautiful. Now, I don't understand fully what that beauty will be like. The word beauty to me means it's attractive, it draws response from me. There are lots of different beautiful things in this world, lots of different beautiful sights that you can see, but all of that beauty had one source, and that is God through Christ, and you're going to see the perfection of beauty when you see Christ in his resurrection, glory seated on His throne. Right now, we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror dimly,  an enigma I guess it would be a literalistic translation of that. Why? 'Cause all you get are gifted words, that's it, the words of the apostles and prophets. That's what you get. And of a pastor teacher. But someday, 1 John 3:2 says, "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is." So this vision of Isaiah 33:17 has the greatest power of any vision you will ever see. When you as a redeemed person see it, you will instantaneously be transformed and made like Christ in every respect. How awesome is that? You will lose forever your sin nature, you will never again struggle with sin, that internal battle, you have Romans 7, sin living in me. It will be gone. You will love righteousness and hate wickedness as he does, and you will be transformed in the glory. You will be in a resurrection body, you will see the king in his beauty; and not only will you see the king in his beauty, you will see the perfection of a land stretching as far as the eye can see. And again, I can't describe it.

I read about the account of the first white discoverer, if you wanna call it that, of Yosemite Valley. In 1851, there was a party of individuals that went in there and came out with a verbal description of the Half Dome and El Capitan, 3000 feet of rock formation, and the sun was setting. It was just glowing orange, red. The valley was breathtaking. And the man, his account is on the internet, you can read about it, 1851 Lafayette Bunnell is his name, said, “I can't put it into words. I'll just say this, see Yosemite and die.” It's that beautiful. I've just never seen anything that beautiful, now I could put, we have screens, I could put pictures of Yosemite up there, but here are the words to it, just the words. The new heavens and the new earth will be like that you will discover visual glories, such as you can scarcely imagine. Think of the most beautiful scenery you've ever seen and say there is nothing right now on earth that will be as beautiful as the resurrected earth, nothing. A land at last free from decay and from bondage, no longer groaning to be liberated, but now at last, brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God, and you're gonna see that land as it stretches a far. You'll see the king in his glory, and you'll see that land, and you'll see the new Zion, the New Jerusalem in all of its glory.

And there at the center of that will be a perfect government. Verse 22, "The Lord [will be] our judge, the Lord [will be] our lawgiver, the Lord [will be] our king." Some other time I may talk about the separation of powers in the American government: executive, legislative, judicial. We could talk about that. It's very clever, very interesting. All in one verse, right here, Isaiah 33:22. The Lord is our law giver, That's a legislative. The Lord is our judge. That's a judicial. The Lord is our king. Executive. Why do did the Founding Fathers separate the powers? Because power corrupts, and they thought it's best to keep it separated, so president can veto, and the Congress can override the veto, and back and forth, that goes on and on. Checks and balances. I think it's wise, given the corruption of the human heart. But you know Jesus doesn't need that, because his power doesn't corrupt him at all, and he will be everything there, he will be the perfect government, the government will be on his shoulders, and it will be perfect.

And finally, we see clear depictions of the blessings of eternal life now and forever, full forgiveness of sins. The very end, in verse 24, no one living in Zion will be sinful. All of those that live in Zion will have their sins forgiven. Secondly, freedom from the terror of everlasting burning. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Third, the gift of imputed righteousness in verse 15, walking righteously in Jesus. Fourth, the delights of seeing Christ in the new heavens and the new earth, and dwelling and Zion with God, free from death, the delights of being free, fifthly, from Satan and demons and wicked people, you'll see them now more. You will see the king in his beauty but you won't see those tormentors anymore. They'll be gone forever. And neither will you say, “I am ill.” “No one living in Zion will ever say, ‘I am ill.’” Why? Because death and mourning and crying and pain will be gone forever.

So what application I just would urge you to come to Christ, trust in Him, and believe in Him. Today is the day of salvation. Look to Him. Marvel at what God has done for you. Know for certain that you are not one of the sinners in Zion, and if you're not sure whether you are or not, don't leave this place, come and talk to me, talk to one of the elders. Say, "I don't know, I don't wanna be one of the sinners in Zion. How can I know if I'm born again?" Make your calling and election sure. Don't wonder about it. But if you know that you're forgiven, then give glory and thanks to God, that's the greatest gift that God has ever given you. A full salvation in Christ. Close with me in prayer.

Father, I thank you for Isaiah 33. It's impossible to do it justice with words, but Lord, I pray that these really poor words that I've spoken would be sufficient to jar someone alert. I pray if there's any person here who has been going through the motions, sham, outwardly, not really genuinely converted, that they would fear the Lord and flee to Christ. And Lord, I pray for all of us who do know that we're sinners, but we've been forgiven, that we would with trembling with joy, kiss the son, and believe in him, and know him, and wait to see him, the beauty of Christ, that our eyes would be filled in the meantime, serve him with every strength of our being by the power of the Spirit, in Jesus' name. Amen.

1 John, we're going to be looking across that epistle this morning, not really just focusing on one part of it in particular and my desire is to draw out some of the treasures of the doctrine of the incarnation, the gifts of Christmas that are ours in Jesus. But I want to begin in a couple of other places, just by way of introduction. In 1 Timothy 3:16, the Apostle Paul writes these words, "Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great. He appeared in a body," and then he says a bunch of other things, but the mystery of the incarnation is great, this is a great mystery.

Now, Christmas is many things to many people. It's a rich, frantically busy, lavishly apportioned feast that can be sometimes overwhelming, sometimes a time of incredible blessing, some people just love it, they just enjoy this time of year, they love the traditions, they thank God for them, the tradition is the time with family and friends, they love to eat. Let's just be honest. Let's just say it straight out. They just love the food. I don't know how much our congregation gains in this month, but you know it leads right into the resolutions that come in January, but we'll get to all that in due time. But they just enjoy the celebration, they enjoy the decorations, the putting up of the tree, they enjoy the lights and the memories that come with all that, but others genuinely struggle with Christmas and they struggle with it, the secularization of it, the fact that we have to keep reminding our culture that Christ is the reason for the season. We have to keep Christ in Christmas, because there's just this pressure all the time to secularize everything, to take God out of it. The Santa Claus themes, the seasonal songs that come, like ‘Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.’ What does that mean? I don't know what that means, but some carolers came to our house the other day demanding some figgy pudding and I don't know what that is, I've never had it and they said they wouldn't leave until we gave it to them. We worked that out. My wife had some candy canes and they accepted that instead, so we were able to get through that alright. But just different things, ‘Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer’ - what does that have to do with the Incarnation, how far we are? And some openly struggle with the gross materialism of Christmas, the gifts, the fact that we are so well loved, and we know that there are many people in the world that don't have even the basic necessities of life. The struggle with that. I understand that. And perhaps all of this, for me anyway, most clearly symbolized in Dickens' Christmas Carol as he thrashes around trying to figure out the meaning of Christmas. I'm not sure what his spiritual state was. But if we have Ebenezer Scrooge and he's being instructed on what the true meaning of Christmas is by three ghosts, the ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future - and especially the Present, the Ghost of Christmas Present, who's this huge giant, who according to Dickens is sitting on a monstrous pile of luscious food, of turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, suckling pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes and seething bowls of punch and all of it's just steaming according to Dickens, filling the room with aroma and with steam, so that it became kind of misty in the room - and that giant, that Ghost of Christmas Present is there to teach Ebenezer Scrooge what Christmas is all about? To me, he looks a little different than Bacchus, the God of wine, sitting on a pile of food ready to eat gluttonously and become drunk. And if you look at the lessons that he learns in the end, what is Christmas? What's the transformation that happens? It's benevolence to our fellow man. It's generosity, it's giving to the poor and needy, but stripped of Christ, of any mention of Jesus, of any regeneration through the gospel and through the Holy Spirit. So that's the world we live. This is the culture we have.

And for me, I want to just as I begin here, just meditate on the mystery of Christmas, the mystery of godliness, with two words in particular, in particular written by the Apostle John, but not in 1 John. But it's in John chapter 1; you don't have to turn there, but just listen. There are two words in particular that struck me this morning and they are the words flesh and fullness and that really gets to the mystery of Christmas very directly, flesh comes from John 1:14 to the center of the doctrine of the incarnation, which is just the infleshment of the Son of God. John 1:14, Jesus "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." And this gets immediately to the heart of the mystery. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became flesh, he had muscles and blood vessels and nerves and sinews and ligaments and hair and sweat and all of the physical side of life, and the mystery of that Word is infinite, because we're told in many other places in the New Testament that the flesh is our whole problem. We're battling the flesh all the time, these are the three enemies that we get, the world, the flesh, and the devil. We're told in 1 John Chapter 2, same writer but different passage, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life come not from God, but from the world. The world and its pleasures pass away, but the one who does the will of God lives forever." So we're warned against the flesh by John, the same writer. So this is a mystery. How could God become flesh? The flesh of John 1:14 must be sufficiently similar to the flesh of 1 John 2, or else he wouldn't use the exact same word. But clearly the flesh that Jesus took on is different than what we're warned about in terms of the lust of the flesh, in 1 John 2 and so we struggle with that and it goes right to the mystery. And so Jesus came to take on a body and live in it purely as God, holy and pure, God is light and in Him there's no darkness at all. And he's able to live a life in the flesh without sinning at all. That's a mystery to us.

The second word that I wrestle with this morning was the word fullness. Two verses later in John Chapter 1, it says in John 1:16, "From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace." What an incredible Christmas verse that is. From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. Fullness is such an incredible word, meditating on it this morning, Jesus Christ is fullness incarnate. Colossians 2:9, "For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form." That's the mystery of Christmas. Earlier in Colossians 1:19, "For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him." But this is more than just saying that Christ is fully God, it's more than that. It's saying that God is a full being, there is a fullness and a richness to God, God is full of mercy, full of grace, He's lavish in these things, full of wisdom, full of power. He has none of that neediness and deficiency we feel every day, he is a full, rich, complete being, we cannot add anything to his happiness and we can't take anything away from it. And Christ came to display that fullness for us in bodily form and how sweet it is that he also came to give us that fullness as well. As Paul prays in Ephesians 3:19, "That you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

And from that fullness, that rich fullness that God is, that Jesus is, comes in John 1:16, "Grace upon grace," gift upon gift. Those are your Christmas gifts, John 1:16. Those are your Christmas gifts, grace upon grace is one translation, or grace instead of grace, or grace in the place of grace, it's a Greek word that means "In place of," so as soon as one gift of grace comes to you, the next one is on its way. And we're just living a life of grace, a river of grace, His mercies are new, every morning, his grace flows to us and we need it every day. And from his fullness, we get gift upon gift, grace upon grace and there is your wealth, there are your Christmas gifts, not the boxes wrapped under the tree. It may be included in that, we can see God's love and the relationship and all that that comes to those physical gifts, but it's really ultimately grace upon grace. So that's a mini-sermon, just introducing - I just wanted to do that, is that okay? You say, "What does that have to do with 1 John?" I hope it has something to do with it. But as I was meditating on this flesh and fullness, it just came to me in this way, and I want to turn now to try to understand more fully these mysteries in John's other writing and that's in 1 John.

I want to begin by just the reality of the incarnation, what do we mean by that? What's the doctrine of the incarnation? I've already said it, but let's plumb it a little bit more deeply. It is the truth that God, the Son, the eternal Son of God, who existed from eternity past, he's not a created being, shows in the will of the Father to become human, to take on a human body, to take on flesh. And this is an infinite mystery. In Luke 1:33-35, the Angel Gabriel said to Mary, who would become Jesus' mother, "Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of his father, David," so there's the mystery of the incarnation, Son of God, Son of David, Son of Man, all at once. "'And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.' 'How will this be?' Mary asked the Angel, 'Since I am a virgin.' The Angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And so the Holy One to be born of you will be called the Son of God.'" So there's the mystery. Jesus supernaturally, miraculously conceived in the body of this woman, Mary, conceived by a miracle, but born in the natural way. If you had been in that stable where Jesus was born, you would have observed an unusual set of circumstances, but very much a natural child birth, normal birth, he was born in the ordinary way. After he was born, he was wrapped up in swaddling clothes and cared for in the ordinary way.

Now, John, 1 John speaks very powerfully of this doctrine. 1 John 4:2, it says this, "Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God." So he teaches this very plainly. Again, 1 John 4:9, "This is how God showed his love among us. He sent His one and only Son into the world, that we might live through Him." So Jesus, the Son of God, sent by the Father in the flesh in the world so that we might live. And then 1 John 5:6, "This is the one who came by water and the blood, Jesus Christ." So the Doctrine of the Incarnation taught plainly in 1 John.

Now, at the beginning of this epistle, we go to 1 John 1:1-3, John, as an apostle chosen by Jesus after a night of prayer up in the mountain. He came down and chose the 12, John was one of them and he was chosen as an apostle to be an eyewitness and to be with Jesus for that period of time in his earthly ministry and then to testify to what he had seen. And he writes about it here in 1 John 1:1-3, he says, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the word of life. The life appeared, we have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard." This is very practical. Do you see that? Very physical. What he's saying here, Jesus the son of God, had a physical body that could be touched, so we're proclaiming to you what we have seen with our eyes, what our hands have touched concerning the Word. And He lived a physical life that could be observed with the eye, John lived with Jesus, he ate with Him, he ate meals with Him. He was an eye witness to the incarnation, "The word became flesh, and we have seen His glory," glory, the only begotten, "full of grace and truth."

Now, in this introduction here in 1 John, he says, this doctrine of the incarnation must be proclaimed, it must be preached. It is possible to learn much about God, about the existence and nature of God, from creation, from nature. Theologians call it natural theology. And so you can look at nature and learn things about God. In Romans Chapter 1:20, it says, "For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made from creation, so that men are without excuse." So we can understand the existence of God, we can see His power, we can see his wisdom, we can see His love and His care and concern, His compassion. You can see attributes of God and creation if you know what to look for, it's there. Psalm 19 says it very beautifully, verse 1 and 2, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech; night after night, they display knowledge." What is the speech? What is the knowledge? There is a God. He is magnificent, he's powerful. He's worth knowing.

You can learn these things from nature but you can't learn the Doctrine of the Incarnation from nature. That you cannot do. This is a doctrine that must be proclaimed, it must be spoken by the witnesses, by those who saw it and so John says, "What we have experienced as apostles, what we lived through concerning the Word of God, this we proclaim to you, we're preaching it to you." And so, witnesses must go. As it says in Romans, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." That's what the lotion Christmas offering is all about, so we're near the end of that offering, please, if you haven't given yet, haven't prayed through, be part of sending missionaries to take the message of the incarnation to the ends of the earth. That's why they go, because those people at the ends of the earth, those people have never heard of Jesus, they will not discern him from a sunrise or a sunset or a mountain, must be proclaimed and preached. And so the physicality of this was proclaimed, what we experience, we sat at table with Jesus. And we walked down the road, we heard the gravel crunching under his sandals, we saw his face get wet with rain and his hair get blown with wind. We saw the way he interacted with people. We saw the way he dealt with his mother, the way he dealt with fellow townspeople and neighbors. We saw the way he dealt with people who loved him and the people who hated him, people who were filled with joy at what he had done and may be a healing, a miracle and just falling on the ground, worshipping Him and holding on to him and then those that hated him and wanted to kill him, how he interacted. We watched the look on his face, we heard the tone of his voice, we saw it all. And this is what we are proclaiming to you, this perfect human life, this is what we proclaim to you. And unforgettably, ultimately we saw Him beaten and tortured and bleeding and dying and dead as John witnessed his death on the cross.

We have seen these things and even better than all that we have seen His resurrection, we are witnesses to the fact that God raised Him from the dead and He is still mysteriously in a human body, He is in a resurrection body, but it is absolutely human. After his resurrection, he appeared to these apostles and to other eye witnesses, many others and he stood among them and he showed himself to them that he was bodily raised from the dead, He said, "Peace be with you." They needed to hear that a lot in those days, he would show up and just have to say, "Peace be with you." And then he would say, "Why are you troubled?" Luke 24, "Why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet, it is I, myself. Touch me and see." I think this is probably what John was writing about more than anything else. When he said, "What our hands have touched this, we proclaim. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and blood, as you see, I have." And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" They come up with a physical piece of broiled fish, something you could hold in your hand. Though why you'd want to, I don't know. But at any rate, they were holding in their hands and they handed it to Jesus and he took it and ate it in their presence. Same thing in John Chapter 20, though the doors were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." And then He showed them His hands and His side. A week later to Thomas who doubted whether he actually had risen from the dead, he said, "Put your finger here, see my hands, reach out your hand. Put it into my side, stop doubting and believe." Okay, so they were Apostles; we don't have that privilege. We don't get to do what Thomas did. We have to believe this message that was proclaimed, we get to believe the Word that was proclaimed based on the eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life and His resurrection.

Now, what, secondly, is the ultimate purpose of the incarnation? Whenever you talk about ultimate purpose, we must immediately go to the glory of God. Now, it does all things for the praise of His glory. But I'm going to find in John 2 purposes that he writes about of why Jesus became flesh and the first is eternal life, that we might know what eternal life is and that we might partake in it ourselves. He came to give us eternal life. So look at verse 2, "The life appeared, we have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us." So clearly, first and foremost, he's talking about Jesus as a living God. He lived with the Father and then he brought that evidence, that experience of life to a dead world. He said this is life, this is what it looks like. And I think John's Gospel, there's a beautiful job of explaining not only how we can partake in that life, but what it's like, what is that life, that eternal life like. What is the nature of it? What is the quality of it? What is the aroma and the flavor of eternal life?

And so, chapter after chapter of John's Gospel gives us a sense of that. In John chapter 2, it's like a feast in which there's an abundance of the highest quality wine, not for drunkenness or immorality, but as a gift of God, a picture of the Spirit as he produces joy in the hearts of those that feast, John chapter 2. In John chapter 3, it's a transformation so radical that it's like being born again, a change of life so radical, so different that you recognize, "Before, I was dead and now I'm alive." It's a whole new kind of life. A radical transformation that comes by the power of the Spirit. John chapter 4, it's like having a spring of water inside you, welling up to eternal life and you can drink from it anytime you want. In John chapter 5 and chapter 11 and kind of Lazarus. In chapter 5, the doctrine, it's like being dead in the tomb and hearing the voice of the Son of God coming to life and coming up and living forever. It's really a lot like that, it's actually exactly like that. Because that's what's going to happen to all of us at the end. He's going to raise us up on the last day and he's going to raise us up to live but Lazarus lived it out and to hear the voice. "Lazarus, come forth," and he came forth. And the doctrine, I am the resurrection and the life. I am the resurrected life, John chapter 5. John 6, it's like having heavenly bread that you can eat any time you're hungry, similar to the John 4 teaching of water that you can drink any time you're thirsty and you can feast on this bread from heaven that came down from the world, which is the life that Jesus gave, his body, dead on the cross to give us nourishment spiritually. In John 7, it's like having a stream of living water flowing from within you out to others around you, so you become a blessing instead of a curse, you become a blessing as Jesus by the Spirit flows through you and causes others to be satisfied in God. In John chapters 8 and 9, it's like being blind, even born blind and Jesus comes in John 8 and says, I am the light of the world. Whoever sees me knows what the world is about, you don't walk around in darkness anymore, but you have the light of life, and so I just wonder what it was like for that man born blind to see color for the first time. Reds and blues and greens, and just see the world and how richly beautiful, that's what this life is like, it's like you are blind and now you can see and you see it all so beautifully. It's like having in John 10 a good shepherd who will protect you and care for you and meet all of your needs and feed you and keep all of the wolves away, until at last you come to your Heavenly Father.

Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. Only in him do you come to the Father, because ultimately the life comes from the Father. So if you look at the end of 1 John 5, just as he does at the end of John's Gospel, he says, I'm writing this so you can have life, I want you to have life. And so in 1 John, he says, "This is the testimony, God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life." Now, you're experiencing it now. Go through those chapters, John 2, 3, 4, 5, all that. It's going on now, but it's going to get even better. Grace upon grace. That's what we're living right now. That's the Christmas gift here.

So, he came, he was incarnate to give us life, to display the life, what it looks like, and then to give it to us freely as a gift. And secondly, the image of fellowship, of joyful fellowship. We have life, not so that we'll be hermits or in solitary confinement, we have life so that we may have a relationship with God, first and foremost. Fellowship with God and secondly, fellowship with brothers and sisters who have been redeemed just like us from all over the world. We can have fellowship with God and with one another. Look at verses 3 and 4, "We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete." And so this idea of fellowship, of sharing, of intimate relationship, of a sharing of things in common that we have together. The ultimate picture, of course, is the Trinity: Father, Son, Spirit, sharing deity, sharing Godhead together, perfectly one, sharing everything together. And so Jesus says, "All I have is the Father's and all the Father has is mine." We share those things together, and all the words I speak, they're the Father's words. "I and the Father are one." So they completely share everything. And our fellowship is patterned after that. He writes that we might have that kind of fellowship with each other, that we might be one as the Father and the Son are one.

In the Book of Acts, we see this fellowship beautifully depicted, don't we? In the early church, Acts chapter 2, all the believers were together, "they were one in heart and mind." They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. They would share things together, they would share teaching times under the apostles' teaching together. They would share food together. They would share possessions as needed together. If there is anybody with a need, somebody would sell a house or a field or something and bring the money and bring it at the apostles' feet, and they would give it to the needy. And so they shared those things together, they shared ministry together, witnessing to Jesus, sharing the gospel, they shared that, and they suffered together, and they died together. They were in incredible fellowship and joy was at the center of it.

We write this, he says, "…to make our joy complete." I'm writing this to you, he's saying, as you read this, I want you to have fellowship with me so that I can be happier. In other words, if you would just believe this message and join with us, we will all be happier as a result. The more I meditate on that, the more unusual that seemed. Generally, if you're having a really great time with a set group of people, you want to shut and lock the door because the odds are, the next person who comes in might in some way diminish your joy. That's the tendency, I'm not saying it's always that way. It's not the Christian way, but it is the natural way to have an exclusive joy club and you don't want anyone else coming in. John is so different from that. It's like anyone God wants to bring by the Spirit, by the gospel, we want them to come and we know that every new person that gets added, our joy will be made more nearly complete and our joy won't actually be complete until all the elect are redeemed and brought into that fellowship with God. He said, "I'm writing this to make our joy complete." Some manuscripts say, "Your," it's all the same thing to me. Your joy, our joy, it's the same joy that we might together have this joy and make it complete. And this is a beautiful thing, isn't it? This is the joy of the advancing gospel of Jesus Christ.

Every sinner that repents, there's joy in heaven. The Father is celebrating and there's a cycle of parables in Luke 15, where there's three lost things: There's a lost sheep, there's a lost coin, there's a lost son. And the same thing happens all three times when the sheep is found, the shepherd rejoices, he puts it on his shoulders, he comes back and he says to his neighbors, Celebrate with me, because my sheep was lost and now it's found. And Jesus said, "..in the same way, there's more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents and comes back to God than over 99 that had no need of repentance." And the woman who's got a set group of coins, beautiful set group of coins and she loses one and she searches diligently until at last she finds it and then she has great joy and she wants to bring in the neighbors and they celebrate, I found my coin. And Jesus says the same lesson, the same way, there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repents. And then, of course, the prodigal son. There's a father waiting for the son to come home, and when the son comes home, he just runs and puts his arms around him, there's tears on his face and he's hugging him and holding, he's welcoming him back in, put a robe on him, put a ring on his finger and shoes in his feet. And let's kill the fattened calf, and let's have a feast because this son of mine was lost and now he is found. He was dead and now he is alive again. So there's joy. We don't want to be the older son that's out there with the arms crossed and saying, You know, I'm toiling and slaving all the time, what do we have in this celebration for over? This son of yours who squandered all your wealth. And the father says we have to celebrate. There is a joy that comes when a sinner is redeemed and comes into this fellowship. So it's all about joy, and that's why John writes it's joyful fellowship together. So he says in verse 4, "We write this to make our joy complete."

Now, what are the achievements of the incarnation? Jesus had intentions. What did he actually achieve? Well, there's so many verses in the New Testament that talk about the achievements based on 1 John, I'm going to zero in quickly on three: Atonement, adoption, transformation. He achieved by taking on a human body our atonement, the atonement of our sins. Look at 1 John 2:1-2, he says, "Dear children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One and he is our atoning sacrifice or propitiation, and not for our sins and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world." That's atonement. Jesus atoned for our sins by shedding his blood on the cross. The wages of sin is death. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness so Jesus took on a human body. What we celebrate at Christmas time is that Jesus became flesh so that he might give that blood, that body on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, and it has been achieved. There is in the body and the blood of Jesus given on the cross, full forgiveness for all of our sins. We have no wrath left, we are reconciled to God through Jesus, and that's an achievement of the incarnation.

Secondly, adoption. we the outsiders, we the enemies, hate-filled, rejectors of God, we have been because of the incarnation, because of the work of Christ, adopted as sons and daughters of the living God. Look at chapter 3, verse 1, "How great is the love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. And dear children, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." So the incarnation effects brings about our adoption as sons and daughters of the living God.

And then thirdly, the incarnation gives us transformed lives, that we are transformed. It's not enough in the salvation plan of God that our sins be atoned for. It's not enough that we just be forgiven. It's not enough that we just be accounted or credited righteousness in Jesus, that's not enough, he wants to actually change us, he wants to change the way we think, he wants to change the way we live. He wants to redeem us from the empty way of life handed down to us by our forefathers, and that's a life of selfishness, isn't it? A life in which at every moment, all you can do is think about your own pleasure and your own happiness, like the rich young ruler who can't give up, can't give up his wealth and follow Jesus giving to the poor, can't do it.  But Jesus took on a human body so that we might be transformed, that we might love our brothers and not hate any longer. Look at 1 John 2:9-11, "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light and there's nothing in him to make him stumble, but whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. He does not know where he's going because the darkness has blinded him." Out of that, we have been redeemed by the incarnate Lord, by Jesus Christ. He has taken on a human body to give us a whole new way of living, and that leads immediately into the imitation we're called on of the incarnate one.

We're supposed to imitate Jesus. Jesus came to give us an example of how we should live. I think one of the most powerful lessons of Christmas is that to God, physical life matters. It matters. Physical life is a good thing. There are some religions and philosophies in the world, they tend to be dualistic, good and evil; tend to be body versus spirit, you know what I'm saying? Like Buddhism, some of the eastern mystical religions, where you want to get away from all physical desires - all physical drives are intrinsically evil. Well, God doesn't say that and it's not the way it is. That's the essence of flesh. What the flesh does is it takes a natural human desire and drive and pushes it beyond boundaries that God has set up in his law, that's what the flesh does. Jesus never did that; he lived a perfect life, a human life, but never went beyond the boundaries of God's laws, he was sinless and so he gives us a physical life on earth that then is very meaningful and rich and we can imitate him, and it's just very explicit.

Look at 1 John 2:6, "Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." See that? I mean, that's why he became incarnate so it's like, we know what that means. We can look at the accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and what was said about him in the Epistles. We can learn what kind of life he lived, and I'm challenged. But I'm challenged by how selfless he lived, did not matter time of day, people would come with needs, usually healings, and he would go as a servant and say, I'll go and heal him or her, I'll get up and go, it didn't matter.

Remember the time that John the Baptist, his cousin, was executed and he clearly wanted to be alone, Jesus did. And so he crosses the sea to get away from people for a while and be alone, and what's waiting for him on the other side but a huge crowd of people. And as soon as he sees them, he has compassion on them and teaches them many things, and then he feeds them, feeds the 5000 because there's no food out there and then he sends them away. It says like, Alright, you got the doctor and we got the teaching done, you guys have full bellies, go home. And then he went up on the mountain and prayed, put himself last, put them first and the hierarchy is clear to me, doctrine word first, fill their belly second, but it's all part of the ministry. You need the word of God and you need your body's ministered too, but it was so selfless. And so that's what we have as a result of Christmas.

We have an example, first and foremost, of holiness, of purity. 1 John 1, "God is light, and in him there's no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with God and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from every sin." Oh, that's such a sweet verse and don't lose the last part, I looked at it right before I came up to preach, it's like, Oh, blood of Jesus, cleanse me from every sin. I'm about to go preach. A sinner preaching to other sinners. Some people struggle with 1 John because they find in it a kind of a perfectionism, it's like, In him there's no sin and if you sin, you're not in him. There's that kind of thing, but it's not true. And I think the greatest proof that that's not true is 1 John 1:7. You can walk in the light and still need the blood of Jesus to cleanse you. Isn't that beautiful? And so walk in the light. What does that mean? Walk according to the commands of God, it's big in 1 John. This is love for God: To obey his commands.

So we walk in the boundary set up by God's law, but as we do, we're going to need that ongoing cleansing from the blood of Jesus, because we're not going to do it perfectly, and we are going to imitate him and then ultimately live a life of sacrificial love to others. Look at 1 John 3:16-18, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth." We were talking on Wednesday night, we're going through the Book of Acts, and we got through the end of chapter 4 where I already alluded it to earlier in the sermon, and how this community, the early Christians, sold lands, houses, whatever and put it at the apostles' feet and was distributed to anyone as he had need. And the question was asked, "Is that going on in our church?" And I said, It is, it is. Some, like the Deacon Benevolence Fund has blessed a lot of people in this church. We don't talk about it publicly, we don't want to. Could we do better? Absolutely, we could do better. We could love each other more sacrificially than we do, but it's already going on. It's kind of like Paul says in Thessalonians, We see you doing this. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do it more and more. And so, 1 John 3:16-18 is a challenge, let's be as sacrificial with one another as Jesus was with us and how he laid down his life for us. 

Now, one of the issues of the incarnation we're facing, I've already addressed it, is the denial of the incarnation. We need to be ready for that. It's going on all the time. So reading in preparation for my Christmas sermon, reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the Magnificat in Luke, Mary's song of praise. And Lloyd-Jones says, The greatest evidence to him as he comes to that time of year of the existence of the devil is the culture that he lived in in England and their celebration of Christmas. He just saw the devil in it all the time. He just saw it in surrounding. Now, he was a Puritan and they didn't celebrate Christmas at all. You can study that, but at any rate, and I'm not saying we necessary go that far, but he was just - the confusion, the false messages, the misleading trails, the thinly veiled paganism that is in so many of those heritages and all that, he just saw the evidence of the devil's denial of the incarnation.

And that's right here in 1 John 4:1-3. Look at it. "Dear friends, it says, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God, this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world." Satan is active in the world, getting us to think wrongly, not just at Christmastime, but year round and to deny Christ, to deny that he's come in the flesh.

Every cult does something weird with Jesus, every one of them does. Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, even Islam, to some degree. You could call it a religion, but it came after Christianity, depends on how you define cult, but they always do something strange with Jesus. And that's the spirit of the anti-Christ giving a substitute Christ, not the real one. And we know 1 John 5:19, "We are children of God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one."

So we need to be willing to stand and take the themes that I've preached on today, believe them in our heart and then proclaim them to the world to say, You know, that's not what Christmas is about, that's not what this is for. The real meaning of Christmas has to do with the gift of Jesus, the Son of God for us, dying in our place on the cross, risen from the dead on the third day. That's the message of Christmas.

So, it's time to celebrate the incarnation, a couple of days you're going to have your Christmastime. Enjoy it. Enjoy it. God gives us all things richly to enjoy. I don't think it's right to eat and feel guilty or to give gifts and feel guilty. If God's asking you to make changes, make changes. Do that. It's eminently possible that some of us have some excesses in our Christmas celebration. Be convicted and be changed, but understand this, God is not anti-body, he's not anti-eating, he's not anti-joy and happiness, not at all. We're going to a feast, friends. We're going to a heavenly feast, and it's going to be holy joy. We're looking forward to that. So enjoy, be generous to the poor and needy, and let's preach the gospel, let's preach it to one another. Let's preach it in this kind of context.

You may be here outside of Christ, you may be here just as a guest of a family. Do you know Jesus? Are you ready to die? Are you ready to face judgment? Are you ready to face a holy God who it says in 1 John "is light, and in him there's no darkness at all"? God has made provision for sinners like you and me and that is Jesus, and that's what Christmas is about. How God loved us sinners and gave his Son in our place.

And so, as you open your Christmas presents, understand that for every physical present you get, there are 10 spiritual presents behind it and around it. But the grace, the mercy of God, that we're even still alive, that we draw breath, that God still loves us in Jesus, that we're still trusting in him, our faith is alive and strong, God has been sustaining it. The fact that you have brothers and sisters in Christ who pray for you and who love you, the fact that your future is infinitely bright, the fact that you are an adopted son or daughter of the living God, how sweet is that? So open your gifts and enjoy them, but take time in John 1:16 to say, "Grace upon grace," that's my true Christmas gift.

And then walk as Jesus did, not just next few weeks, but let's grow as a church in benevolence to one another and courageous witness to the outside world. Let's do that. I'm going to be speaking a year from now at a conference for college students. And I get to talk on the history of basically Mercy ministry and some of its strengths and some of its weaknesses in church history. And the slogan of the conference is, “We as Christians, we are concerned about all suffering, especially eternal suffering,” and that's a beautiful way to harmonize the ministry to the body and the ministry of the soul. We're concerned if people are suffering and we want to alleviate suffering, but especially eternal suffering. So let's preach this message to the world, this is the only message that saves from eternal suffering. Let's preach it. And close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for this Christmas celebration. We're grateful for the time to celebrate the incarnation, to celebrate the message of Christmas, which is God with us, to save us from our sins. We thank you for these things and Lord, give us power of the Holy Spirit of God so that we can glorify you in our thoughts and our generosity to others in our worship, in our witness. Father, bless our celebration of Christmas so that we can glorify You, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 32:1-20. The main subject of the sermon is how God purifies the world through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit so He may rule over it.

Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 32 as we seek to hear God's word from this chapter. There are many miseries in the world, there are many forms of suffering and lots of groaning, and we as a nation, I know, groan and are grieved by what happened this week in Connecticut. All over the world people groan in a different way. Groan under the oppression of unjust or wicked governments, governing officials who use their position of government, their position of authority, whether ultimate in that nation or governors or sub-rulers in that nation, who use those positions of influence to make themselves rich, to bring pleasure and honor and accolades to themselves, fatten themselves in some sense at the direct expense of their people, this has been going on from the beginning of human governments. Proverbs 29:2 covers this and says, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.” And that is true.

Now, as we come to this time of year in which we celebrate the incarnation, the birth of Christ, maybe one of the more famous passages in Isaiah, Isaiah 32, is not one of the famous chapters, but we know Isaiah 9:6-7, which says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” What's the next part? “And the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called the wonderful counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing it and upholding it with justice and righteousness, from that time on and forever, the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” So as we come to Isaiah 32, right away in verse one, we have this issue introduced, “Behold, a king will reign in righteousness.” So we have a king and rulers, plural, will rule with justice. So we are addressing the issue here of a righteous government, a righteous king and sub-rulers under him who use their positions righteously, not like the situation when Isaiah wrote. So we have a contrast with the wickedness and the corruption of leaders that were ruling in Jerusalem in his day, and so this is a the point of contact with us, there are corrupt governments all over the world.

I've been to Haiti five different times. Haiti was ranked by the International Red Cross as the fourth most corrupt government on the planet, and there was a story in Reuters after the 2010 earthquake in January 2010 that there was concern that this tragedy would bring billions of dollars of aid into the country and the heritage of the government of that country was of immense corruption, and it would just be siphoned off and never really get to the needy. That's Haiti.

Recently, I was in China, and while I was there, the English language newspaper was slid under our door, and so I read it and the headline story there was of corruption in government, and I thought it was interesting, just given the state control of every apparatus there, I just thought it was interesting to have this story in a state-run English language newspaper, lots of different themes I could go off on, but just one of the issues there are just building contracts that are given with government money and these buildings are built. And in the Shandong Province, along the coastline there are these magnificent living quarters and 80% of them are housed by party officials. 

My first mission trip in 1986 was to the nation of Kenya. While I was in there, while I was there, I was in a small place called Moi's Bridge, and Moi's Bridge between Eldoret and Kitale, it was named for the President of the country, President Daniel arap Moi. While I was there, he visited his little namesake town and he waved to me, I think it's 'cause I was the only white face in the crowd, so he saw me and pointed at me and waved, so I felt honored for a day. But in 2007, he stepped aside from power in 2002 and he reigned from 1978 to 2002, it was uncovered that over two billion dollars of Kenyan government money were filtered to 30 different other nations with a shell game that left his two sons worth somewhere between 500 and 700 million dollars. I was talking recently to Ashok, one of our elders about the process that they're going through with adoption, and he just said, “It's very slow,” and, “Well, what makes it so slow?” And he just says, “Well, in India, everything is lubricated by bribes, nothing really moves unless you're willing to do that.” And this is not just in India, it's just an issue everywhere. 

The corruption of human government, now, someone once said, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I don't know that that's entirely true, I know it's definitely not true when it comes to Jesus. He has absolute power and it doesn't corrupt him at all. And that's our great hope in Isaiah 32 of a righteous ruler who will have absolute power and will not in any way be corrupted by it. And even more amazingly, rulers, plural, under him, who will be like him, righteous, and will use their positions well, and that is our great hope. I don't think it's true that power corrupts, I think the human heart is already corrupt, and I think what happens is they get into positions where they can show the corruption that was already there by these temptations that surround them. I think that's really what happens, the power draws forth the corruption that's already there, it doesn't put it in. And so when we come to Isaiah 32, we come with hopes and yearnings for a righteous king, a righteous government, one that will not take advantage of the people that are crushed, and the great joy of this chapter is that it's a prophecy that says it will happen. It will happen, but it will only happen, according to this chapter, by the power of the out-poured Spirit of God. Only when the Holy Spirit is poured out from on high will this transformation occur. 

So the chapter unfolds in three basic sections, verses 1-8, we have the purpose of God and that is noble rulers instead of wicked ones, God's purpose. Secondly, in verses 9-14, we see God's purging as he clears the building site for the righteous society he said he's going to build in verses 1-8. So he's going to bring judgment on the nation of Judah for their wickedness and their sins, and he's going to purge away the evil rulers and the evil society that brought about the need for that purging. And then thirdly, God's power, the out-poured Spirit of God producing a harvest of righteousness. That's how the chapter unfolds. So let's look at the first section and that's Isaiah 32, 1-8 beginning, as I've already mentioned, with verse one, “Behold...”

And by the way, every time the NIV gives me a see, I'm probably gonna put behold, is that okay? I mean, I'm just a big fan of ‘behold.’ I think it's just an awesome word. I would challenge you, use it in a sentence this week sometime. It's hard to do actually, but anyway, that's what makes it special. It's a special word, “Behold the king,” isn't that marvelous? Just, Jesus unveiled in the scripture here.

“Behold the king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule in justice.” Now, who is this righteous king of verse one? And I think there must be a multifaceted answer that's given here. Ultimately as a Christian, as a Christian reader of the Old Testament, I see Jesus here, but I think there's nothing wrong with seeing a Davidic or a son of David who will reign after the Assyrian invasion, perhaps Hezekiah himself or a future godly king like Josiah. I don't think it's necessarily bad to see the Christian impact or the impact of the Gospel of Christ on Gentile society in the two millennia after Jesus' Ascension and before he has returned, that's in view as well. So I see all of that going on here. But ultimately, this is Jesus Christ, and below him are sub-rulers, and really most of the chapter is about them, not much about him. Now, he sets the agenda, he sets the example, but there's just not much said about the righteous king, rather about the rulers who rule under him, princes in some of the translations here. In Hezekiah's day, the Davidic king would sit on the throne, the son of David, and his sons would be his counselors or government officials or friends of his sons, etcetera, or friends of the family. But I see all of this in view here, princes or rulers who rule under the king. And in Hezekiah's day, he was not well served by his counselors, these were the ones that were urging him to go down to Egypt, these were the ones who, apparently, according to this chapter, are thoroughly corrupt and are using their positions with malice and wickedness, poorly served, and perhaps just at a very simple level, Isaiah is predicting that after the Assyrian invasion, after the purging that he mentions in the middle of this chapter, God is going to establish a reformed government, a righteous government, in which the king will reign in righteousness and the rulers under him will rule with justice just as he does. But for me ultimately it's pointing to Christ as the king of all kings and the lord of all lords.

Now these rulers, it's said of them in verse two, again, speaking of the godly society, the righteous society that is coming, this is a future language, “A king will reign in righteousness,” in the future, “And rulers will rule with justice.” These rulers are described here in verse two, “Each man will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.” This is the vision for society, justice. The king reigning with justice, and so also the rulers under him. Justice is that which lines up with the character of God expressed in the laws of God. As God establishes his justice, his righteousness, this king and the rulers are going to do everything based on that justice and that righteousness rather than the injustice of wicked rulers.

In verse three and four, I think we have the sense of the ministry of the word of God. There are different ways of understanding this, but it says, “Then the eyes of those who see,” sometimes called seers, that would be prophets, that's one interpretation, “Will no longer be closed and the ears of those who hear will listen. The mind of the rash will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.” So you've got to see in those two verses, a very strong emphasis on word, their words here, concepts, things that we know and can understand, things that we can now speak clearly. And so for me, the backdrop of this must be the word of God, and those who see the word are prophets, those who teach our priests frequently, the mouth of a priest must teach the law, the word of God, and so in this righteous society, the word of God is going to be flowing and richly ministering to people and transforming minds and hearts, and people's blind eyes will be healed and they will see the world as it really is, and not corrupted and twisted, they will understand well from the word of God. And they will speak clearly, again, God's words to one another, the word will just flow richly, and so you could see even offices like prophet and priest being established so beautifully and the word of God transforming that society. 

And then in verse eight, noble leaders making noble plans and actually carrying them out. I love verse eight, “But the noble man makes noble plans and by noble deeds he stands.” Some of your translations may have the word liberal, I think in that sense of a free flowing of generosity, we don't use the word that much that way anymore, but I think that's where you get the idea of liberal arts, the free flowing of blessings and of richness going, but I like the word noble a little bit better in the NIV, and it's a beautiful word. So the noble man, I think in this case, the ruler under the righteous king, the noble man, his character conformed to the righteous king, he is righteous like him, he loves righteousness, hates wickedness, that's the essence of his nobility. He wants to do noble things with his position of authority, He has noble plans for the people and for the government and for his positions, and he actually carries them out, it's not empty campaign promises here, but he actually has good intentions and he sees them through. By contrast in verses one through eight, especially verses five through seven, we have the situation as it was before, this is where Isaiah is standing and looking ahead, ‘O I look forward to the day when, won't it be incredible when, at last a righteous king will be there and rulers under him will rule with justice, but right now it is not so.’ And so we can resonate with that in different eras in history, in different parts of the world, the corruption and the wickedness of governments reach different levels, but it's something we are aware of. Look how it's described here in verses five through seven, “No longer...” Again, it's speaking positively about the future, “No longer will the fool be called noble nor the scoundrel be highly respected.” So in other words, the fool here is like the fool in the book of Psalms and Proverbs, a morally corrupt individual who is, I think one of those rulers or leaders, and he's established and he's honored and praised and given accolades and trophies and medals and titles of honor and all of that, or like the wicked king Herod, when he's speaking in Acts 12 and he's wearing these radiant robes and they cry out, “This is the voice of a god and not a man,” but he's a fool, he's a scoundrel, he's wicked and yet he's highly esteemed and praised because he can give them food, he's in charge of their food supply and they want stuff from him, and now we see that in our government, don't we?  People are praised and honored or re-elected because the government programs can get them what they want, and that's a flaw in the system.

And so here it says in verse 5, “No longer will that happen, the fool will not be called noble or the scoundrel will be highly respected, for the fool speaks folly, his mind is busy with evil.” Ultimate evil, for the fool. Psalm 14:1, “The fool says in his heart, there is no God.” He really says that. He may speak the word God and all of that and give outward lip service, but in his heart, he really doesn't believe in the God of the Bible. He doesn't believe in him, he doesn't believe that God is a consuming fire, he doesn't believe that God is light and in him there's no darkness at all. He doesn't fear the Lord, Romans 3, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” He has no fear of God, and so he doesn't think properly about God, his mind is busy with evil, he speaks foolishness and he practices un-godliness and he spreads error concerning the Lord, he doesn't think properly concerning the Lord. His doctrine is wrong and he spreads it.

This is the corrupt leader, the corrupt government official, and how does that work in terms of his carrying out of his office? Well, the hungry, he leaves empty and from the thirsty, He withholds water, so sins of omission, and sins of commission. Sins of omission, the hungry and the thirsty do not get what they need. This is just a symbol for the role of government in meeting needs and this man is withholding it. It's really amazing, most of the hunger in the world is so because of the wickedness, the direct wickedness of rulers and officials who withhold food. East Africa had this again and again where food was actually used as a weapon in civil wars in the Sudan and in other places. In the west, there was plenty of food and it was flowing, but it never got there because of the corruption and wickedness of people. And so from the hungry he withholds food and from the thirsty he withholds drink. And sins of commission, wicked things he actually does in verse 7, “The scoundrel's methods are wicked, he makes up evil schemes.” Do you see the schemes, the plots and the planning?

If you think about wicked evil king Ahab who wanted a man's field as vineyard, do you remember that? And Jezebel, and they plotted and schemed to have him killed, Naboth, and have his vineyard taken over by the government, by him. And that's the kind of wicked scheming that goes on, we will use our position of power and authority to make ourselves rich and to crush the poor and needy. And so he makes up evil schemes to destroy the poor with lies, even when the plea of the needy is just. So this is the corruption of government, of the governing officials which Isaiah sees and says, “No longer will that happen.” By direct contrast, we have verse eight again, “But the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands.” What a striking contrast. That's verse 1-8. 

Now, in verses 9-14, Isaiah makes very clear the purging that's going to come, there is a judgment coming on Judah, and these wicked leaders are gonna be purged out. And it's described very painfully and powerfully here in verses 9-14, “You women who are so complacent, rise up and listen to me, you daughters who feel secure, hear what I have to say. In little more than a year, you who feel secure will tremble, the grape harvest will fail, the harvest of fruit will not come. Tremble, you complacent women, shudder, you daughters who feel secure, strip off your clothes, put sackcloth around your waist, beat your breasts, for the pleasant fields and for the fruitful vines, and for the land of my people, a land overgrown with thorns and briers. Yes, mourn for all houses of merriment and for this city of revelry. Fortress will be abandoned, and the noisy city deserted. citadel and watch tower will become a wasteland forever. The delight of donkey is a pasture for flocks.”

And so, while this is essentially, this chapter is essentially good news, it comes in three parts. The first part is good news and joy of a king that's gonna reign in righteousness and rulers ruling under him in justice, and then the third part shows God's power and bringing it about and the richness of life under that new government. In the middle, though, is the bad news of the purging that has to happen to bring it about, a dire warning of coming judgment. And the proper response to this warning was to be humbled, to be broken-hearted, to put on sackcloth, to weep and wail and to seek forgiveness from God, that's what the Lord wanted when they heard Isaiah's prophecy.

Now, he focuses here on ungodly complacent women in particular. Verses 9-11 speaks again and again of the complacency of these women. It's not an easy concept, the idea of complacency, but in verse nine in the NIV it gives us complacent, the word complacent. Verse 9-10, it says that they feel secure. Verse 11 again, complacent and feel secure, again in verse 11. So what is this complacency? This is a feeling of arrogant self-righteousness and unfounded confidence that this time of luxury and security will go on forever, because God just loves us evidently, because we're living such a luxurious life, and it's just gonna go on and they're not worried or concerned at all about sin or God's holiness or impending judgment, these things aren't even on their radar screen. That's complacency. It's a spiritual laziness, spiritual fatness that causes you to be lethargic spiritually and to not rise up and act as God wants you to.

Now, he zeros in on the women, I think, just as a representative, representatives of society. It's not that the women were particularly worse than the men, it's not that, but I think it's just giving us glimpses of society, and he did this earlier in Isaiah 3. He talks about the women of Zion being haughty and arrogant, walking along with mincing steps and flirting with their eyes and ornaments jingling on their ankles, and he talks about all their equipment. We read about it in Isaiah 3:16-24, “In that day, the Lord will snatch away finery, the bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces and earrings and bracelets and veils and head dresses and ankle chains and sashes and perfume bottles and charms, signet rings and nose rings and fine robes and capes and cloaks and purses and mirrors and linen, garments and tears and shawls.” A bunch of equipment mostly for beauty, but they weren't beautiful. These women were corrupt morally. Amos also picks up on them, “They lounge on ivory couches,” it says, “And they call to their husbands, 'bring us more drinks.'” And so that's a picture of the luxury and the complacency of these women. In Isaiah 4:4 it says, “The Lord will wash away the filth of the women of Zion, and he will cleanse the blood stains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a fire.” So judgment is coming. And if you look at verse 10, it's imminent, it's very, very soon. Now, the Assyrian invasion was 701 BC, so if you take verse 10 seriously, this prophecy must have been like 702, 703 BC. Why? Because look at verse 10, in the NAS it gives us, “Within a year and a few days.” It's very precise, “Within a year and a few days.” So if a prophet comes and says, “In 369 days, the invasion's coming,” take that really seriously, “Within a year and a few days, you will be troubled, O complacent daughters.”

And then he turns agricultural to give us a sense of that. Again, just as the women were representative for all the people, so the agriculture is representative of the judgment that's coming. The grape harvest is going to fail. Judgment is coming on the land, thorns and briars are going to cover the fruitful fields. This was a rich land with ample harvests, it was rich. The soil was rich, you wouldn't have to irrigate it with a foot pump, he says in Deuteronomy 11. No, not at all. This is a land with rich soil, and it's drenched with autumn and spring rains. It's a land the Lord your God watches over and cares for continually, directly. It was a land flowing with milk and honey. But he said very plainly in the blessings and curses, in the curses section, if you turn away from me and if you follow false gods, and if you are wicked and evil, I will make the ground beneath your feet like bronze in the sky over your head like iron. There will be drought and famine and I will bring judgement. And you have again, this issue of thorns, a picture of God's judgment. This time of luxurious revelry, of sinful complacency will come to an end one way or the other. 

Now, he urges them to act. Look at the verbs, look at verse nine, “You women who are so complacent, rise up.” You see that? “Get up off the ivory couch. Rise up and listen to me. Listen to my words, you daughters who feel secure, hear what I have to say. Get up. Shake off the lethargy and listen to me.” That's what the prophet is saying, “Tremble, you complacent women, shudder, you daughters who feel secure, strip off your clothes and put on the sack cloth. Beat your breasts for the judgment that's coming,” take this very seriously. He's urging them to do that, because the judgment is coming and it's not just agricultural, it's gonna be on the cities. Verse 14, “The fortress will be abandoned, noisy city, deserted, citadel and watch tower will become a waste land forever. The delight of donkeys, pasture for flocks.” So it's a prediction that the walled cities of Judah will fall and they did. Even in the Assyrian invasion, all of them fell except Jerusalem, that was the only place that didn't fall. All of the other cities of Judah fell to the Assyrians, people died, city walls were pulled down, citadels were abandoned, these things happened even in the Assyrian invasion. How much more than the final deportation of Judah under Babylon a number of years later? 

And so we see in section one, God's purpose. His purpose is to have a righteous king ruling in righteousness and justice and rulers ruling like him under and not like the old system in which there are wicked evil rulers who are using their positions for corruption. Section two, we see God's purging as he's going to bring judgment on this land and purge away the wickedness that's bringing on this invasion. Thirdly, we have God's power, the out-poured Spirit of God, which alone can transform this situation and give us what verse one says will happen.

Verse 15-20, "Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high and the desert becomes a fertile field and the fertile field seems like a forest and justice will dwell in the desert and righteousness live in the fertile field, and the fruit of righteousness will be peace and the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes and undisturbed places of rest. Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely, how blessed you will be, sowing your seed by every stream and letting your cattle and donkeys range free."

So that's God's power poured out by the Spirit. So this purge that's going on in verse 14, citadels crushed, places abandoned and all that, that's gonna continue, verse 15, “Until.” See that? And so the turning point there is the outpouring of the spirit of God. The judgment will come on the country until God says, “Stop. And now I'm gonna pour out my Spirit.” Now, other nations, Gentile nations, they get the purging, they just don't get the spirit poured out. These are God's people and that's the only difference there is. Just because there's smoldering heaps of ruins in Europe after World War II doesn't mean a righteous society is gonna spring up afterwards.

Actually, what's probably happening is roving bands of men are organizing themselves to take advantage of the anarchy and go right back into the old system of corruption and wickedness. Without the Spirit of God, that's all we will ever do. That's what our hearts are. We must have a transformation and only the Spirit of God can bring it about. Ezekiel put it this way, Ezekiel 36:25-27, “I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols and I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you and I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to obey my commands and my laws.” That's the only way the change could ever happen, by the out-poured Spirit of God, the spirit is poured out from on high. Isn't it interesting the number of times that verb is used with the spirit? Spirit poured, the pouring of the spirit. Isn't that interesting?

It's in there many times, Isaiah 44:3-4, it says, “For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams.” In the Hebrew poetical structure, the pouring down of the water equals the pouring out of the spirit and the agricultural images, the plants growing up, those are people whose hearts are no longer spiritual deserts, but are now fruitful, rich, righteous gardens that are producing good works for God. And it only happens by the spirit, as he is poured out. And so verse 15, “The Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes the fertile field.” You know what the desert is? It's the wicked, unregenerate human heart, that's the desert, and only by the power of the Spirit of God paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ, only in that way does the human heart get changed.

And as a result of that change, verse 16, “Justice will dwell in the desert and righteousness live in the fertile field.” Oh, how sweet is that. Now at last, these rulers under the righteous king, they yearn for righteousness and justice as much as the king does, and they wanna live it out. And what are the effects? Verse 17, verse 17 is the keeper verse. Well, they're all good, aren't they? They're all God-breathed and useful. But some just shine more radiantly than others, don't they? Star differs from star and splendor. Some are just more glorious than others. Verse 17 is a glorious verse. “The fruit of righteousness will be peace. The effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.” Isn't that sweet? Oh, what a magnificent verse.

One of the things Tom Knight and I do every week is try to figure out what the cover verse is gonna be. So this one made it on the cover. Not to say the other verses aren't great, they are, but this is the cover verse. It's magnificent, a picture of no longer complacency, but peace. Now, what's the difference? We'll talk about it in a minute, but there's a big difference. Not complacency, but genuine peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and confidence and assurance.

And the final words are just kind of an Old Testament picture of a prosperous life, “My people who live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest. Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely, how blessed you will be,” how blessed you will be, “sowing your seed by every stream and letting your cattle and donkeys range free.” And you could say, “But I have no cattle and donkeys.” Now I could say, “Well, God promises you here, you're gonna have some.” Alright. But I'm not going there, I'm just saying this is just that Old Testament agricultural image of rich blessing that's going to come as a result of the work of God here. 

Now, how does this chapter preach Christ? Does this chapter preach Christ? Say yes, yes, it does. Of course it preaches Christ. The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. And so right away, verse one, “Behold the king, a king will reign in righteousness.” That king is Jesus Christ, ultimately, he is the king of kings, and he's going to come in his heavenly glory, and he's gonna sit on his heavenly throne and he's going to rule. There is a coming kingdom. And so we pray, may your kingdom come. He is a righteous king, he's described in Hebrews chapter one, God the Father speaking to him, “To his own Son, he says, “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, and therefore God, your God has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.”” That's the righteous king. So I think verse one is ultimately talking about Jesus, and he is the true shelter from the storm. 

Look at verse two, “That every ruler will be a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm.” Think of a storm bigger than the storm in the days of Noah, more significant than Noah's storm. What is it? This coming judgment day, friends. Judgment day is coming. The streams are gonna rise, the wind is gonna blow, and the rains are gonna come down and beat on your house and test it, and if it's not based on the word of Christ, it will come crashing down. It's judgment day that's coming, and Jesus is the refuge and the shelter from the coming storm. That's who he is. And so therefore, the judgment that is coming is the ultimate storm, and you must find a refuge place or you're gonna get swept away as all of Noah's generation did, anyone that was not on Noah's ark drowned, and anyone who's not in Christ will die in the judgment.

But in Christ, we can live. We can live forever. We can have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, having been justified through faith. Jesus' blood shed on the cross for all the wickedness of this chapter. For the wickedness of Connecticut, for the wickedness of our own hearts, Jesus's blood is the only remedy, but that blood was shed on the cross. And it says in Colossians 1:20 that, “He has made peace through his blood shed on the cross,” and he, 1 Thessalonians 1:10, “Rescues us from the coming wrath, and he alone is able to satisfy our thirst in the desert.” He's able to give us a good drink of water every day. Remember what he said to the Samaritan woman? Said, “Everyone who drinks of the water that I give them, will never thirst. Indeed, the water that I give them will become within them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” He says in John 7, “If anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink, whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” And so he gives you a drink and then you can give other people a drink. This is where the godly rulers come in, they have been transformed by the Gospel and they're able to satisfy the thirst of others, they are able to be a refuge and a hiding place like a rock that gives a great shadow in a dry and weary land. Because Jesus is supplying them, they are able to give drink to others.

This is how this chapter preaches Jesus, and Jesus is the one who pours out the spirit, he said, “I'm going to ascend on high and I will get the gift the Father has promised, and I will pour out the Spirit.” And so he says through Peter on the day of Pentecost, “Exalted to the right hand of God, he,” Jesus, “has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.” Quoting Joel 2, he says, “In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams, even all my servants, both men and women. I'll pour out my Spirit in those days.” 

So I was meditating on the pouring out thing. You know what I got out of that? It's kind of like one of those old water-driven factories, down at the Eno down here, where you have a big water wheel? And as the river flows, the work gets done. Isn't that powerful? As the water flows in that water wheel, then then the milk can turn and the grain can be ground or the lumber can be cut. So I think the pouring image is that of a need for continual ministry of the Spirit to us, not occasional, not temporary, not from time to time, or day to day, but continual flow of the Holy Spirit. He's going to pour out the Spirit on us and transform us continually. And then his disciples can rule like princes under him, having been transformed by the Spirit. 

So what applications can we take from this? First, come to Christ, don't leave here unregenerate. Come to Christ, let him be your atoning sacrifice. Maybe you've been complacent and lazy, maybe you've thought you were fine with God, but the Lord has convicted you today, and you know that you don't have a Savior. Jesus is the only savior. Don't be complacent, but flee to Christ, flee the wrath to come. Trust in him.

Now, this text, I think, speaks a word to Christian leaders. God delegates his authority to created beings, and if we're corrupt, we will act corruptly in those positions of authority. But if we're transformed by the Gospel, we can actually use those positions well and wisely. There are elements of godly leadership in this chapter, righteousness, that which conforms to the character of God, justice, that which conforms to the laws of God. Shelter in the storm, shadow of the rock, you are an element of protection and provision for people who are hurting because of tsunamis or earthquakes or disease or other issues that bring poverty and suffering. Streams of water, provision, the eyes of those who see will be open, saturating your minds in the word of God. You will be able to speak no longer with a stammering tongue, but fluent and clear. You will speak wisdom into this world, transformed by the word of God. And you will make noble plans because of your noble heart and you'll carry them out. That's what a godly leader looks like. So therefore, elders of the church, be that for First Baptist Church. Use your position well and wisely to serve, don't love trappings of power, whatever they may be here at this church, but at any rate, don't love them and get enamored by them. Not greedy for money, but eager to serve, it says in 1Peter 5. As Jesus washed the disciples feet, use your position as a servant leader to serve those entrusted to you. Husbands, use your position of leadership in the marriage to serve and protect your wife as Christ does the church, washing her with water through the word, love your wife, care for her, don't be a dominant tyrant oppressor or a complacent, lazy, negligent husband. Parents, use your position of authority over your children to bless them and to serve them, be a river of blessing to your children. Bring them up with tenderness and affection and godly leadership. Saturate their minds in the word of God. Employers, be a blessing to your employees, make them glad they work with you and for you. They may be unregenerate, but they see Christ in you. The way you use your position of leadership and authority, you use it well and wisely, and so you enrich their lives. Government leaders, government officials, it speaks directly to you, that you would stand for righteousness and justice and use your positions well, not to make yourselves wealthy. And if you are not in any of those positions of leadership, pray for those who are to do these things, pray that God would take hold of their hearts and that they would use their positions that way.

Verse eight is the single greatest New Year's resolution verse in the Bible. Alright? It's a great New Year's resolution verse coming up in a couple of weeks, if you do that, or don't wait for New Year’s, make a Sunday resolution today, whatever it is. Be noble and make noble plans and then do them. How's that? How about, like William Carey said, concerning missions, “Expect great things from God and attempt great things for God.” Make noble plans. What are your noble plans? And are you carrying them out?

And if I can urge you, just hate complacency. The picture I have of complacency is of a big nasty, wicked spider who has stung the complacent person with some kind of paralyzing poison and is wrapping them up in some kind of sticky silky stuff to be eaten later. Do you see an indolence, a laziness, a sluggishness in your spiritual life? Do you see it in your prayer life? Do you see it in your Bible intake? Are you complacent? It's easy in a land of plenty of wealth, to get lazy and complacent. Use this passage to shake it off, rise up and receive the fullness of the Spirit. Say, “Lord, I wanna be filled. Pour out your spirit on me from on high, transform my life, make me different, let the wheel of change turn in my life and let me do those good works you have for me to do,” and seek the full assurance of verse 17, “The effect of righteousness is quietness and confidence forever.” Just know that having been justified through faith, you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for this incredible chapter, for all the things that we can learn from it. Father, take the Scripture now and apply it richly and fully to our lives. We pray in Jesus name, amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 49:1-13. The main subject of the sermon is God's intention to increase the glory of Christ, giving Him the glory of which He is worthy.

Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 49, which you just heard Tim read. Beautiful passage of Scripture. It's the one I think the Lord led me to, to speak this morning about missions. Eight days after he was born, Jesus was brought by Joseph and Mary to the temple to be circumcised according to the law of Moses. Jesus was born of a virgin, born under the law, submitted to the precepts of the law, circumcision being one of them. And there was a man waiting for Jesus at that point, a godly man who had been waiting for the consolation of Israel, waiting for the Messiah, and it had been specially revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he saw the Lord's Christ. But the day had finally arrived, the day of fulfillment of that specific promise made to him had arrived. Moved by the Holy Spirit, he went to the temple, and there happened to bump into Joseph and Mary by the sovereign hand of God. And he saw this little baby, and he took Jesus, the baby Jesus, eight days old, into his arms, and he spoke these incredible words, he said, "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised you now dismiss your servant in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light of Revelation to the Gentiles and for glory for your people, Israel."

Now, at the end of Luke's gospel, Jesus, at the end of his earthly ministry, his life, after his death on the cross, after his resurrection, he met with his disciples in the upper room, and he said these words to them, "This is what is written," he said, "That Christ must suffer and die for the sins of the people and be raised on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things." So really the Alpha and the Omega of Jesus' earthly life in Luke's gospel I think bring us directly to the text we're gonna look at today, Isaiah 49. And for me, as I preach this Lottie Moon Christmas sermon, the goal for us immediately is fundraising. Our goal is $120,000 to be given to the spread of the gospel through the Southern Baptist Convention through the International Mission Board. That's the immediate goal, but my purposes, I think God's purposes are far greater than that. And I think this is a beautiful text, Isaiah 49, to rekindle and renew our heart of passion for missions, for cross-cultural missions, to ignite inside of us that flame again.

And for me, the interpretive key to this passage, and this is not easy, friends, as you look through Isaiah 49, it's not easy, and it's gonna bring us into some deep waters, but that's great, isn't it? To learn some new things and to be challenged, but here's my interpretive key. This text, Isaiah 49:1-13 is primarily, it really, in one sense, it's completely Jesus Christ speaking to us through Isaiah the prophet. It's Jesus speaking of a conversation he had with his Heavenly Father, and so you get the words of the Father through Jesus, but it's essentially Jesus speaking, and the “I” and the “me” and the “my” in this text is Jesus, or it's the Father speaking to Jesus. So this is Christ talking to us here. And that's very, very powerful. And the message that the Father has given to Jesus here is going to become the center of this sermon, and it's this phrase, "It is too small a thing," or in some translations, "It's too light a thing." 

And the approach I'm gonna take is right from verse six, I believe this is Jesus, because of Simeon's use of this text, and even better, Paul and Barnabas' direct quotation of this in Acts 13 at Pisidian Antioch, there there was some trouble with the Jews, they were back for a second week, the whole city was there to hear the word of the Lord, it was an awesome time, God was about to unleash his grace on the Gentiles of that region, but they went always to the Jew first, they went to the synagogue, a mixed reaction like always there. The next week, the Jews were filled with jealousy because of the huge crowd that had gathered, 'cause the whole city was there to hear the word of God. And Paul spoke boldly, "We had to speak the word of God to you,” Jews, “To you first. Since you reject it, do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us." That “us” is huge for me. "I have made you," singular in the Greek, "I have made you,” Jesus, “A light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." 

So this is Jesus, I'm convinced of it, Isaiah 49 is Jesus, and the approach I'm gonna take here is from this phrase in verse six, “It is too small a thing.” The glory that already is, is great, it's magnificent, it's wonderful what 2,000 years of God the Father's glorifying of his servant Jesus has done. It is an awesome thing, it's a great glory, it's just too small. It's just too small a thing. Why? 'Cause there's just more glory out there, there's more glory to be had for Jesus, specifically unreached peoples, lost people being brought to faith in Christ, that's greater, and I yearn for that greatness, and I think you should too.

So I'll be honest, I've sat through a lot of mission sermons, it's sad to me how often the whole MO is guilt them into action. Alright, there are basic verbs with every mission's appeal, and it's pray, give and go. If you kinda really think about it, you could add the word send or hold the rope, so that kind of thing. So that's good, but just, I just don't believe in that as a good motivation, amen? I just don't think it works. You're guilted into giving like 4% more than you would have and you feel bad about it and all that, look, let's not even go there.

I wanna set before you, glory, the greatness of this work, that your hearts would burn, that Jesus would be exalted and get his reward for dying, and that you would wanna be involved and that you would pitch everything you have, and then there's more than money, money is just a barometer, but just spend yourselves for this, that's my yearning. So I'm not going to guilt you into anything. I could do it, and I actually had to rephrase the title 'cause it just seemed too guilt ridden, "It's too small, FBC, what we're doing is too small." It's like, look, that's not it. Praise God for the growth of the Lottie Moon offering since I've been here. $27,000 when I got here, $120,000 the goal now, which we generally meet. Jack told me this morning we're at $12,000, it's like great, 90% to go, praise God. And how awesome is it, that we get to participate in this, that we get to be part of this? I don't wanna waste my dollars and I don't wanna waste my time or my gifts. And I think we can easily see from the Scripture, from this scripture, this is God's will, the glory of his son in getting what he died for, which is the allegiance of the nations. So we're gonna look at this and that MO, and basically we're gonna approach this by saying it's been glorious, it is glorious, there's just more glory yet to come, and let's live for that glory. 

So let's look at this text if we can, let's start at verses 1-3, and there we're gonna see the calling and the equipping of the Christ, verses 1-3, "Listen to me, you islands, hear this, you distant nations, before I was born, the Lord called me, from my birth, he has made mention of my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me. He made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor."” So it begins, this section I entitled, the calling and the equipping of the Christ, it begins with a call to the nations. Again, the “me” I'm taking as Jesus. So Jesus is standing and calling out as the servant of the Lord, as the light of the Gentiles, he is calling out to the distant nations and islands, the distant coastlands, and it gives you a sense here of the worldwide scope of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And that's the backdrop of the ‘it's too small a thing’ for you just to save Israel, that's just too small. And so Jesus wants his word to be heard to the ends of the earth, the distant islands, the distant nations, and so we have that message going out, ‘Well, what, Jesus? We're listening. We're the distant lands, what do you wanna say to us?’

Well, the first thing he says in this text is concerning his origin, his calling. "Before I was born, the Lord called me. From my birth he has made mention of my name." Now, in this text, you get a similar thing that you get from Jeremiah, where Jeremiah was called while he was still in the womb, before he was born. And that's fair enough here in Isaiah 49, but other texts give us more information about that. Jesus' entrance into the world is a supernatural mystery of redemptive history. He's able to stand before Pilate and say, "For this I was born, and for this reason I entered the world." Only Jesus could say that, ‘I made a willful choice to enter the world. Let me tell you why I did.’ Why did you choose to be conceived and born? [chuckle] What were you thinking before you were conceived and born, so that you would make that decision to enter the world? Friends, it's utterly unique.

And so in Micah 5:2 we have this word concerning Bethlehem, Ephrathah, "Although you are least among the clans of Judah, out of you will come a shepherd, a ruler, whose origins are from ancient times." The eternal origins of this ruler who's coming from Bethlehem. Or better, 1 Peter 1:19-20, we're coming to Jesus as a lamb, spotless lamb without blemish or defect. It was with his blood that we were redeemed. This lamb, it says, was chosen before the creation of the world, but has now been revealed. And those are themes here in Isaiah 49, the concealing of Jesus and the revealing of it, but he was chosen by God the Father, elect, chosen for this redemptive work before the creation of the world. And that's the calling. And so also we have a sense of the incarnation as he was knit together in his mother's womb, as he was put together for this very purpose, that's his calling. And we'll get to his mission, what he was called to do in a moment, but look at his equipment, look at the equipment of this mighty king, this conqueror king, this Prince of Peace, "He made my mouth like a sharpened sword." He also said, "He made me into a polished arrow."

So here we have this image of Jesus, this is the mightiest equipment for the building of an empire there has ever been. There is no force in human history as great as this double-edged sword that came from the mouth of Jesus, that comes from the mouth of Jesus. You get the same image twice in the book of Revelation, once at the beginning and once at the end. Revelation 1, you remember how the apostle John had a vision of the resurrected Christ? He was on the island of Patmos, John was in exile, and on the Lord's day, he had a vision, he saw the exalted glorified Christ radiant, his head and hair were white like snow, white as wool, his eyes like blazing fire, his feet like bronze glowing in a furnace. He had a golden sash around his chest, and he was moving through seven golden lamp stands, which represented seven actual local churches, it's symbolic of his ongoing priestly ministry to every local church. And it says he had a double-edged sword coming out of his mouth. In one of the letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3, one of those letters he says, "These are the words of him who has a sharp double-edged sword coming out of his mouth." So he's applying that sharp double-edged sword to his own people as a great physician, with the skill of a surgeon, that sharp scalpel cutting out the tumor of sin, going after wickedness, going after sin in his own people and cutting it out. This is the piercing aspect of the words of Christ. They have piercing power. 

See that in Acts chapter 2, as Peter preached that awesome spirit-saturated Pentecost sermon. And at the end of that it said, "When the people heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?' And the word was given, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'" All of that came though after the piercing. The piercing power of the words of Jesus, that's how he works on our hearts. As was said in his own lifetime, you remember how the guards were sent to arrest Jesus and they came back empty handed to the ones that had sent them? ‘Where is he?’ ‘We went and we were waiting, and while we were waiting we heard him speak, and we were smitten. No one ever spoke the way this man spoke.’ The sharp double-edged sword coming from the mouth of Jesus to heal his elect, to heal his people of their sins, to bring them to faith in Christ, to pierce them and convict them and bring them to life. That's the first half of Revelation. 

But in Revelation 19 he's riding on a war horse, he's leading out the armies of heaven, and he's coming to slay the wicked who are arrayed there against the Lord and against his anointed one and against his people, and he comes back, and every eye will see him, and they will mourn because of him, and he slays the wicked with the sword that comes from his mouth. And they are in the same way cut off, like a tumor very much, but this time the devil, his angels, the wicked, the unrepentant who have not loved the appearing of the Lord, they are cut out like a tumor from the universe, and that sharp double-edged sword looks like this or sounds like this, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Do you see the cutting? Depart from me, go away from me, then these will go away to everlasting torment. And so this is the power of Christ's word, the sharp double-edged sword that comes from his mouth.

Notice also the concealing aspect here. It says it twice in the text. Jesus is hidden in some sense, he is concealed in some sense. In the shadow of God's hand, Jesus was hidden. He was concealed as an arrow in God's quiver. So what do we get out of this? I tell you, Jesus must be preached, he must be proclaimed. He cannot be discerned by creation. You can't look at a sunrise or a sunset or a baby being born or a beautiful flower and see the son of God. You can see a great, wise, loving Creator, but you can't see the Redeemer. And so Jesus is concealed and he must be revealed, he must be proclaimed, and so he has been by the proclamation of the Gospel, through the prophetic writings, by the proclamation of Christ, so that, Romans 16, so that all nations might believe and obey him. This is the revelation of Jesus. This is mission work. Christ is hidden. They don't know him. Some people don't know anything about him at all. Others have been taught wrongly.

Think about Muslim lands that have the Injil, their own version of the New Testament, that have the Quran, but they don't have a true teaching about Jesus. So think about perhaps a 48-year-old Muslim owner of a tea house in Islamabad and an American missionary just comes in there regularly, maybe weekly, and just drinks tea there, and his purpose is ministry, his purpose is mission. The shop owner knows him but doesn't know what he's all about. At one point, though, it's just the two of them alone, and there's time to talk. The moment has come, [chuckle] and that missionary tells him the truth about Jesus, tells him that he is the only begotten Son of God. He was conceived by the Virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he lived a sinless life, he died an atoning death on the cross, an atoning sacrifice that Islam does not have. There's no atoning sacrifice in Islam. But Jesus is the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice for our sins. He explains all this, and suddenly the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to this man, and he hears that call, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest," and he cries out for salvation. Hallelujah!

And do you know how much that's going on? More than you can count. A multitude greater than anyone could count. All over the world that's what's going on. The money, Lottie Moon, helps that happen, that's all. But listen, it is individuals who have set themselves apart, their hearts ablaze, saying what Paul and Barnabas said in Pisidian Antioch, “This is what the Lord has commanded us,” me, I wanna make Jesus a light for the Gentiles. And so Jesus must be revealed.

In verse three, a bit of a challenge to my interpretive scheme, but I'm gonna blow right through it. How is Jesus Israel? Israel was God's son, carried on his shoulders out of Egypt, called to glorify him among the Gentiles and utterly failed in that mission through their wickedness and sin. And so that crown of glory that was meant for the people of God, Israel, was down in the muck, down in the mire, Jesus picked it up, made it glorious and put it on his own head. I don't know if you heard the story about Napoleon, how he crowned himself Emperor of France, snatched the crown out of the hand of the prelate there and put it on his head. It kind of fits his whole approach to life, I think that was just him. That's who he was. But he said about that moment, he said, "The crown of France was in the gutter. I picked it up at the tip of my sword and put it on my head." Well, I'm gonna just take that whole idea and just kind of redeem it a bit and say the crown of glory of Israel is in the gutter because of their sins, and Jesus put it on his own head because he is truly the Son of God, and he is the fulfillment, “Out of Egypt I've called my son,” and that's applied to Jesus, and then we are Israel in him, if you know what I mean. He is our head, and he is Israel, and he is the one who is called to be the servant of the Lord and to glorify him in this world.

But now we come to a challenging part, and I say to you, it's the most difficult, theologically most difficult part of the interpretive scheme that I've taken on, but I think therefore the richest. Look at verse four, the apparent discouragement of the Christ and his mission, “But I said, I have labored to no purpose, I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.” Now, we all face discouragement in life, we do, life is not always what we want it to be, we face what we would call adverse circumstances, trials and tests, and we can get discouraged. If this were Isaiah the prophet speaking these words, we wouldn't bat an eye, we would say, ‘I understand Isaiah had a challenging ministry, etcetera, but I just don't think this is Isaiah, I don't think that Isaiah has the honor and glory of being the light for the Gentiles to carry God's salvation to the ends of the earth.’ I don't think that's his calling, and Acts 13 tells me it's Jesus anyway. So how is it that these words could ever be spoken by Christ? Well, I think the picture I have in my mind, you could go to Gethsemane, but I'd rather just go right to the cross. There is Jesus on the cross, his life blood is flowing out from those wounds in his body, and at that point, as he looks at his ministry, remember, he said, concerning the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Gentile woman, he said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." That was the focus of his ministry there. John 1:11, he came to his own things, one could say, and his own people rejected him and turned him away.

Isaiah told us it would happen, he was despised and rejected. A man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Look at verse seven, "This is what the Lord says, the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel, to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation." What nation? Well, it's Israel. They hated him, they rejected him. I mean, they did it officially. The night he was arrested, his disciples all deserted him and fled, then they brought him bound to Annas and Caiaphas, and they officially condemned him to death as a blasphemer, turned him over to Pontius Pilate, then exerted tremendous pressure on Pilate to have him crucified, though Pilate had decided to let him go. And they said some horrendous things in reference to Jesus, "No, not him, give us Barabbas," they said. Or Pilate said, "Shall I crucify your King?" And they answered, "We have no king but Caesar." Do you really wanna say that over yourselves in reference to Jesus? He was rejected, officially rejected by the Jewish nation, he wept over Jerusalem because they did not recognize the time of God coming to them. And so not one stone would be left on another. So there he is surrounded by mockers, the chief priest, teachers of the law there to mock him, not to believe in him.

And there at the foot of the cross was his mother, not a surprise, just the way it is to be a mother, some other women that Jesus had ministered to, and one apostle. And that's it, that's it. For the only perfect ministry there has ever been in history, a sinless ministry, in which he loved God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, and he loved his neighbor as himself, and he poured out a river of blessings on people. This man has done everything well, it was said of him. The blind received their sight, the lame walked, those who had leprosy were cured, the deaf heard, the dead were raised, good news was preached to the poor. The only perfect teaching ministry there's ever been, he fed the 5,000, he walked on water, he stilled the storm with a word, and he has one disciple at his feet when he died. An apparent failure. Not much different, perhaps, than what Paul felt in 2 Timothy 4 when he said, "Everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me.” There's not much left to show for my ministry at this point.

Aren't you glad the verse doesn't end there? Aren't you glad for the word “Yet?” He says right there in the middle of the verse, "Yet, what is due me is in the Lord's hands and my reward is with my God." So this is how I picture it. Right before he died, in Luke's gospel, he says this, "Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit." Would it be wrong to kind of use that phrase and theologically say, in effect, what he said is, ‘Into your hands, I commit my ministry. Do something with this. Father, I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. Now, make something of it.’ John 12:24, "Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself a single seed, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.” ‘Father, make something of this. Make great fruit come from this death.’ And then he dies. ‘Into your hands, I commit all of this.’ And then he dies, and I feel like the Father says back in Psalm 1:10, "Sit at my right hand until I glorify you to the ends of the earth.” I'm gonna make your former enemies to be your worshippers, and those who will not worship you, I will cut them off and crush them. So you sit at my right hand, I will pour out the Spirit and the gospel will be advanced to the ends of the earth. Psalm 1:10, "Your troops," that's us, "will be willing on your day of battle.” I'm gonna move them out and they're gonna take your glory to the ends of the earth. 

So much for Jesus' apparent discouragement, he's sitting at the right hand of God, and he gets his reward. And what is his reward? You and me, us, we are the reward, the redeemed, that's what he gets, he gets to live with us forever and ever. Now, do you realize how fruitful this meditation is when it comes to cross-cultural missions? I can speak from personal experience, it's not every day is brighter than the day before on the mission field. There are definitely times you're there and you say, "Why did we do this? I don't see anything coming from this.” Nothing is, I mean, somebody who prayed to receive Christ seven months ago, they're not coming anymore, they've kind of drifted away and you're crying out in reference to them and you're wondering. It's been going on for centuries. Look at Adoniram Judson after six years of labor, not a single convert, ends up burying a wife, burying two wives, burying children, tropical fevers, digging his own grave and sitting by it waiting for God to kill him, the depths of discouragement and despair. And yet when he died, there's that word yet, when he died, I'm talking of Judson now, 210,000 baptized Burmese Christians. Government survey in Burma, when he died, 210,000, almost a quarter of a million.

We have to face the discouragement, say, "Is there anything good?” We just, every year we send 100,000 plus to the IMB, “Is anything coming of it?”  Yes, absolutely, but we can't always see it, and if even Christ can be in some deeply mysterious way, saying, "I have labored to no purpose, I've spent my strength in vain and for nothing," still yet, the reward is yet to come.

Alright, so what are Christ's mission fields? Well, I'm gonna break it into two, in verses five through seven, Jews and Gentiles. Amen. Now the Gentiles break up into lots of peoples, people groups and nations and all that, that's great. But verses five and six, especially, give us a sense of his mission field, "Now the Lord says, 'He who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my reward has, and my God has been my strength.' He says, 'It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.'" So Jesus really lived out what Paul said to the Jew first, then to the Gentile. 

So his first mission field, "I was sent only to the lost tribes of Israel,” to effect in them a radical transformation, to bring back the tribes of Jacob, to restore them and bring them back to God, to transform their hearts, that they would actually love God and glorify him and be in good fellowship with Almighty God to bring them back. That's his first mission. Now, I already said in verse four, it apparently failed when he died? It hasn't failed at all. The early church in Jerusalem, they were all Jews, hallelujah, and they're up in heaven now praising God forever and ever. They are glorious and radiant and waiting for their resurrection bodies. And they were Jews. And that was and is glorious in every generation, there's a remnant, those of Israel or Jacob, that God has kept, he has protected them. They are his elect, and they are going to come to faith. And have you ever met them before, Jewish Christians, aren't they awesome? They have different names, Messianic Jews, whatever. They're some of the most incredibly sweet brothers and sisters you'll ever find, and they frequently pay a very heavy price with their families. And I just wanna tell you that's a glorious thing. That's a glorious thing. Because Moses said of them, and Stephen said, "They are stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears, and they always resist the Holy Spirit, and there was never a prophet that they did not persecute, and they even persecuted the one who predicted the coming of the righteous one and now they murdered him." That's Acts 7. So do you not think it's a glorious thing for Jesus to redeem some people out of that stiff-neckedness and that hardened heart state and bring them to glorious salvation through his blood? It is a glorious thing. It's a marvelous thing. It's a weighty thing of infinite value. It's just too small a thing. It's too small. God had plans to the ends of the earth, and it was from the very beginning when he called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, and he said, "Through you, all peoples on earth will be blessed." And so Jesus is also a light for the Gentiles, that he may bring God's salvation to the ends of the earth.

Now, what is this ‘light’ language? Well, in Isaiah 9, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” What is that darkness? It is a spiritual darkness, it is a moral darkness, it's described in Romans chapter 1, their hearts, “Their foolish hearts were darkened," it says there. In Ephesians 4:17 and following, "So I tell you this, you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking, they're darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that's in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” It's a darkness that comes from bad thinking and wicked living that flows from their hearts. And Jesus, John 8:12, is the light of the world, and he goes there and he shines in a dark place, and they are redeemed from their idolatry, and then from their empty way of life handed down from their forefathers. He is the light of the Gentiles. And that's his mission field. 

And the mission to the Jews is not over yet. I think the final act is in the final generation. I believe in Romans 11, it speaks of the comprehensive salvation of the Jews that are alive right before the second coming of Christ. He says, I tell you a mystery, Gentiles, so you won't become conceited, Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved, as it is written, the deliverer, Jesus, will come from Zion, he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins." Magnificent, that's a crowning final drama of redemptive history, when the Jews turn en masse to Jesus and recognize him and weep for him as for an only son. So this is glorious, isn't it? It's glorious, and I would say much of it has yet to happen, it's still in the future. There's still more great things to come in these two mission fields.

So in verses 8-13, we see the glorious progress of the Gospel through Christ. Verse 8, "This is what the Lord says, 'In the time of my favor, I will answer you. And in the day of salvation, I will help you, I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people. To restore the land and reassign its desolate inheritances.'" Now again, I think this is an inter-trinitarian conversation. I think it's still Jesus talking. Verse 8, "This is what my Heavenly Father is saying to me, 'In the time of my favor, I will answer you,” Jesus, “And in the day of salvation, I will help you, and I will keep you, and I will make you, Jesus, to be a covenant for the people,” etcetera.

So the funny thing is, though, the Apostle Paul doesn't seem to do that with this verse. In 2 Corinthians 6, he says, "I urge you, I beg you as God's fellow workers, please do not receive God's grace in vain, for he says, 'In the time of my favor, I heard you, and in the day of salvation, I helped you, I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.'" Well he's appealing to people on the basis of this scripture. How does that work? Alright, this is how it works. If you're lost, I mean, I'm talking to you right now, you were invited here to First Baptist Church by a friend, or you just wandered in here, you found out on the website, where is a church I could go that'd be nearby, and you looked us up on MapQuest and here you are. I don't know how you got here. It's fine, I'm just glad you're here. You know what the apostle Paul is saying to you from this text? Don't wait to call on the name of the Lord. Don't wait for tomorrow. You don't even know if you're gonna be alive tomorrow. Now, “Today is the day of salvation. If today you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” So on the basis of that, call out, let your voice be heard and say, "Oh, Jesus save me, God save me in Jesus' name." What does that mean, in Jesus' name? Well it means, in effect, God's not gonna hear you except through Jesus. That's how that works. You have no access, none of us has any access to this holy throne of God except by Jesus. So in effect, God the Father is saying to the Son, "I'll listen to you. Do you have something you wanna say to me?" "Yes, Father, I wanna talk to you about my elect. There's another one that's just calling on my name now." Father says, "I'll save him.” He is our mediator. So we go to Jesus, Jesus goes to the Father and the Father forgives us. Hallelujah. Just don't put it off. You don't need to go in there or you don't need to do anything, you just need in your hearts to trust in Jesus and call on him and say, "Oh Lord, your blood was shed for sinners. I am a sinner, save me." 

And that's the message that missionaries are taking to the ends of the earth. This is the very thing. And how is it doing? How is the message, going what, over 2000 years has been doing really, really well. Read about it in verse nine and following, "To say that the captives ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness ‘Be free.’ And they will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill and they will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or sun beat upon them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them besides springs of water. I will turn all my mountains into roads and my highways will be raised up, behold, they will come from afar, some from the North, some from the West, some from the region of Aswan," in NIV, Sinim in other translations. 

Verse 13, "Shout for joy, O heavens, rejoice, O earth, burst into song, O mountains. For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones." All you have to do is just look at these verses and get a picture of a pilgrimage of people streaming. They're going up on highways, do you see it? They're just moving out. The Lord is leveling ground in front of them, and he is leading them. This one who is comforting them and he's their shepherd, and he's leading them on this salvation journey. Now, some could say this is just language about the restoration of the exiled Jews from, you know, in Babylon and all that, going back to the promised land. Friends, that's too small a thing. Amen. That's a good thing, that's a great thing. That's just too small a thing.

Now Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." There is a journey to be traveled. And in these verses, he describes, he's going to protect you, he's not gonna let the desert heat beat on you, he's going to give you living water to drink from, he's going to shepherd you and he's going to move you out, he's gonna have compassion on you and guide you, and he's gonna turn all of his mountains into roads and his highway is gonna be lifted up, and they're gonna come from distant lands, that Sinim or Aswan, many translators and many commentators think that's Southern China, isn't that awesome? He's gonna come, they're gonna come from Southern China, and they don't need to go anywhere. We don't have a Mecca that you stream to. We don't need to do that. Jesus told that to the woman at the well, remember. He said, ‘Neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, just stay where you are and worship him in spirit and truth. But you'll be on a pilgrimage, all right, you'll be following me to heaven.’

And these exact words are quoted in Revelation 7, this multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe and language and people and nation. Many of the Old Testament allusions in Revelation are just allusions, he doesn't quote them directly, but he's talking about these that have come out of the tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, this multitude from every tribe and language and people and nation. Revelation 7:15, "Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him night and day in his temple, and he who sits on his throne will spread his tent over them," listen to these words, "Never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat." Are you hearing Isaiah 49, "For the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, he will lead them to springs of living water and God will wipe every tear from their eyes." Magnificent, magnificent. And that's going on right now all over the world. Missionaries, evangelists are going out boldly and sharing this gospel, and the elect are responding. And they're coming to faith and they're getting up on that highway of holiness, and they're starting that journey to heaven.

Now, what does the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering have to do with that? Some. [laughs] God can use Southern Baptist and Southern Baptist money and Southern Baptist missionaries to do that. And amen, he is using it. So, so far we have $12,000. That is a great thing. That's a lot of money, $12,000. But, if I can say this gently, it is too small a thing. So let's give sacrificially, and I want us to give more than that. Andy, why don't you come up here? I've asked Andy, Andy shared with the elders the other day, Andy went overseas and met up with some of our friends that are serving the Lord in distant lands, maybe even mentioned in our text today, I don't know, but at any rate, come and tell us some more practical ways that we can be involved.

[PASTOR ANDY WINN] Well, you'll notice in your bulletin, there are 10 practical points and if you can follow along with me. Let me just briefly unpack them just a little bit more. You'll notice right to my right, your left, right outside those doors, there's a big map, and on the bottom of that map, there's about seven different prayer cards or cards of our FBC family there. Just very practically, just pick one of those cards up, take it home, put it on your refrigerator or somewhere that you see it often as a reminder to pray for our church family that are serving overseas. So again, that's a very practical, specific thing that we can do as a church body.

Also, number two is to consistently read and respond to emails. I'm sure that from time to time, you'll receive an email update from one of our members or maybe a friend of yours that you know that's serving overseas, you receive a prayer update. When Kyle and I were on that trip that Andy mentioned, all of these things came from some of our church families sharing with us, but one of the things they mentioned is that they send those updates and they often wonder if they're being read or secondly, if people are praying for them. And one way that we can do that to communicate is just to say, "Hey, thanks so much for this update, I'm praying for you," or pick up a specific thing they mentioned in their email, so that's very practical.

Number three is to send a picture or prayer requests or praises to our FBC members that are serving elsewhere. Often we think about, how can I pray for them? What are they doing so I can, again, bless them? But one of the things, the desires that they have, our members on the field, the desires they have is to know us better. One way to do that is when we are going through a praise or a trial is to send a brief email to them and say, "Hey, please pray for me," and send a picture so they can associate a face with a name, because when you're gone here from five or six years, our body changes, and so it'd be great for them to know us that way. 

Also, strive to know the people group that they are serving. We have, as you know, we have Adam serving South Durham, we have Yann serving a church planning in Boston. We also have our members that are serving a people group overseas. You've heard us mention before that we've adopted as a church body, the Northern Bai, and so one of our responsibilities is not just the Northern Bai, but to really focus on the Northern Bai, who are they? How can we pray for them? Or ask other individuals, "Are there other members? How can we pray for the people group that you're targeting?"

Fifthly, is to schedule a time to use technology. There's Google+, FaceTime, Skype. There's multiple ways that now technology, we can see someone face-to-face that are miles away. You better believe that Elisa and I, and I know Kyle and Margy, took advantage of that technology, it was great. But we can do that as well with our FBC members. And so just look forward to doing that. Some of the home fellowships have done that, and we've been encouraged to continue that from our members overseas. 

Sixthly is to invite them over to your home when they are on state side. Many times, often our members will come back, sometimes they'll be here passing through Durham for two weeks, other times they'll be here for up to three months to sometimes even six months. We've got to know when they're coming and rearrange our schedule to go out of our way to invite them over at our home, to have them over for dinner. Because here, those three months, six months are incredible for them to be re-acquainted with our body, and so specifically make time for that. 

Seventh is express interest or availability of your schedule if you sense God moving you and wanting to use you to serve overseas, maybe it's a short-term trip. Express that interest to the elders. As you know, we have a very limited number of trips and limited purpose, but still what we can do is when we hear from you that you are interested, or when we hear of available time, we can really work hard at matching some of the needs that we are hearing from those of our members that are serving, we can match those needs up with the members' needs that are interested in actually going on a short-term trip.

Eighthly, you might be thinking, "Well, two weeks is okay, but I actually have a semester." Maybe you're a college student, maybe you have a semester that you can use and serve overseas for two to three, four months. That has been, we've done that several times. Maybe that's your situation, maybe you have time where you can invest in the summer, for those of you that your schedule, your work schedule will allow that. Let us know that. For some, it might be serving one to two years, and so those are also great needs. And as Andy mentioned, Kyle and I, there are specific needs that we've heard of our members could use someone that would go for up to two years.

Ninthly, as we talked about, Andy mentioned, is the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. And so just continue to pray for what would the Lord be having us to give and how much and how faithful, and how can we pray? And so, just utilize that. One of the things that Kyle and I heard while we were there just this last few weeks, they reminded us of how important those Lottie Moon dollars are for keeping our family units overseas, and our individuals overseas, so be mindful of that. And lastly, and by the way, we can unpack that, your home fellowship leaders have more detailed application points that you can discuss tonight, but lastly, Amanda Halbrooks will be leaving, Lord willing, in about a few weeks to go training, to training in January. And then, in a few months later, to go overseas to invest up to two years of her life. We want you to know that, we want you to take advantage of getting to know her, asking how we can pray for her, and we'll have the privilege of commissioning her in a few weeks. But these are just the beginning of specific ways that we can be involved in what we heard this morning.

[PASTOR ANDY DAVIS] Thanks. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the power of your word. We thank you for Isaiah 49 and for the richness there is there. Help us, O Lord, to go over it, to look again at its phrases and to see the glory of God, and to do what Paul and Barnabas did, to take very personally that these are our marching orders. The Lord has commanded us to make Jesus a light for the Gentiles. It's really something only God the Father can do through the Spirit, but Lord, help us to be available. Thank you for each of these practical points that Andy's done a great job expressing to us. Help us to choose one of them and just do it for your glory. In Jesus name, amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 31:1-9. The main subject of the sermon is why we should trust God's sovereignty over our man-made plans.

So turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 31. And as you do, I just, I wanna ask a searching question of you, one of those interesting questions that you just kind of line yourself, your life up against, but here it is. If your house were burning and you had only a short time to get something out of the house, what would you get? Now, of course, immediately you're gonna ask, is everyone safe? Is everyone out of the house? And that's right, that's fine. Start with the people. They're irreplaceable. People are unique, and so we wanna be sure that everyone's safe, but in my little story, everyone's safe. Everyone's out, and you have a chance to get something out of the house. One thing that you can carry. What would you pick? What would it be? Would it be a photo album? Would it be some mementos that are irreplaceable? If they burn, it can never be replaced, can't buy them in a store or something like that... Maybe an heirloom, a family heirloom, maybe a box of silver that came from your grandmother, and you just could never get that back. Something precious like that. Doesn't matter what it is. You're just thinking about it right now, okay? And so that question causes your value system to rise up and be exposed, doesn't it? What it is you value among your possessions. It just does. Friends, that's exactly what happens when we're going through trials, and they're not so much the value system, but this one question. What are you trusting in? It just rises up to meet the trial. It exposes, it brings to the surface your trust structure, your savior, if I could be that bold.

So, for example, let's say you're going through a health crisis, let's say you're awaiting the results of some pretty serious diagnostic tests for perhaps a fatal illness and you haven't heard yet, and your mind is going through the various options. What if it is cancer of that type? What if it's leukemia? What if it is a rare liver disorder that is usually fatal? What then? What are you gonna think? Well, it's amazing what medical science can do these days. It's incredible what the pharmaceutical researchers can come up with. Surely they'll come up with something to save my life, or we live in a great city, the City of Medicine, there's got to be some skilled surgeons, some skilled medical people. You start having these thoughts. Friends, your trust structure is floating to the surface. And my question is not so much do you have these thoughts, but on what are you ultimately resting in that time? That's the question.

Or suppose it's an economic trial, maybe you're facing the loss of your job, or you already have lost your job. Maybe just dim economic times, difficult times. Maybe in your company, 30, 40% of the workforce has already been let go, and you know that this week there are more layoffs coming. And you're anticipating, you're looking ahead to the future and thinking, "Okay, how am I gonna face this trial? Well, it's okay, I have a year's worth of salary saved up." Trust structure starting to float to the surface. ‘I have a great resume, even if I lose this job, I've got some great contacts in the industry, I've got some friends I can call, they owe me some favors anyway, I don't know if they remember that, but I remember. And so I can make some phone calls, I can network, and I'll be employed soon.’ Your trust structure is rising up to meet the trial. And that goes for any trial that we face. Frankly, that is exactly why God brings those trials to begin with. Frequently called in Scripture, fiery trials. Peter calls them, ‘Don't be surprised at the fiery trial you're going through.’ At the end of our scripture here today, in verse nine, it says, “Declares the Lord whose fire is in Zion. Zion's, the city of God, where he dwells with his people. Whose furnaces in Jerusalem. He's bringing a fire on his people, and that fiery trial tests the people.” It shows them what the alloys are in their heart. It causes their trust structure to rise to the top. 

And here's the thing: our God is a jealous God, and he is very jealous over your trust structure, your trust mechanism, your heart. He's zealous over how it is, what it is you trust. He wants that. He yearns for that. He's jealous over that. He wants you to trust in him and in him alone, and in nothing else, so he's gonna bring trials in your life because frankly, you, like me, we're all the same, we're trusting in the Lord plus some other things. You know you are. And he wants to purify that, and as I said in my prayer, I alluded to it, it doesn't happen during the easy times. It doesn't happen during the times of prosperity. Those trust structures aren't exposed, and we're not caused to turn away from them during easy times. And as you know, I love the hymn, which has these words in it, "See the incarnate God ascended. Pleads the merit of his blood, venture on him, venture holy, let no other trust intrude." Those words, they're not scripture, but just powerful hymn, and they just weigh on me, each one. Any other trust than Jesus, who shed his blood for me is an intrusion between me and God, has no place there. And yet I know of my heart that other trusts are intruding all the time, and it's hard to keep them at bay. And so the Lord must bring, does bring significant, painful trials into our lives to expose, to strip away any deceptions and illusions and to show us what we are leaning on, what we are relying on, what we were trusting on. 'Cause he wants it for himself.

"Our God is a jealous God, and he is very jealous over your trust structure, your trust mechanism, your heart. He's zealous over how it is, what it is you trust. He wants that. He yearns for that. He's jealous over that. He wants you to trust in him and in him alone, and in nothing else,"

That's what Isaiah 31 is really ultimately about, Isaiah 31 is ultimately about that. It's a series of prophecies given at the end of the 20s of Isaiah on into the 30s, 28-35, a series of oracles, a series of prophecies made by the prophet Isaiah, the Old Testament scholars time them somewhere between 705 BC and 701 BC. By that time, the Northern Kingdom of Israel had already been exiled by the Assyrians for their wickedness and their sin, their idolatry. They're already gone. Southern Kingdom of Judah is still threatened, significantly threatened by Assyria. They're facing, as far as they're concerned, imminent invasion. We've said before the Assyrians were the Nazis of the ancient world. They were a vicious tyrannical empire-building people. They used psychological warfare, they used cruelty, and they were adding kingdom to kingdom, and they were seeking to advance their own empire. That's who they were. They were intimidating, they were terrifying, and they were coming. That's a fiery trial, and it was exposing the Jews of Judah, that Southern Kingdom, exposing their trust structure. Now during that time, godly King Hezekiah was doing some works of reform in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, finally getting rid of those offensive high places and causing the Jews to worship in Jerusalem as they had been commanded to do by the law of Moses. Those high places were stubborn errors in the lives of the people that Hezekiah finally saw through to the removal of them. But he was also surrounded by some, it seems, faithless counselors who were giving him advice and pushing him to do something more than just spiritual answers. They were reaching out to Egypt in particular, sending emissaries, ambassadors down to Egypt with gold and silver on camel backs and donkey backs, making their way across that Negev, that desert to Egypt to get some advice and counsel from the wise men of Egypt, and to seek military protection from the Egyptians. And that deeply offended God. He was deeply offended by that. 

It really bothered him, and so there's a series of oracles, one after the other about this very thing, so look at verse one, "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots, and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or seek help from the Lord."

So we begin again with that prophetic word, "Woe" it's very common. It was used more by Isaiah the prophet than any other prophet. He said it about himself. You remember in Isaiah 6, "Woe is me. I'm ruined." It's a word of prophetic judgment really of spiritual danger from the Holy God. Now, an impending judgment was coming. God in his grace would send a prophet like Isaiah to speak a warning, and he might introduce that warning with the word "Woe.” God was offended. He was offended by their overtures to Egypt. It's angering him that they are reaching out to Egypt and they're not relying on him, that they're putting their faith in Egypt's cavalry. And they're forgetting God And so he speaks this word of warning, this word "Woe." Woe to you for doing this. Woe to you. So they were terrified of Assyria, and they're making provisions and plans. They had stratagems for what to do with the impending Assyrian invasion. That was their strategy, but they were forgetting the real danger. The real danger was not Assyria. The real danger was God. The real danger was God. He had said this earlier in Isaiah 8:12-13. There he commanded the prophet himself. Isaiah said, "Do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to fear. He is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread." So in effect, Judah, you're afraid of the Assyrians, and you are missing the whole point. They wouldn't even be coming if your relationship with me were right. They wouldn't even be coming. 

God is the issue. God is always the issue, not the trials or whatever you're going through. It's always about your relationship with God. God and God alone. Simply put, from Romans 8:31, "If God is for us, who could be against us?" Right? Well, let's turn it around. I think the corollary is true. If God is against you, then who cares who's for you. How terrifying is it if God has you in his crosshairs for judgment?

So, the key question coming to us as we look in the mirror of the Word, as we look down in the mirror of Isaiah 31, the key question just rising up off these nine verses is, in what are you trusting? What are you trusting in today? What are you relying on? Are you relying on your own version of Egypt's cavalry and chariots and all that? The word rely means to stay or support. Something you can lean your weight on. What are you leaning your weight on spiritually? Now, the leaders in Judah, they had it all figured out. They said, ‘Now listen, we've got a great infantry. We're really good on the ground, but we don't have any horses. We don't have any cavalry. So it'd be really, really good if we could get some horses. Egypt's got plenty of horses.’ And so they thought about that, thought about Egypt. And ESV has a little bit different translation of verse one, "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses," listen, "Who trust in chariots because they are many, and rely on horsemen because they are strong." You see the quantity of Egypt's horsemen and the quality, the strength, and power of their chariots, that stimulated faith in the hearts of the Jews, that stimulated trust, their trust was rising up to their thoughts of, ‘Hey, they've got a lot of horses. They get a lot of... Hey, I think that might be something we can do.’ So that's the ground. It's the reason for their trust.

But they were giving no thought to the Lord's might or to his wisdom. And as I said, even deeper, to God's role in bringing the Assyrians, they, at the end of that verse, it says, "But do not look to the Holy One of Israel or seek help from the Lord." In all their plans and schemes, they gave no thought to the Lord, they did not consider the fact that God has infinitely more power than the Egyptians or Assyrians, or all the nations of earth combined, and even worse... And we'll get to it later, they neglected the fact of their own idolatries, their own sins that were causing God to act in this way anyway, bringing the Assyrians. They weren't thinking about that.

Now, this whole thing, as I've mentioned before, was directly forbidden, was foreseen, and directly forbidden by God in the book of Deuteronomy. Before they even entered the Promised Land. God spoke to Israel through Moses. They had already been delivered from Egypt by God's mighty hand and outstretched arm. They had sadly had to wander in the desert for 40 years because of their own sinful unbelief, but now the time had come to enter the Promised Land. They're there, and the plains of Moab across the Jordan River, and God gave them the law a second time, Deuteronomy. And he added to it, he foresaw the day when Israel would have a king. They didn't have one at that point, they had Moses as a prophet and leader, but they had no human king. But he foresaw the day when they would have a king. Deuteronomy 17 gives restrictions and commands about the king, and he says in Deuteronomy 17:16, "The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, you are never to go back that way again." It's already told them. This is the very thing you must not do. Friends, as Jesus put it very plainly: no one can serve two masters, and you can't trust in two saviors. It's gonna be one or the other. And they had already made their decision. They were trusting Egypt and not looking to the Lord and relying on God. They made their decision. And in the scripture, you see again and again in the Old Testament, the arithmetic of God doesn't add up to man, you know what I'm saying? God just does things mathematically differently than we would do. 

I mean take the case of Gideon, for example. Gideon, you have too many men to fight this battle. That's weird. Too many men? God, I was praying that you had actually helped me with the mustering here. We're not getting a great turnout here. They're afraid of the Midianites. As well, they should be. No, no, still you have too many men. You remember, little by little, he whittles the troop's down to just a small number of men, 300. And they go into battle with no weapons in their hands at all, I mean, that's just... God's ways are not our ways. But he's very plain about why it must be this way, so that you will not boast against me, that it was by your own strength you defeated the Midianites. He does this again and again. God's arithmetic just doesn't add up. Take the case of Asa in 2 Chronicles 14, when the Kushites come with a million men, a million men, myriad of myriads. NIV just gives us a vast army, but I like a million men. What do you think? Especially since Asa's troops number 300,000. Outnumbered three to one. Who's gonna win? Whoever God wants to win. It's really that simple. Whoever God wants to win. In that case, he wanted Asa and his 300,000 men to win. Or take the case of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20, when the Moabites and Ammonites came out again with a vast army, and Jehoshaphat didn't even go out and fight. They just went out and worshipped and waited, and the Moabites and Ammonites killed each other to a man. And then Jehoshaphat collected the booty. What a powerful, mighty army we have. It's like, yeah, you're good at collecting booty for a battle you didn't even fight. God does this again and again.

Now, this passage is not, I think, reject military preparations out of hand as though somehow they're wrong. It's not saying that. There are ample evidences of godly people in the Bible making military preparations. Jesus even talked about that, about you see an invading army and too many men, and you sit down and calculate, and you send out emissaries to win peace. Jesus even talked about that. But the issue is trusting in that. Thinking that because you have a mighty army, a big army, you're definitely gonna win all the battles, and forgetting God in all of that. So a military preparation, fine, as long as it's a subset of openly trusting in God to deliver. 

This is, I think, a good warning to our nation, in particular. To the United States of America. America has an astonishing military budget. Maybe you haven't looked it up. It's absolutely astonishing how much money we spend in military. How much is it, pastor? Okay, well, all the nations on earth together spend, it's estimated last year, spent 1.7 trillion dollars on military, all the nations together. America spent 711 billion of that. Billion is just one thing over from trillion. That's 700 billion that heading toward a trillion. Simply 42% of the world's military expenditures are spent by the United States of America, 42%. And as a matter of fact, if you look at the next 14 nations combined, I don't have it memorized so I'll read it, “China, Russia, United Kingdom, France, Japan, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, Brazil, Italy, South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Turkey.” Add all of them up. That equals the US, roughly. The next 14 nations combined. What's my point? Well, the point is, it's easy to think that because of all that money, we are safe from attack. You see what I'm saying? We're going to win every battle. The really scary part about that expenditure is, it's coming at a time when we are becoming increasingly secular and increasingly allergic to public displays of faith and God language in the public square, that is a dangerous combination, so be warned, O people who trust in military strength, but do not look to the Lord, it comes right up off of verse one, look at it. Ecclesiastes 9:11, "The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong." That's strange. It's in Bible, or this one, Psalm 33:16-17, "No king is saved by the size of his army. No warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all of its great strength, it cannot save." That's a partner verse to the thing being dealt with here in Isaiah 31. Don't trust in the horse. It can't save you. 

So that's where secularism and our pride and wealth come to threaten our very existence. Secularism, keeping God out of the public square, making God irrelevant to everything, keeping God language out. That's secularism. Pride. America's determination to have the best stuff. Always the best that money can buy. Wealth, having the economic means to buy a lot of that best stuff, for example, the ability to afford a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at 4.5 billion dollars each, and that's without the airplanes. The total cost of the 10 Nimitz-class carriers we have, close to 100 billion dollars just for the carriers and the airplanes. So, now we Christians based, instructed, by text like Isaiah 31, we should know better. And what we have to do is be light in a dark place and we need to be salt in a corrupt world and say, ‘None of that will deliver us if we are alienated from God.’ And so therefore, let's not be alienated from God. I'm not saying anything about therefore, let's spend less money. I'm not even saying that, I'm saying what is the trust structure? That's what I'm asking.

Ultimately, the issue here is God, and in verses two through five, we see the greatness of God's power, both to destroy and to deliver. God here lays out some of his credentials as Savior. He does it in a marvelous way, it's amazing how they forgot what God had done in the past. Now, Egypt was known for a number of things, known for its wisdom, its wise counselors, known for its economic bounty because of the constantly flowing Nile and the abundant harvest, known for its military strength. Let's take wisdom, for example. The pyramids, as a whole, but especially the great pyramid of Giza, is it just a display of human ingenuity and engineering and just intellectual prowess, it's just staggering. Do you realize that the great pyramid of Giza was the tallest human structure for 38 centuries. For 3,800 years, the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made thing on earth. Finally, a cathedral in London passed it by in 1525. And then after that, it was an average of 50 to 75 years to till whatever was number one, and then it would be bypassed by the next building, now it's down to like months, I think. You get that honor for about 18 months and the next high rise takes it from you. No one's ever gonna break the Great Pyramids record of 38 centuries as number one. So basically, that's a testimony to incredible wisdom and skill, intellectual prowess. So, the Egyptians are wise. Look at verse two, speaking of God, “Yet he, too, is wise and can bring disaster, he does not take back his words.” I meditated for a long time on the word too, it's just one of the most beautiful under statements here in the Bible, this is Almighty God saying, ‘Alright, I grant that the Egyptians are wise, but I'm wise too. I can do wisdom, I'm good at wisdom. Look to me, look to me. I've got some wisdom for you, how much wisdom do you have? Well, tell you what, let's just do some comparison, they built the pyramid, I built the earth it sits on. And I built their brains too, as they thought about how to do the architecture.’

Oh how great, how infinitely vast is the wisdom of God, meditate with me on the wisdom of God now. Psalm 104:24, "How many are your works, O Lord? In wisdom you have made them all." Do you sense in Scripture God's proud of the things he's made? I do. Proud of the ostrich, how fast it can run, proud of the eagle, how high it can soar, proud of the stars, the fact that each one of them is there named by him, and none of them is missing because of his mighty power. he's proud of the things he's made and rightly so. He created heaven and earth. He made the seasons, everything that passes through them, he made the skies and all that soars through them, he made the dry ground and all of the things that grow and flourish, he made the seeds, the genetic code for those plants. Mighty cypress trees and oak trees, little grass down low on the ground, spreading vines. God created all of these things. He, too, is wise, he can do wisdom. He's vast in understanding, and as a matter of fact, no human being can ever be God's counselor. You can't teach him anything. He can teach you a lot of things, but you can't teach him anything, there's never been a new thought in God's mind, he's omniscient. So why in the world would you go down to the counselors of Egypt and neglect to ask me for wisdom? And actually, when it comes to trials, I think it's good to keep a cluster, a triad of attributes of God together, three of them together, keep them in mind: God's wisdom, God's power and God's love. Those three things together are everything you'll need to understand dark providences that come in your life. God is wise in bringing the trials that you need into your life, he's very wise in that, he does not bring you more than you can handle, but he will not bring you less than you need. He will bring less than you want, I can testify to that. 

He'll bring less. He'll bring more pain than you want, we want less. We were are like, ‘God, this pain is too much, I would dial it down a bit.’ Don't forget the wisdom of God, God knows exactly what you need. So God is wise in making a plan, what do we mean by the wisdom of God? J.I. Packer in Knowing God puts it this way, “the wisdom of God... Wisdom in general, means to identify the highest and best and most glorious end plus the best route or means to get to that end. So that both the ends and the means are justified completely by the wisdom of God.” He knows what he's getting at, and he knows how to get there. It's the wisdom of God. So he has an incredible plan, and he has the power to bring his plan out. If God were wise but not powerful, then he'd be like some kind of wizened old wise man on some mountain somewhere having great ideas, but having no power to influence the world at all. If he were powerful and not wise, he would be like any one of a number of human tyrants that we've seen in the last number of centuries that had great power, but were wicked and corrupt. And add to that the love of God, the fact that God loves you like an adopted son or daughter, he's not going to use his power and wisdom and trample you, but everything is done out of love for you, for your brothers and sisters. That's how you understand these trials.

So, God is wise and he has the power to bring disaster. God says, ‘I can do wisdom and I can do disaster too.’ And he does not take back his words. So unlike human counselors who may say something and later say, ‘Well, I have a better idea now, or a better insight,’ etcetera. God doesn't ever have to do that. Numbers 23:19, "God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" God never has to take back his words, ever. And God has decreed destruction for his enemies, look at verse two, "He will rise up against the house of the wicked, he will rise up against those who help evildoers." God's not merely a theory, he's not the God of the deists or the stoics that just stays out of human affairs. God interferes and meddles, by the perspective of those who don't want him to do that, God runs the universe by the perspective of those who love what he's doing, he is actively involved in human history, directly involved. And so God has made a plan, that plan was fashioned, it was created before the foundation of the world, nothing has been added to it since, nothing has been taken away from it, since he does not take back his words. Everything right on schedule.

Isaiah 14:24, "The Lord Almighty has sworn surely as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand." Isaiah 14:26-27, "This is the plan determined for the whole world; this is the hand stretched out over all nations, for the Lord Almighty has purposed and who can thwart him, his hand is stretched out and who is able to turn it back?" So as I was teaching the men's Bible study a few weeks ago, just those two words, God's plan, God's hand, God's plan, God's hand. Wise plan, omnipotent hand. Couple that with God's tremendous love, God is love, and you see the beauty of everything God is doing in this world. By contrast, however, the Egyptians are men and not God. Look at verse three, "That the Egyptians are men and not God; their horses are flesh and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out his hand, he who helps will stumble and he who has helped with fall; both will perish together." Now, the contrast here is not flesh versus spirit in a dualistic sort of sense, it's just human, mortal and all that, versus God. "God is spirit," Jesus says, "those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." God's help is infinitely more powerful than man's help, because they're just offering horse flesh, basically, they're just offering horse flesh, and wouldn't you much rather have the infinite power of the Spirit of God on your side? Now, that's part of the problem, isn't it? God is spirit, he's therefore invisible. He's like a wind. We can't see him, we don't know that he's even there. Therefore, most people don't even believe that he exists, “They say in their hearts, there is no God.” God's existence, his activity must be taken by faith, must be discerned by faith, and he declares that it is his will that both those who help wrongly and those who receive the wrong help, both of them will perish together. Remember, he spoke of a wall at the beginning of this chapter on that. So you go out, you get your Egyptian cavalry, you go get your Egyptian counselors, both the Egyptian calvary and counselors and those who hire them will fall together. He's decreed this. 

God is mighty and powerful, and he is undaunted by human power and prowess. He's not intimidated by it at all, he gives us two beautiful images in verses four and five. The first image is God as a mighty lion. Don't you love this? I don't know if this is where C.S. Lewis got it, got his image of Aslan as Jesus, a lion, maybe a lion of the tribe of Judah, I don't know. But I love this verse, look what he says in verse four, "This is what the Lord says to me as a lion growls, a great lion over his prey, and though a whole band of shepherds is called together against him, he's not frightened by their shouts, or disturbed by their clamor—so the Lord Almighty will come down to do battle on Mount Zion and on its heights." It's a great image. So you have this, I get a picture of a lion coming in and grabbing some sheep, let's say, and dragging it off from the flock and kind of settling down to consume it under a tree. A shepherd sees it happen and thinks I better go get some reinforcements. So he gets all of his shepherd friends, like 18 of 'em, let's say, and they kind of keep a distance from this lion who is feeding on this carcass, now this mangled thing, and they're trying to shout and yell and make banging noises and all that, and you get that feeling, the lion is just eating and looks up, and he's just not in any way moved or intimidated, he's not going to move at all, there's nothing they can do to scare him. God is like that, that's what the text says. There is nothing that we can do as a human race, all seven billion of us, there's nothing we can do to scare God. There's nothing we can do to intimidate him or move him off his purpose. Psalm two is the best photo of this in the Bible, the best image of this, "Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain, the kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Christ, his anointed one. The one enthroned in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them, then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath." What do you think would happen to those 18 shepherds if the lion leaves the carcass and starts running right at 'em? They're gonna scatter like the chaff before the whirlwind. It is very, very important for us to meditate on the greatness of God compared to human beings. We fear man too much, God's not afraid of us at all.

So that's the first image. The second image is of a bird kind of hovering protectively over a nest, think an eagle here over a bunch of little eaglets. Verse five, "Like birds hovering overhead, the Lord Almighty will shield Jerusalem; he will shield it and deliver it, he will ‘pass over’ it and rescue it." So it's kind of two different images; the first is an image of God devouring a carcass and nothing can move him from finishing his devouring, and the second image is of, maybe a mother eagle sheltering and protecting her young and nothing can get in there to hurt them. And God does both to Jerusalem, interestingly. Now here we have, I think, a clear reference to the Passover. It's in quotations in NIV, maybe also in the ESV, “He will shield it, he will ‘pass over’ it.” Do you see? 'Cause it's the same Hebrew word for the Passover. It's pretty much the same thing that God did in Egypt to begin with, where he told them to take the blood of a lamb and painted over the door posts and the sides and the angel of death would see that blood and pass over and not bring death on the firstborn of anyone in that house, but he brought the misery of judgment on all of the first born of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on the throne down to the firstborn of the slave woman at the well, all of them lost if they were not protected by the blood.

And so God is gonna do that again, he's going to send out an angel and that angel is gonna pass over the city of Jerusalem, and he's gonna come down after his enemies, but this time it's not gonna be just household, household, household, one, one, one, it's gonna be the entire Assyrian army that's going to perish that night. 185,000 dying in one night. This is very much like what God says as not just the mother eagle, but Jesus gives us the same idea, but different imagery when he says in John chapter 10, “I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me is greater than all; and no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one.” We are completely safe in the protection of our Savior, and he will hover over us and shield us and protect us from any enemy so that we may not be harmed.

Well, God having given this warning, ‘Woe to you who go down to Egypt,’ and giving a promise that he is going to shield Jerusalem and defend it and deliver it, now gives them a calling to repentance. He calls on them to repent in verse six and seven, "Return to him you have so greatly revolted against, O Israelites. For in that day every one of you will reject the idols of silver and idols of gold your hands have made." So here is this call to repentance and to return, to return to him, turn back to him, and look what it says in verse six, "To him you have so greatly revolted against." These people have wandered away and they are to return to the one they have greatly revolted against. This is a profound statement. 

True repentance means seeing the greatness of your sin, dealing with it honestly. The revolt, the rebellion of our hearts is deeper than we think it is, it's a deeper issue than we think it is. Proverbs 20:5, "The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding will draw them out." Okay? So our rebellion against God is deeper than we thought it was, but the love of God in Christ is deeper. Praise God for that song, "Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus." And your estimation of how deep God's love for you in Christ, it is directly proportional to the conviction you have over your own deep rebellion against him. If your sins were light small things and you have a light, small savior and a light, small salvation. And you're no true prophet or no true pastor if you tell the people that their sins are light, small things. Jeremiah 6:14, "The false prophets have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, peace, peace when there is no peace." That's not real healing, friends. You don't put Band-Aids over things that need surgery. And so for us, we have to deal honestly, we have to say verse six is about me, return to him you have so greatly revolted against, don't make light of your rebellions and don't make light of your idolatries. Verse seven, "For in that day, every one of you will reject the idols of silver and gold your sinful hands have made." You know what this is? Look at it just grammatically, this is a prophecy. Isn't that marvelous? Not you ought to, or you should, or you better. No, no, no, you will. You will most certainly reject all your idols, you'll hate them all, you'll throw them away to the rodents and bats, he says in Isaiah 2:20. You'll throw them away like a menstrual cloth, he says in Isaiah 30. You're gonna throw 'em away. You'll hate them and you'll throw them away. So I just say, ‘Lord, do that. Let me hate it now. The sooner I can throw them away, the better.’ Amen, hallelujah. And this is a prediction of revival, not some of you will throw away some of your idols, all of you will throw away all of them. Every one of you will throw away all of your idols that your sinful hands have made. This is genuine repentance, you'll hate them, those idols, and turn away from them, and turn to the God you have revolted against, and you'll love him, and you will follow him.

And, says the Lord, ‘I'm going to kill Assyria. You don't need to send to Egypt. I'm telling you what I'm going to do. I've told you again and again, I'll tell you again, I'm going to kill them.’ Look at verse eight and nine, Assyria will fall. I'm gonna kill them, ““Assyria will fall by a sword that is not of man, a sword not of mortals will devour them, they will flee before the sword, the young men will be put to forced labor. Their stronghold will fall because of terror; at the site of the battle standard their commanders will panic,” declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, whose furnace is in Jerusalem.” The mission to Egypt is worthless, you don't need it, don't send your gold and silver down there, they're not going to help you, their help is worthless, I'm going to act directly and a supernatural sword is gonna come on the Assyrian army, a sword not of many,he says it twice, "A sword not of mortals." Very plain, what he's going to do. And not only that, he goes beyond it. He says, ‘Their fortress, Nineveh, all their mighty fortress cities, they're gonna fall too.’ Actually, this is going to be effectively the end of the Assyrian empire; they're going to start running when they see the battle standard, they will lose their courage, they will lose their confidence, and they're going to get conquered by the Babylonians, that's coming up. God is a consuming fire, and the Assyrians will be consumed in his furnace. 

What applications can we take from this? Well, first, I always ask in Isaiah, how does this point to Christ? Well, let's go back to verse two, "He, too, is wise." How wise is God? Or let's ask this question, what is the greatest display of the wisdom of God there has ever been? Is it creation? No. No, it's not. I mean, it's true in Psalm 104:24, "How wise is God, how manifold his works and wisdom, he made them all," that's great, but there's a greater wisdom on display. What is the greatest display of the wisdom of God there has ever been? The cross of Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:23-24, "We preach Christ crucified to the Greek's foolishness, to the Jew's stumbling block, but to those whom God has chosen, Christ the power of God and Christ the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God,” so to speak, “Is wiser than man's wisdom."

So here's the wisdom of God for you. I think you know, the Assyrians aren't coming for you. Do you know that? It's like, ‘Great, Pastor. Now we're ready for the Assyrian invasion.’ Well, it's not going to come, the Assyrians are gone, they've been destroyed, but that doesn't mean you're out of danger. There is the same danger facing you as faced the people back then: the holiness of God, the law of God. Judgment day is coming. It is appointed to each one of us to die once and after that to face the judgment. Are you ready? There's only one defense for the holy inquiry of God on judgment day, and that's the shed blood of Jesus atoning for your sins and the covering of Jesus's righteousness given you as a free gift. Trust in him by faith. That is the wisdom of God for you. Do you Christians still need to hear those words? I do. Christ is for me, the power of God and the wisdom of God. I can't get tired of hearing that. So the gospel, I plead with you. Understand Jesus is the only savior, the only defense for that coming judgment, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given unto men by which we must be saved,” Acts 4:12.

"There is the same danger facing you as faced the people back then: the holiness of God, the law of God. Judgment day is coming. It is appointed to each one of us to die once and after that to face the judgment. Are you ready?"

Secondly, that same trust that justifies your soul, live it out with whatever trial you're going through now or the next one that God has planned for you. Live it out. Trust in him alone. Venture on him, venture holy, let no other trust intrude. Don't put your trust in the advances of medical science. Don't put your trust in a year's worth of salary saved up. Don't put your trust in anything but Jesus. You could say, ‘Now, God may use the doctors, he may use the pharmaceutical companies, he may use money that I have saved up, but it's still gonna be Jesus saving me.’ And I look to that. Follow these simple prescriptions when you're going through this trial or the next one, whatever it is, three simple commands. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Those three things: rejoice in Christ your Savior, trusting in him; ask God for what you want in the middle of your trial, and give him thanks in advance for what he's gonna do and presently what he is doing. 

Thirdly, pray for our nation that we would not trust in the military as a savior. Pray for that. I mean, it could be that there are some elect people haven't come to faith in Christ yet, who are trusting too much in the military, and there could be a Christian fellow soldier that can share the gospel so that they stop trusting in military and start trusting in Jesus. Pray for that, pray for that to happen. Not just soldiers and generals and all that, but elected officials and all that, that they would not trust in the size of the military. Isaiah 31 teaches to turn away from that and trust in God. It does not say make no military preparations, but it says do not trust in them as though they were a savior.

Fourth, hate idols more and more. This is the third time Isaiah has told us that we're gonna throw them away so let's throw away. What do you say? Say, ‘Lord, show me my idols and help me to throw them away.’ And fifth, understand deep repentance as it's taught in this passage. Feel the weight of verse six, "Return to him you have so greatly revolted against." Don't make light of your sins. Say, ‘I am a great sinner, but you are a great Savior, and your salvation's greater than my sins.’ Grace greater than my sins. 

Sixth, celebrate what this passage teaches about God. His power to judge his enemy, celebrate that. His foreknowledge to know the end from the beginning, his grace and warning people ahead of time what is to come, ‘Woe to you if you do this.’ His immutability in that he does not take back his words. His sovereign power in ruling over the nations. His ability to work genuine repentance in our hearts so that we hate idols. His utter fearlessness like a lion or like an eagle, to be unintimidated at all by other human beings. His faithfulness to protect his children from all of their enemies. That's eight different things to praise God for. What a great God we serve. Worship him, serve him. And then finally, meditate on God's fearlessness in reference to humans so that you fear man less, fear him less, don't worry what man thinks, don't worry what man can do to you. Be bold in evangelism, be courageous in your stance, your countercultural stance. Don't fear man. God's not afraid, why should you be? You're a child of the living God.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for Isaiah 31 and all it teaches us. Thank you for the truths that just flow from these words. But Lord, transform us by your word and make us powerful and strong children of God ready to serve you, in Jesus' name. Amen.