Two Journeys

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 12:1-6. The main subject of the sermon is the guaranteed victory of God's saving grace over the world.

There are a number of books that come along in a Christian’s life and change his entire way of thinking. Those things are good. It’s a gift of God, a gift of His grace, that teachers in the church can lift up a theme or an insight and so press it to our hearts that we’re never the same again. There have been a number of books like that in my life. Of course, I’m not speaking of the Bible here. That’s in a whole different category. The Bible lifts us up every day and speaks the blessing and promises and commands of God. I’m talking about books written by Christians that strengthen us in the Christian life. One of those books, for me, has been Randy Alcorn’s book “Heaven.”

This book has been an incredible blessing to me because it’s shown me how much I underestimate my heavenly reward and the power of meditating on heaven and heavenly life. I underestimate the joy that meditating on heaven gives, the strength and the energy for Christian service. Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is not a guilty pleasure for us to think a lot about heaven. It’s actually commanded. We should be thinking about heaven. Alcorn, in the beginning of his book, talked about somebody that was trying to swim across the English Channel. There was fog and the person failed in his attempt. After being pulled out and saved, he said, “I think I would have made it if I could’ve seen the shore.”

I think there’s such a lesson for us: we have to keep the shore in front of us every day. We’re going to make it, friends. We’re going to be there someday. We’re going to see God face to face, and we need to rejoice with great joy. What Alcorn’s book did for me more than anything was to blow away the idea that we’re going to be sitting on wispy clouds and bored for eternity, that we’re going to be strumming on these harps and chanting songs that after the first 100 years aren’t so exciting any more.  We’re going to be bored and we’re going to look around and all we’re going to see is white everywhere. We’re going to long for color and something under our feet other than this wispy cloud that we’re sitting on all the time.

This vision of heaven is actually satanic because it’s not true. We’re going to be resurrected in physical bodies, and we’re going to be living in a physically resurrected world called the New Heaven and the New Earth. Heaven is going to come down in the form of the New Jerusalem and God’s throne is going to be there. It’s all going to be so very real. We’re going to walk on resurrected feet on a resurrected earth. We’re going to see glory and we’re going to touch things and taste things and work and experience things that we can scarcely imagine.

All of that’s wonderful. It’s glorious and it’s good. It’s good for us to meditate on these things. But you know something? In the end, the center of our joy in heaven will be worshipping and praising Almighty God. That actually hasn’t changed. I think what Alcorn’s book did for me was to help me to remember again that it’s impossible that worshipping God could be boring. It’s just impossible. Giving praise and honor and glory and worship to God could not possibly be boring. He is the One who created the physical world we live in now (even in its corrupted state) with all of its beauty and its variety. He is the One who created all the different kinds of birds and animals and plants, all of the things that we experience in the immense variety of our physical lives here on Earth.

All of that comes from someplace, friends. It comes from the mind of Almighty God, and it’s going to be even better in the New Heaven and New Earth. There will be even more clear and powerful displays of the glory of God’s thoughts, His character, His love for us, and His goodness towards us in Christ than we can possibly imagine. All we’re going to want to do all the time is praise Him and give Him honor and glory. And you know something? That’s what we are created to do. We just don’t do it well here on Earth.

Jonathan Edwards, in a sermon entitled, “Praise, One of the Chief Employments of Heaven,” says, first of all, there’s going to be employment in heaven. We’re not going to be sitting around doing nothing. We’re going to be busy in heaven, but the chief employment will be praising God. He said the reason we don’t do it now like we should is because we don’t really see God clearly now. We see Him through a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face. How rich that will be when, at last, we see how much He has loved us in Christ. When we see the greatness of His mercy to us in Christ, how great it will be.

We know from scripture that God created the heavens and the earth for the praise of His glorious grace. Even more than that, we know from many places in scripture, but I think especially in Ephesians Chapter 1, that God has crafted the Salvation Plan. He has crafted redemptive history for the praise of His glorious grace so that we might worship Him for His grace to us in Christ Jesus. He says it three times in those verses. In Ephesians 1:3-6, it says, “Praise be to the God and Father our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will. To the praise of His glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One He loves.”

That’s why He did it all. That’s why He predestined us. That’s why He is working out “everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. And you also were included in Christ” (Eph 1:11-13) so that you also might be for the praise of His glorious grace. That’s why he’s done it all. And so we are going to be worshipping God. We’re going to be praising Him. We’re going to be standing in awe as history itself unfolds with a fresh vision of what God did in it, of His amazing grace to a variety of sinners.

We’re going to see who we really were and how gracious God was to us. How plentiful were His effusions of grace to cover us moment by moment in all of our weakness and our acts of rebellion! We’re going to see in a fresh way just how much patience He showed to Saul of Tarsus, that blasphemer and murderer. Paul will be right there, astonished and amazed at the grace of God shown to him in Christ. We’re going to see God’s mercy and the tenderness that He showed here in this world, in space and time, to those who were weak and frail, broken by sin patterns, habits, drunkenness, sexual immorality, and all kinds of bad decisions. We’re going to see how gracious He was to each one of them. We’ll see how much power He has extended to each one of us to protect us from the evil one, all of his demonic intentions, and the powers and principalities that are against us.

How much power He extended to us in Christ so that we would make it through! We will know just what kind of power held us through it all so that we would not drift away, turn away, or fall away from Christ. We will see it all and that will be for the praise of His glory. That’s the center of heaven, this throne of God’s grace and the greatness of the praise that he deserves. But the second reason that God did it all is because He just loves us and wants us to be happy. The greatest thing He can give us is Himself so that we might see it, we might experience Him, we might be joyful in Him, and we might have experiences of pleasure and joy and satisfaction in Him. That’s the secondary reason.

It’s not first because man can’t be first. God is first. God is glorious and displayed as glorious. That’s the highest reason for everything. But secondly, that we would taste and see that the Lord is good, and that we would be tasting it forever. To this end, Jesus prayed in John 17:24, “Father, I want those whom you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” “I want them to see it, Father. I want them to experience it. I want them to know how much you love me, and in me, how much you love them. I want them to see my glory."

He prays for it. To this end, Christ entered the world. To this end, He lived a sinless life. To this end, He shed His blood on the cross. He died in our place. To this end, He was raised from the dead. To this end, He sent forth His Spirit to advance the gospel to the ends of the earth so that all of God’s chosen people from every tribe and language and people and nation might be there and see His glory. So that they might enjoy it, have a good time in His presence, eat at His table, and be refreshed for all eternity. That’s what He’s doing.

Now, as we come to Isaiah 12, we come therefore to a psalm of praise. Right in the middle of the unfolding of this magnificent prophecy, we get these six verses of praise. It just seems so appropriate. To the praise of His glorious grace and already in 11 chapters of Isaiah, we’ve seen just how much grace God had to show them and us. It’s just been an unfolding, a river of sin among the Jews and the Gentiles alike. We’ve seen in Isaiah 1 that God expressed his disgust at their religious system, this trampling of God’s courts, all the animal sacrifice without any righteousness at all, without any concern for the poor, the needy, the widow, and the orphan. This machinery of Jewish religiosity, it made Him sick.

He didn’t want any part of their prayers or their worship. In Isaiah Chapter 2, God speaks vigorously against their arrogance and their pride. All human arrogance will be cast down and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. All the idols will totally disappear. Then in Isaiah 3, we saw the wickedness of Israel’s leaders: their kings, their magistrates, their prophets, their priests, and all of their leaders. We saw how they led Israel astray, how they confiscated the houses of the poor and needy. They used their positions of influence to dominate and crush God’s people. We saw how evil they were and how they led Israel astray.

In Isaiah 5, we saw how God likened the Jews, the Jewish nation, to a vineyard that was cleared of stones with a wall put around it and the choicest vines planted in it. That was the Jews in the promised land. God set up a watchtower. He watched out for them to protect them. Despite all of that, the vineyard yielded only bad grapes, and we saw that God was going to take away their protection. They were going to be trampled. Then it got intensely personal in Isaiah 6, where Isaiah in his calling had a vision of the Lord seated on His throne, high and exalted. The train of His robe filled the temple and above him there were seraphs crying aloud to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory.”

Isaiah felt his own sinfulness crying out from within him. “’Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined!’ For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’” (Is 6:5) He felt his own wickedness. We see how God dispatched an angel to atone for his sin. Sinfulness, even of that prophet, he the best of men it seemed, the best perhaps of his generation, and he felt his own sinfulness within him.

In Isaiah 7, we see wicked King Ahaz who had no interest in the things of God and who was threatened by an invasion from Israel, the northern kingdom, and from Syria. He was terrified; terrified of dying, terrified of losing his kingdom. Isaiah, the prophet, goes from the Lord and hands King Ahaz a blank check: ask for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or the highest heights. Anything you want and God will display His power for you. King Ahaz throws it in God’s face. He makes an alliance with Assyria, of all people! Of all the nations, he asks these wicked people to deliver him from Israel and Syria. The wickedness of this king!

In Isaiah 8 through 10, we see the wickedness of Assyria itself and of the Jews again displayed. After all of that, in Isaiah 11, is a depiction of the coming reign of the Messiah, a shoot coming up from the stump of Jesse, from his roots a branch bearing fruit. He’s a king who reigns in righteousness and rules in justice. He loves righteousness and hates wickedness. He’s going to strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. The wolf will live with the lamb and the leopard lie down with the calf and the lion and the yearling together, a picture of peace to the ends of the earth. It’s a peaceful reign where righteousness is at the center. You almost get the feeling that Isaiah says, “how can it be that a race, the human race, as wicked as us could get a king like that, reigning like that in righteousness?”

“How can it be? Oh, praise You, Lord! I praise You and I give you thanks! I’m going to take six verses here, in the middle of it all, and I’m just going to praise You for that coming kingdom. I’m going to worship You and I’m going to give You praise and glory in Isaiah12. I’m going to give You honor for what You’re going to do, for your salvation work force in Christ.” Now, of course, Isaiah didn’t know about Chapter 12 or six verses or any of that. He just wrote under the inspiration of God. But we have the privilege to come along centuries later and join him in a celebration of God’s grace. How much has that grace had to overcome in their lives and how much in yours? But where sin abounds, my friends, grace abounds all the more. Grace wins. Praise His holy name!

And so we come to a time of praise and of worship. And as we do, we recognize that this is a healing of the human soul. We don’t naturally praise God, frankly. We naturally curse Him and hate Him. But we are being healed from the insanity of sin, the insanity of not praising God. We’re going to be healed into sanity. It really is insane not to praise a God like this. I don’t just mean because He can destroy us in hell. I don’t just mean that He’s got that kind of power. I mean just because He’s so glorious and beautiful and wonderful. Can’t you see Him? Well, we can, just through a glass darkly. It’s just a reflected glory we see now.

You know what? The redeemed are going to be singing in heaven. It says this in Revelation 15:3-4, while history’s still unfolding there, “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the ages. Who will fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy.” It’s almost a sense of amazement. How can they not worship you? Oh, I look forward to being healed as Nebuchadnezzar was from his beast-like insanity. At last, the Lord took that from him and he lifted up his eyes and he praised God, the Most High. And so we will do in heaven.

Look at Isaiah 12: 1-2. It says there, “In that day you will say, ‘I will praise you, O Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.’” That’s your personal theme. For you individually: God is my salvation. The Hebrew here is singular. In that day, you, singular, will say, “God is my salvation.” You, individual sinner, are saved by grace. You’re going to stand before Him and you will say this. This is a word of prophecy, spoken to individual persons who God will save. After that immense work of salvation is completed in your soul, you’re going to stand in front of Jesus. And you will say this. We’re saved as individuals. We’re personally called as individuals to the Savior.

John 10:3 says, “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” He gives them eternal life. Your name is your individuality. It’s who you are. He calls you by name. And so Paul says beautifully, in Galatians 2:20, making it very intensely personal, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Paul’s not there denying that Jesus also died for a multitude greater than anyone could count, from every tribe and language, people, and nation. He’s just saying that this is also true: He died for me, for me personally, for me individually. Isaiah says to the individual sinner that, saved by grace, in that day you’ll praise God.

In what day? Well, whenever that phrase shows up in Isaiah (and it’s many, many times) it refers to a future day of judgment. Of wrath poured out. But here, it’s speaking of grace. So I look ahead to Judgment Day when at last I, a sinner, am vindicated by the blood of Jesus and welcomed into eternity in His name. In that day, I’m going to be thanking Him for His salvation because things are going to be very clear that day. It will be very clear on Judgment Day that I was saved by grace and that my works could not help me at all. Why? Because God’s wrath has been satisfied. Look again at verse 1, “I will praise you, O Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.”

God has a passionate, emotional reaction to evil. He hates it and He gets angry about it. He is a God, it says, who expresses His wrath every day. JI Packer, speaking of God’s anger and wrath, says this in his book “Knowing God,” “It is not the capricious, arbitrary, bad-tempered and conceited anger which pagans attribute to their gods. It’s not the sinful, resentful, malicious, infantile anger which we find among men. It is a function of that holiness which is expressed in the demands of God’s moral law. ‘Be holy because I am holy.’ 1 Peter 1:16”

Throughout the first ten chapters of Isaiah, we saw depicted again and again the wrath of God. Remember there was that phrase, “Yet for all of this his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.” It says it again and again. For example, in Isaiah 5:25, “Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against his people; his hand is raised and he strikes them down. The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.” But in Isaiah 12:1, he says, “I will praise you, O Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.”

What can turn away the wrath of God? What can turn away His wrath so that it’s not on us anymore as individuals? We come now to that doctrine called propitiation: the turning away of the wrath of God by the giving of a sacrifice. It is the foundation of our faith. God’s wrath can turn away from us to a substitute, and the substitute can be our lightning rod. He can draw the wrath of God away from us so that we never have to experience it. Jesus Christ is the One who made this verse come true.

It is because of Jesus that the anger of God has turned away from me as an individual. God’s not angry with me anymore. There’s no wrath for me to experience. It’s been removed. It’s been absorbed. It’s been propitiated. Jesus has stood in my place. He drank the cup of God’s wrath on the cross. God will never be angry with me because of sin again. Oh, how hard it is for us sinners to believe this!

I dare say it’s hard for you. I tell you it’s hard for me. I mean to really believe that God’s anger has turned away and He’s now in a state of comforting us. I’m not saying that God doesn’t discipline us for sin. He does. But that’s not wrath, friends. That’s not anger. That’s a loving, caring stroke from a Father who knows that the biggest evil in our lives is sin and wants to wean us from it. From our insane love of it. But the wrath is gone, my friends, if you’re in Christ. It’s gone. Are you in Christ? I see some unfamiliar faces here today. Some guests. Praise God that you’re here! I’m glad that God brought you. I don’t know your spiritual state. Even if I knew you well, I wouldn’t definitely know your spiritual state. Do you know that the wrath of God has been removed? Do you understand that Jesus is your substitute?

Isaiah will say later in Isaiah 53:5-6 “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Friends, in paganism man propitiates the gods by choosing a suitable sacrifice that will avert the gods’ wrath. It’s a work of man to find something big enough that will turn the gods’ wrath away from that person. We can’t do that. It’s impossible for us to avert the wrath of God. It’s something that God must do Himself. And He has done it in Christ.

JI Packer said that kind of pagan view of propitiation opens up a kind of commercialism with God, a transactional approach. If I can find something good enough, I can pay for my sins this way. Well, you can’t. It’s something only God can do. And you can only receive it by faith, simply by trusting in the blood shed on the cross for you. It says in Romans 3:23-24, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that come by Christ Jesus.” Listen to Romans 3:25, “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Propitiation means that the wrath of God is averted by the giving of a blood sacrifice. That’s the key to our faith. Have you received it? Are you standing forgiven now before the throne of God?

If not, I urge you to flee to Christ. I think about Luke’s testimony, as he was sitting there in the pew. Doug, I think that’s where you’re sitting right now. I praise God for your salvation, brother. But it could be that someone else in the sanctuary doesn’t know whether he’s under the wrath of God. You don’t know. You came here today to just go to church, to hear a sermon. Flee to Christ, look to Christ now, while there’s still time. Because today is the day of salvation. Trust in Him. It’s the only way that this verse will be fulfilled for you.

Look what else it says in verse 2, “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.” This is a profound concept here. God is not merely your Savior. You know, the one who rescues you from danger? The one who does that, gets you out of danger, that’s a savior. He is your savior, but He’s more than that. He is your salvation. So what’s the difference? Well, when you’re saved out of danger, you get Him. He’s what you get. He is heaven. I’m not saying that there’s not going to be a new heaven, a new earth, but God’s going to be woven all through it. You’ll know it. You’ll just see God in everything He’s made, the glory of God everywhere. He is your salvation.

That is the good news of the Gospel. The good news of the Gospel is God. He is the Gospel. He’s what you get. He’s the one who saves. He’s the one who redeems, who calls, who sanctifies, who glorifies. After all that, He’s the reward you get. As God said to Abram in Genesis 15:1, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” It says in Revelation 22:3-4 “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” You get God.

John Piper, in his book “God Is the Gospel,” asks a very poignant question, very powerful. Listen to this. “If you could have Heaven, with no sickness, with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven if Christ were not there?” I can’t. I can’t imagine it. I’d wonder where He is! After all I’ve learned about Him, I want to see Jesus. I want to be in His presence. I don’t want all of that and no Christ.

Christ IS heaven to me. He has become my salvation. It’s very personal. Is He your salvation? Heaven is heaven precisely because Christ is there. Hell is hell precisely because He’s not there, not in that way. He’s there in wrath, but He’s not there. He has become our salvation.

Now that’s all individual and personal, but He’s not going to leave it there. Isaiah then moves to the corporate experience. You don’t see it in the English because we just have one word, “you,” for both single and plural, but the rest of the hymn of praise is plural. It’s got to do with all of you folks. I can’t say “all y’all” with the joy of a native speaker of southern English. I can’t do it, but you know what I mean, okay? All y’all. Mike Waters has been training me in that. I still can’t quite do it the way I need to, but this is corporate salvation, our joyful satisfaction in God. Verse 3 is plural, “With joy [all of] you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” Oh, what a sweet verse that is! Something shared.

He’s addressing the whole community of believers and he’s giving an image of deep satisfaction. In the ancient Near East, it’s very dry and they understand very well the value of water. Water is life. Wells are life. To draw water from a healthy, clean well, that is life. Wars are fought over those wells by nomadic tribes. They dig the wells and they’ll fight for them.

The image here is finding an endless source of cool refreshing water from which you can drink whenever you’re thirsty. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water that I give him will never be thirsty again. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (Jn 4:3-14) You can drink from it any time you want. With joy, you’re going to draw buckets of water from the wells of salvation. You’re going to drink abundance in God’s household. You will be deeply and richly satisfied. You’re not going to be alone. You’re going to be looking around and there’s going to be this countless multitude from every tribe and language and people and nation. They’re going to be drinking too. They’re going to be satisfied too. They’re going to be giving praise and thanks to God with you. You’re not going to be alone.

Satan keeps lying to us about pleasure. “I am the god of pleasure,” he tells us. “Follow me and you’ll enjoy yourself.” He’s not the god of pleasure. He’s the god of anti-pleasure. He’s the god of misery and death. John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” That doesn’t sound like pleasure to me! “I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly. I want to give you abundant life. I want you to know the joy that comes from being in a right relationship with Almighty God.” With joy, he will draw water from the well of salvation.

Heaven is a place of eternal pleasure. Psalm 16:11 says, “You have made known to me the path of life.” His name is Jesus, by the way. “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” And so we’re going to be drinking from the river of the water of life flowing clear as crystal down the center of the city, coming right from the throne. It’s coming right from the throne and on each side of the river there’s going to be the tree of life with crops every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. It’s going to be a rich, full experience, and we’re going to be there with people from all over the world.

So that leave us, thirdly, with our universal mission, which is to magnify the greatness of God. This is for all of us as well. “In that day, you will say, ‘Give thanks to the Lord, all in his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world. Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.” (Is 12:4-6) This is missions, friends. This is evangelism. This is sharing the gospel with people who don’t know your joy. And more than that, this is missions and evangelism done as worship. You’re just overflowing with joy.

You’re just happy in Jesus and you’re making known among the nations what He has done, all of His great works of redemptive history. What He did with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What He did with the Jews and how He led them out of Egypt by a mighty hand and outstretched arm, with all the plagues and with the water walling up on the right and on the left. And what He did through the history of Israel and the Jews through King David and all of the kings that followed. God’s patience in dealing with sin. And then how in the fullness of time He sent His only begotten son, born of a virgin, and how Jesus lived a sinless life and did great miracles. You can tell lost people these miracles. They’ll be interested.

If they get past the initial weirdness of talking to you, a total stranger, about spiritual things, they’ll actually want to hear more about Jesus’s miracles. Tell them! Tell them your favorite miracle. If you don’t have one, get one, alright? The resurrection of Lazarus will do just fine. Four days dead. Lazarus, come forth! I tried that with someone once. They said, if they’d been there, they’d have been running away screaming. All right, so that didn’t work too well. But I said, “Look, to me, it’s a happy thing that Lazarus came back to life.” They were thinking it was like a zombie movie or something like that. I said, “No, it’s a resurrection. He’s alive. He’s healthy. They had a feast and celebrated.”

We get to proclaim the greatness of God and all the great things He did and how Jesus himself was dead. And on the third day, God raised Him from the dead. We get to share some of His promises; “Because I live, you also will live.” “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” That’s what we get to say. We get to proclaim that His name is exalted. We get to say that great is the Holy One of Israel among us and proclaim these great things. If you think about missions and evangelism this way, you’ll lose your fear because you’re going to just have an awesome time of worship, whether the non-Christian joins you or not.

Oh, but I hope they do! “I hope you’re with me,” you can say. I hope that you can spend eternity praising a God like this. Repent and believe the Gospel, that your sins can be forgiven. Proclaim that His name is exalted. And so we’re involved in missions. And why? Because there’s going to be a multitude greater than any we can count, from every tribe and language and people and nation. It’s our job to tell them, to go out and proclaim this to people who’ve never heard of His name and to sing among them.

I know some of you think singing is weird. Maybe it’s not your favorite thing now. I’ve talked to you. Some of you think, “Kinda just not great on singing.” You will be. You will be. Because it says in the Book of Revelation that you’re going to sing a new song. Music, when done well, just resonates spiritually inside your heart. It just does. I just love good worship. Don’t you? I just love to sing praise songs. There’s a kind of music that’s reserved for heaven. None of us have heard it yet. It’s called a new song. We will resonate with it in our resurrected bodies and minds, and we will love it, and we will sing to it, and we’re going to be joining Jesus who sings. He does. It says so right in Hebrews 2:12, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation, I will sing your praises.”

Now, that’s some special music I’d like to hear! Jesus singing in the assembly, the praises of Almighty God, but God Himself singing. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” In the Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis said, “It was by song that Aslan created the world.” In “The Magicians Nephew,” when Digory and Polly and the rest go into Narnia for the first time, they find it a void. Then a voice, later revealed to be Aslan (representing Christ), sings the new world into existence. It’s by singing that He creates. Perhaps by metaphor, by singing He will create the New Heavens and the New Earth as well. We’ll hear that song and we’ll join in singing it.

Do you praise God like this? These six verses, memorize them. They’re rich. Just set them in front of you and say, “With joy, I’m going to draw water from the wells of salvation. For great is the Holy One among us.” These are great words. Do you praise God like this? You know, right from the beginning, it says, “In that day, you will say, ‘I will praise you, O Lord.” Now stop there. It’s just a way of thinking. “I will praise you today.” That sounds like an act of my will. Well, that’s about what it is.

You have to determine that you’re going to praise Him today. You’re going to rejoice in the Lord today. I know some of your hearts are breaking. I know you’re struggling with sin. You may have come here today feeling defiled and guilty because of sin. Your heart may be breaking for other reasons. You may be going through trials. There might be sickness or death hanging over a loved one, or maybe even over you. You may be facing economic difficulties. You may have lost your job and you haven’t been able to find another job. There may be any one of a number of things causing your misery today. “I will praise you, O Lord. Although you are angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.” Can you say that? Will you praise Him? It’s a choice you make, really. It really is a decision as a Christian that you make by the power of the Spirit. “I’m going to praise Him. And Spirit, pass me things all day long that I can praise God for.” He’ll do it.

Finally, are you involved in the mission? Are you involved in evangelism? Have you shared the Gospel with anyone? Have you proclaimed among the nations that His name is exalted? That’s what it says that we’re to do. Find somebody whose spiritual situation you’re unsure about and just praise God in front of him. I would urge you to get into a conversation first or they might have you arrested as somebody insane or something like that. Just get into the conversation and then just talk about the greatness of God, of Christ. You might find that to be the greatest witnessing opportunity you’ve ever had. It’s our responsibility and joy and privilege to proclaim among the nations that His name is exalted.

One final thing: be praying for our friends that are serving the Lord right now. We can join them in their work by praying for them. Pray for the trip that’s out there in East Asia and for the friends that are hosting them and that live there all the time. Pray for that work. Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 11:1-16. The main subject of the sermon is how Christ's kingdom starts out small, but will become glorious and great.

This morning, we are looking at Isaiah chapter 11. And it's a good time for it too, because this is the season of grandiose promises, and of visions of a glorious future, because it is a season of a presidential campaign. And it is amazing to listen to all of the promises that are made by the candidates, whether of major parties or minor parties. You really ought to make a list of all the things that are in our immediate future. It's looking quite bright, isn't it? And the fact of a long history of broken campaign promises, not necessarily by these candidates, but just by presidential candidates in, for example, the 20th century, doesn't dim those hopes at all.

For example, in 1916 Woodrow Wilson promised to keep the United States out of World War I. And by 1917, we were fighting in World War I. Or in 1928, Herbert Hoover, or at least his campaign around him (I think he later said he never promised any such thing) promised a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. He did promise to eradicate poverty. That was in 1928. You know that what happened in 1929 and the depression that followed put an end to that promise - hence the denial by Herbert Hoover.

Or then Franklin Roosevelt's pledge in 1932 to maintain balanced budgets and to decrease government spending by 25%. You can find out whether that happened or not. Or then his pledge in 1940 to keep the United States out of World War II. Or how about Lyndon Johnson's famous promise to win the war on poverty through his Great Society? Someone once said of his presidency that, “He fought a war on poverty and poverty won.” But at any rate, there was a grand and glorious vision of a future society free from poverty. Or Richard Nixon's pledge to get the United States out of the Vietnam War. When pressed on details, he implied that there was some kind of a secret plan. No one was ever sure what the secret plan was. I don't think it included Watergate, his near impeachment, and then the fact that in 1975, finally, we ended, and got out of Vietnam. 

Or George H W Bush's pledge, "No new taxes, read my lips." Very famous. Of course, at the same time, he was promising to maintain government programs, social programs, and to keep a balanced budget. You can find out how well all of that happened. And so we are in the middle of a presidential campaign, and you are going to hear things like, oh, an end to global warming, or a victory in the war on terror, or the ability to get Republicans and Democrats to work completely together with no discrepancies, or contradictions, or problems whatsoever. Who knows what they are going to promise? It sounds good to me. But as I look at history, I am a bit skeptical. And as I read Isaiah 11, I am yearning for that kingdom to come, and for Christ to reign. But I still think it's fascinating how much we yearn for this kind of thing, and how much we want a glorious future promised to us, and actually fulfilled.

I think no myth or legend has been so strong as the legend of Camelot. You remember King Arthur, the English king of lore and legend, who was a wise and righteous man, powerful and mighty in battle with his sword Excalibur, who gathered around him a bunch of gallant Knights of the Round Table, who carried themselves with great dignity, and wisdom, and defended truth, justice, and I guess the British way, at that particular moment. This was a vision of Camelot, of a perfect society, and it extended even in nature, at least in the 1960 musical called "Camelot." There was a song whose lyrics are very well known, and this is what was decreed for Camelot, according to the musical anyway:

It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clear
The climate must be perfect all the year

A law was made a distant moon ago here
July and August cannot be too hot
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot

The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot

Camelot! Camelot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre
But in Camelot, Camelot
That's how conditions are

The rain may never fall till after sundown
By eight, the morning fog must disappear
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot

It is a vision of peace, even extending to nature, of a righteous king who reigns righteously on a throne, of all the people around him doing what is good and right and just - a vision of perfection. And you know what is so amazing? According to scripture, it is too good not to be true. It's too good not to be true, because this is exactly what God has promised us through Jesus Christ. Now, what I think he is doing here in history is letting it be seen plainly that, apart from Christ, and apart from the direct intervention of almighty God, it cannot happen. And so we get to see one form of government, one presidential campaign and rule after another fail, ultimately, so that the ground may be cleared for Jesus Christ, and for the reign of the Messiah on the Davidic throne. And that is the vision that we have in front of us.

 Humble Beginning: A Branch from A Stump… Israel like a Felled Tree

And it begins humbly. Look at verse one. It says, "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit." This testifies very plainly to the humble beginnings of Christ's rule, or the rule of the Messiah. Now the image of a stump is one really of hopelessness. There is just nothing left, it seems, of the Davidic line - nothing left of Judah. It is very humble. It says in Isaiah 6:13, "As the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land." There is an indication of a termination, but then there is still a vitality to the roots. 

Branch: Living Image…

Israel's promise, then, is of a future restoration and glory to come. The branches are of a living image. The shoot that comes up from the stump of Jesse and a branch bearing fruit, are of a living image. Yes, these are small beginnings, but there is hope for a glorious, a bright future. It reminds me of Isaiah 53, that incredible picture of Christ crucified and resurrected, the fruit of which goes and extends to the salvation of the nations. And this is what that prophecy says at the beginning. Isaiah 53:2, "He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground." Again, we see the idea of sterility, of nothing left of Israel, everything laid low, seems to be nothing going on, and out of it comes life. A branch comes forth and this is the Messiah.

And the Messiah is truly Jewish. "Salvation is from the Jews," as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman (John 4:22). The lineage is focused on David, although David isn't mentioned here. Rather, there is a step before that to David's father, Jesse, showing the humble origin even of David. And as you look at the kings in this Davidic line, the kings of Judah have fallen, and it seems, on very hard times. We already have Ahaz, a terribly wicked king who sacrificed his own son to Molech. And after the exile, once the exile comes, there are 14 generations of obscure men who are listed in the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, but we don't know anything about these men. There is nothing significant about them at all, except that God knows that they are in the lineage, from which ultimately will come the Savior of the world, this fruitful branch that is going to come.

So it seems for 14 generations as though nothing is coming. Nothing can come from Israel. Nothing can come from the stump of Jesse. But don't you believe it, because the promise has been given concerning David, that one of his descendants will reign on the throne forever. And so we have already seen this fruitful branch. Isaiah 4:2 says, “In that day the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel.” I can't hear that prophecy or this one here in Isaiah 11 without thinking about Jesus' analogy in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 

And so here is this fruitful branch, Jesus Christ, coming up from the stump of Jesse. The branch is the Messiah. Jeremiah 23:5-6 says, “‘The days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.’” Oh, any of you who sit there righteous in God's sight today, you can say, "Amen!" to that. The Lord is our righteousness. Jesus is my righteousness. I have no other hope. I am a sinner. All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. What righteousness do we have, apart from this gift from the righteous branch? He is our righteousness. He is the perfect King. And this is the perfect title for the coming King, because we want to be in his Kingdom. We want to be included, and it is going to be a new heaven and a new earth. 2 Peter 3:13 calls it “the home of righteousness.”  How can I be there, except that the Lord give me a gift of righteousness? “The Lord Our Righteousness” - that is the branch.

 “Messiah” = Anointed One, Oil Symbolized Holy Spirit

Then in verses 2-3, we see the divine power of Christ's coming rule, the power of the Lord on him to bring it about, to make something out of nothing, to make this branch come forth, and then that Jesus would reign in this kind of righteousness and power. Look at verses 2-3.  It says, “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him - the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord - and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.” Despite these humble origins from Jesse, despite this humble origin, yet there is supernatural power in this branch. He is the Messiah.

Now, the word “Messiah” means “anointed one.” And you know that the Davidic kings, in order to be identified as the king, would be anointed by a prophet, or perhaps by a priest. A horn of oil would be poured down on their hair, and it would come down, and trickle down on their beard, or on their hair, and drip down like this. And it was a symbol, a picture, I believe, of the endowing of that Davidic king with the Holy Spirit of God, that the Spirit would come on this individual, and cover him, and enable him to reign wisely and justly.

You remember that Saul received that anointing from the prophet Samuel. And the Spirit of God came on him in power, and so it was said, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” (1 Samuel 10:11). It was a surprise. Nobody really expected it. But you know also that things turned in Saul's ministry and the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul. We know also that the Spirit of God came on David in power, Saul's successor. But then when David sinned with Bathsheba, he was terrified in Psalm 51:11 where he said, “Do not… take not your Holy Spirit from me,” concerned that the Spirit would leave. And it was a good concern. But this Messiah, this Davidic king, he would be saturated with the Spirit of God. He would be completely covered with the Holy Spirit of God. It says in Isaiah 42:1, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.”

“Seven - fold Spirit” – Revelation 1:4-5; 3:1; 4:5

Now, as we look at Isaiah 11:2, there is this picture of a sevenfold aspect of the Spirit of God, sevenfold. There are three couplets, three times two, and then the statement, “Spirit of the Lord.” So that adds up to seven. There is a sevenfold aspect or ministry of the Spirit of God here. It reminds me of the dedication of the book of Revelation. And in that dedication, dedicated to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and given from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, there is mentioned there the sevenfold or “the seven spirits before his throne” (Revelation 1:4). So we have a mention of him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and the sevenfold Spirit before his throne, and Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness. This is the trinitarian picture there in Revelation 1. I think this is an insight, perhaps, into what that means - the sevenfold Spirit or the complete Spirit of God. 

And so the complete Spirit of God is going to rest on the Messiah, the Spirit of the Lord, “the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord” (verse 2). All of this is endowment for reigning, for ruling well. 

You remember the story, of course, about young king Solomon, when the time came for him to take up the mantle of leadership of the people of God, from the greatest king they ever had, David, his father, how daunting that was. And how the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and said, “Ask whatever you wish and I'll give it to you.” And how Solomon, humbly, I think, asked for wisdom to be a wise king, that he would reign over God's people with wisdom. And God was clearly pleased with that request and gave him not only greater wisdom than any man had ever seen up to that point (so great, by the way, that people traveled long distances to just listen to his proverbs, and to talk about science and agriculture. Anything they wanted to talk to the king about, he seemed to have all the answers.), but not only that, God also blessed him with glory and honor and power and prestige, unlike any king there had ever been up to that point.

But do you remember what Jesus said about him? He said the Queen of the South “came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:42). Jesus's wisdom is infinitely greater than that of King Solomon. He was the perfect God, and therefore perfectly endowed with wisdom, through the Spirit of God, to be a righteous king.

Now, look what it says, speaking first and foremost about the Spirit of the Lord, that he is endowed with the Spirit of God. This is the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, and Christ was saturated with the Spirit of God. Especially Luke, I think, brings this out. Luke 4:1 says, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where… he was tempted by the devil.” And then at the end of that time of tempting, in Luke 4:14, it says that “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.”

By the way, I've often thought about that. The Alpha and the Omega of Jesus's time of testing is a full endowment with the Spirit of God. Oh, that I might always both enter and leave a time of testing filled with the Spirit of God! Both enter and leave that time of testing filled with the Spirit of God. Jesus did that always. He was completely covered with the Spirit of God. And after that it says he went to Nazareth, and as his custom was, he went to the synagogue. And the opportunity came for him to read the scripture. And he opened up to the place in Isaiah where it is written, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me” (Luke 4:18). “I am anointed with the Spirit of God.” He is claiming to be Messiah, because after that reading he says, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). He is claiming to be Messiah, the Anointed One, anointed by the Spirit of God. And so he was.

But it goes on beyond that, not just the Spirit of the Lord, but also the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. Wisdom means that he knows God's character. He knows God's purposes. He knows the right end and the right means to the end. He also shows good understanding. The implication there is more at a human level. He understands man's character and purposes. Jesus had a special perception, an ability to see into people's hearts, and know who they were, and what they wanted. It says in John 2:24,25 that “Jesus knew all men. He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.” And in the chapter before that, in John 1:47, he sees Nathaniel coming toward him and says, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” In whom there is “no guile” (NASB). There is no trickery in his heart.

And Nathaniel is amazed. he said, "How do you know me?" he said, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you” (John 1:48). I just looked at you and I knew you. Now, that's Jesus. He is endowed with the Spirit of God, to just know people, to know their hearts. It also says he is filled with “the Spirit of counsel and of power” (Isaiah 11:2). His decisions show practical wisdom. He knows all the proverbs of Solomon and could add 1,000 besides. He knows how to live in this world. And there is also power in Christ. All of that wisdom would mean nothing, if he didn't have the power and the authority to make it happen, to make it stand, to deal with the wicked of the earth.

So Jesus has this perfect combination as a king, wise counsel and total power. And so Matthew 28:18 says, “All authority in heaven and in earth has been given to me.” Or it says in Ephesians 1:22 that “God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church.” 

And the final couplet is he is filled with “the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:2). “The fear of the Lord,” it says in Proverbs 1:7, “is the beginning of knowledge.”

Delighting in the Fear of the Lord

It's an amazing thing to meditate on Jesus, delighting in the fear of the Lord. And so he does. What an odd combination – “To delight in… fear” (Isaiah 11:3). He himself feared the Lord, and he always did what was right. It was the origin of his perfect wisdom as well, but he also delighted in it. He loved the fear of the Lord. It brought him great joy to walk in the counsel of the fear of the Lord.

And he loved bringing that about in other people. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). He delighted in that. He loved that path. And the path was to take sinners like you and me, rebels whose hearts are hard, who are not in any way characterized by these couplets, and to take out our foolish and wayward hearts that do not fear the Lord in any way, and give us instead,a fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom, and the heart of flesh to submit to God's wise rule, to love it, and embrace it for ourselves. He delights in that. It brings him joy to do that to you and me. He delights in bringing fear of the Lord into my heart. He delights in it completely. That was his life's pleasure.

So there, Jesus is described for us. He's characterized. He is fit to rule. Amen? He is going to be a good king for us. Look forward to him. Put your hopes on him, not on some candidate. I'm not saying, “Don't be involved in the political process.” I'm just saying, “Put your hope in Jesus,” because he is the only one endowed like this, to reign and to rule so wisely. And look at the justice of his rule. Isaiah 11:3-5: “He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.”

Human Judgment: Fleshly and Sense-driven

Here, we see a very clear contrast between the rule and the judgment and justice of Jesus, and that of human judges and kings. Human judgment is fleshly and sense driven. There are fleshly motives, such as earthly gain, and power, and prestige, and personal prejudices. There are fleshly methods also. In contrast to Jesus, they do judge by what they see with their eyes, and they do decide by what they hear with their ears. What else can they do? What else can they do? For man looks at the outward appearance, but it's God alone who can look at the heart.

And then there is the fleshly manner in the way they carry themselves in authority. Jesus put it this way in Matthew 20:25, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you.” It's just the way they carry themselves. Just like in Matthew 23 with the scribes and Pharisee. They love the flowing robes, and they love to be greeted in the marketplace, in the seat of honors, and all of that kind of thing. That's not Jesus' nature, the pomp and circumstance of it all. 

And perhaps, worst of all, throughout history are those fleshly miscarriages of justice. The innocent condemned, the guilty set free. It's happened again and again. I was reading some time ago of a case concerning this man, Tyrone Gamble, October 25th, 1997. He was arrested for a crime he didn't commit. He willingly gave a blood sample for a DNA test. The sample wasn't sent until 46 days later, waiting for a sample from the victim. Three months later, mid-March, the lab conclusively showed that Mr. Gamble was innocent of this crime. But the county police couldn't reach the state attorney general until a month after that. Finally, in mid-April, six months after the start, Gamble's case was thrown out. Gamble, who had been a poor man, sat in prison that whole time, unable to pay the bond to get out. Well, that's a small case. What about executions? What about other things that have happened again and again? The innocents condemned and the guilty set free. It's happened again and again. That will not happen with Jesus as the judge. It cannot happen.

Christ’s Judgment

Of course, the real danger for us is we are all guilty. We'll get to that in a moment, but the cross of Jesus Christ is the only answer to that one. But Jesus doesn't decide in a fleshly manner. There is justice to his reign, straight through. “He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness, he will judge the needy, with justice, he will give decisions for the poor of the earth” (Isaiah 11:3,4). He is able to search the heart, just like he did with Nathaniel, to know whether there's guile and trickery or not. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). And so he knows exactly what he is doing.

Even Jesus' own enemies acknowledged this. You remember, when his enemies came up trying to trick him, and they said to him, the question about taxation, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Mathew 22:17).  They wanted to kill him with that one, if they could. But they come with this fawning kind of introduction. “‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are.’” (Matthew 22:16). That's it. Even his enemies could see that. He wasn't swayed by men, not intimidated. He is not fooled. He is not tricked. He judges by what he sees inside his heart. He judges by righteousness and perfect judgment, not by what he sees with his eyes. And so righteousness is the foundation of Christ's throne.

Righteousness: The foundation of Christ’s Throne

Verse 5, “Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness, the sash around his waist.” The righteous motive of the glory of God. Jesus said in John 5:30, “My judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” So Jesus' motive, as we talked last week about the Assyrians' motive, Jesus' motive is the glory of God in judgment.

The second righteous motive here is the benefit of the poor and needy. “He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice, he will give decisions for the poor of the earth” (Isaiah 11:4). Now, Judah’s judges, at this point, wickedly oppressed the poor, and they used their positions of power to do it. In Isaiah 3, we've already seen this. Verses 13-15: “The Lord takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people. The Lord enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: ‘It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?’ declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.” Very concerned about this. But Jesus uses his position to benefit the true poor.

Now here, I believe we must look to the New Testament to interpret who the poor are. I don't believe this is speaking ultimately of a socioeconomic situation. Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount with these words: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Those are the ones that benefit from his reign and from his rule, the poor in spirit. The Greek word “poor” is “ptochos,” a beggar, a spiritual beggar. Now, that could be a rich man or it could be a poor man.

Now, we know from 1 Corinthians chapter one that not many are wise or influential, or of noble birth. Not many are the rich and wealthy of the world. James 2:5 says God has “chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith.” But the same thing obtains: rich in faith, spiritual beggars. These are the ones that Jesus defends, the ones who know that they have no hope before such a judge, no possibility of surviving judgment day, unless God Almighty moves on their behalf. Those that beg him for salvation, that plead with him by faith, that he would give it to them as a free gift, those are the ones whose judgment he will benefit. 

And look at the righteous power behind this judgment, the rod of his wrath, with which he will strike the earth. Jesus is the Word of God. He is the great I Am. And when he strikes the earth, it shakes. He has great power. Revelation 19:11-16 gives us a picture of the second coming of Christ in glory and power. 

“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: King of kings and Lord of lords.”  

That is the coming savior. That is the coming king, the one predicted here in Isaiah 11. With justice, he judges and makes war. And every single human being, every single person, man, woman, and child who is sitting in this sanctuary today, listening to me, every single one of us will appear before Jesus concerning our lives. Every last one of us.

Christ, Our Final Judge 

Let that sink in for a moment. Someday you will give an account to Jesus for your life. In John 5:22,23 Jesus said this: “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.” Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-33, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” And to the sheep, he will give them something none of them have deserved, and they know it: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).  And to the goats, he will give them what they truly deserve: “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). It is Jesus who will do that. It is his judgment that decides.

And so we see in Revelation 20:11-12, “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small.” That's all of us, friends. “I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.” What will you do on that day? How will you survive that perfect judgment? His eyes are like blazing fire. How will you survive when the books are open, and you have to give an account for every careless word that you have spoken? Your only hope is that your name is written in the book of life, that through simple faith in Christ, all of that guilt, which we readily acknowledge through the convicting work of the Spirit of God, all of that guilt could be lifted from us, and put on our substitute, on Jesus Christ, and he'd be crushed under the righteous weight of God's wrath and his judgment for our sins. 

This holy and righteous one, who never committed the least sin, that he would stand in our place, and take all of that wrath on himself. Someday you will stand before him and give an account for your life. Will he say to you, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, blessed freely with a gift of forgiveness, because while you had time, when there was still an opportunity, when it was the day of salvation, you looked by faith to me, and you asked that I would save you, that I would give you my righteousness as a free gift, and I did. And you were confirmed in that with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in that righteousness, you sought to walk the rest of your life. And therefore, I will cover all of your sins, all of them with my blood, and I will accept you into my kingdom.” Will that be you? Or will you hear those dreadful words, “Depart from me, you who are cursed” (Matthew 25:41). Will you receive what you truly deserve, justice meted out by God, based on his law in eternal punishment? 

I beg you, I plead with you, come to Christ. This is the day of salvation. We are still in it now. The sun came up this morning. We don't know that it will come up tomorrow. We don't know. God will teach us eschatology, friends. We don't know what he plans. We have ideas. We have indications from scripture, but he will come when he comes. Are you ready? Are you ready today, to face the judgment?

 Human Government – Constant Strife

Now, in verses 6-9, we come to the perfect peace of Christ's rule. Now, in human governments, we see constant strife, one government striving after another for world domination. Within each government, jealous officials striving, petty turf battles one after another, human sin and corruption rife, straight through. But there is also strife between the human race and nature itself. I went back to the cursing of the ground back in Genesis 3:17. God spoke to Adam and said, “Cursed is the ground because of you.” Can you imagine hearing that? “Cursed is the ground because of you.” What you did. “Through painful toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you” (Genesis 3:17,18).

It says in Romans 8:22, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time.” It's groaning, waiting to “be liberated from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:21). Death, cycle of death, and food chain. I saw a DVD set my mother gave me as a gift, the Discovery Channel on the planet earth. There are lots of jarring scenes in it. Lots of violence, and there was no warning talking about the violence. It was natural violence though. It was a pride of lions getting after a baby elephant. Thankfully, they cut it off before it got really gory. But it's really dangerous out there in the world. It's dangerous because of us, because we have sinned, because nature is not at peace with itself. There is corruption and there is a cycle of violence. Things are being destroyed.

Now, Messiah's rule is going to bring perfect peace, vertical peace with God Almighty, and then horizontal peace with other created beings, and with nature itself. And that, I believe, is predicted here in this passage, a very famous passage. It says, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9). 

Interpretation Difficulties… Is This the Millennial Kingdom of the Eternal State?

Now, this is a difficult passage to interpret, if what you're asking me is, “Is this the millennial reign?” Now, what do we mean by the millennial reign? The millennial reign is a 1,000-year period spoken of in Revelation chapter 20, after the second coming of Christ, when the devil is bound up and cast into a pit for 1,000 years. And some are, it seems, resurrected, and will reign with Christ for 1,000 years. It speaks of the 1,000 years six times in those verses.

 And in the flow of that book of Revelation, it's after the second coming of Christ, in that passage I just read, Revelation 19, before the new heaven and new earth of Revelation 21, before the great white throne judgment that we've already talked about this morning. There it is, this 1,000-year period. All different theories on it, my friends, all different theories. I'm not going to get into them this morning. But let me say this, in this passage itself, there is one indicator, I think, that this is referring to something short of the new heaven and the new earth, the final eternal state. But whether you accept that difference or not, it doesn't make a difference, because I believe that these things will literally be fulfilled at some point in the future, either in the millennial reign, or in the new heaven, and the new earth.

Therefore, I do not spiritualize the details here. I don't think we ought to do that. I think we ought to look at them and say this is precisely what Jesus is going to come do. And what a glorious picture of his power, isn't it? Now, what is that one verse? Well, the mention of infants, the mention of children. I don't really know how that fits with Jesus' statement, “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). I have a hard time finding procreation in the eternal state. And so, therefore, there is an indication, in terms of the infant playing near the hole of the cobra, and the young child putting his hand into the viper's nest, this speaking of something short of the final eternal state. Even more difficult, friends, is Isaiah 65:17, which says, “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth.” And a few verses later, it's talking about people who don't live out their years, and if they die at 100, they'll be thought of as young men. I'm saying, “Wait a minute. I thought there would be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain in the new heavens and the new earth.” There it gets very complicated and difficult.

My View: This is Speaking of the Full Effects of Christ’s Reign… Including the Millennial Reign on Earth 

So, what do I make out of it? I think that there will be a millennial reign, a 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth. I respect those that don't see that. I respect them deeply, as long as they're faithful to the text and have biblical reasons for doing it. But I think there's a physical aspect to Christ's future reign. And I think that he is actually going to have the power to change the nature of animals so that they don't rip and tear anymore, and so the wolf can lie down or live with the lamb. Their essential nature can change. Does not Jesus have that kind of power? Aren't you counting on that? Do you want to go to heaven and spend eternity in your present state? I sure don't. I want my essential nature finished. I don't just want work-in-progress - “Please be patient with me. God isn't finished.” I want him to finish me. I want to be perfect as he is perfect. I want that transforming power. I want to yearn for righteousness and have it actually fulfilled. I want to eat a feast of righteousness for all eternity. Don't you?

And so, yes, he has this kind of power. He can change wolves. He can change lambs. He can get lions to eat straw like an ox if he wants to. He has that kind of power. And yes, a little child can lead them, and an infant can play near the hole of the cobra. Even the physical snake, hijacked, I think, by that ancient serpent Satan (Revelation 12), can be taken back by God. The snake hijacked for Satan’s wicked purposes, cursed as a result. Even he, the snake, the viper, can be reclaimed and no longer harmful on God's holy mountain. Jesus has that kind of power. And I'm counting on that, aren't you? I'm counting on him to change me and to change this world. And I'm looking forward to that. That's the kind of reign that he has.

Now, look at the universal reach of Christ's rule in Isaiah:10-16. I'm going to read verses 10-12: “In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.” Look at Verse 12: “He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.” This is the assembly of the people of God, to spend eternity in the presence of this Messianic king, and they include both Jews and Gentiles from the ends of the earth.

Banner for the Nations, a Regathering of the Exiles of Israel

It's a powerful thing. First the Gentiles, that Root of Jesse. He is going to stand as a banner for the peoples and the nations will rally to him. These are Gentiles and they're coming to Jesus. That era is going on right now, the gathering of the Gentiles. And why? Because God said to him, God the Father said to God the Son in Isaiah 49:6, “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.” And so the Gentiles are coming to faith in Christ. They're going to stand under the Messianic banner of Jesus, and you are going to say, “He's my king. He's my savior,” this Jewish king, this descendant of Jesse. “He is my king” Christ, the rallying point, lifted high and exalted, he will draw all nations to himself. This is all about missions, friends. It's about the advance of the gospel to the ends of the earth, from Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth. When the Spirit of God comes, he will gather the elect, the chosen people from all nations of the earth, and they will be people from every tribe and language and people and nation. They will stand around that throne. 

Glorious Rest!

And it says, “His place of rest will be glorious” (Isaiah 11:10). Oh, it's a place of rest. You are going to enter into God's rest, and there you will rest from all of your labors, just as God rested from his (Hebrews chapter 4). And yes, it's going to be glorious. Revelation 21:10,11: “He carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” Oh, his place of rest is going to be glorious. It's going to be beautiful.

Jewish Restoration

But there is also a word here of Jewish restoration. It says, “The Lord will reach out his hand a second time” (Isaiah 11:11). Don't miss that detail. The first time was the physical regathering, I think, under the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the rebuilding of the temple at that point. That was the first time that the scattered people of the Jews were regathered. But there is going to be a second regathering.

You could spiritualize it and say that this second regathering is just the success of the gospel among the Jews. But frankly, Romans 9-11 says that most of the Jews aren't believing in Christ. There is just a small remnant that have come to faith in Christ, and that's somewhat of a regathering around Jesus. But I believe that there is a far more glorious regathering yet to come. He is going to reach out his hand a second time, at the end of time, while it's still time, and he is going to gather the Jews through faith in Christ. “They will look on… the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child,” Zechariah 12:10 tells us. And he is going to reclaim them, and bring them, it says, “From the four quarters of the earth” (Isaiah 11:12). “And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins’” (Romans 11:26,27). That is what Jesus is going to do to his own people. And he will take away that veil that covers their face. And they will see, at last, Christ in their own scriptures, and they will recognize who the Messiah is, and they will look to Jesus, and they will mourn, but it will be tears mingled with joy because, finally, at last, they have assurance that their sins are forgiven through the shed blood of Christ.

And Jesus will gather all of the Jews to himself, he who said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together” (Matthew 23:37). That's his yearning. He wants to gather them, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, “But you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matthew 23: 37-39). But at the end, they will finally say to Jesus, this descendant of Jesse, “Blessed are you, the one who came in the name of the Lord, who died for me and for the Gentiles, and we all now stand under one banner, the banner of Christ.”

Verses 13-16 talk about the final effect of that transformation:

“Ephraim's jealousy will vanish, and Judah's enemies will be cut off; Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim. They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west; together they will plunder the people to the east. They will lay hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them. The Lord will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea; with a scorching wind he will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River. He will break it up into seven streams so that men can cross over in sandals. There will be a highway for the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from Egypt.” 

The great power of God, even greater than happened during the time of the Exodus, that's the language here. Even greater than that, he is going to deliver his people from bondage to sin, and they are going to come to Christ, and they are going to believe in Christ. And the enemies of the people of God will be crushed and destroyed - I believe that's referring to the second coming - as he swoops down on the enemies of Israel and crushes them, finally, and they are gone forever.

Summary: All God’s Chosen People from both Gentiles and Jews to be Gathered into Messiah’s Kingdom

And so all of God's chosen people, from both the Gentiles and the Jews, will be gathered together into one kingdom, and there they will live forever and ever. That's our future.

 Why settle for politics? Why settle for a candidate? Look to Jesus for your true hope. That's where we are heading. We are heading toward a glorious kingdom with a king worth worshipping, who will not disappoint us in any way. Verse 12: “He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.”

 What we have seen

Well, what have we seen? We've seen the humble beginnings of Messiah's rule like a shoot from a stump. We've seen the divine power of Messiah's rule, the sevenfold Spirit of God saturating Jesus. We've seen the absolute justice of Messiah's rule, not a fleshly justice, but righteous. We've seen the perfect peace of Messiah's rule, heart transformation resulting in eternal peace, even extending to nature itself, a transformation of nature that only God could do. And we've seen the universal reach of Messiah's rule, both Gentiles and Jews rallying, being regathered around this one banner. 

How should we then live?  

How then should we live? Well, first of all, don't judge God's work by external appearance. The shoot comes up from a sterile stump. It seems like nothing is going on. Learn not to judge a ministry, or a person, or a family by external appearance. Trust in the Lord. Do what is good and right, and let him produce the fruit. Plant good seeds, water them with your tears, and with prayer, and let him do the work. Don't judge it by external appearance. God is at work and he is bringing this kingdom about. Look forward to the perfect reign of Christ. And if God in his wisdom chooses first a millennial reign, short of the eternal state, and then second, eternity, in which these conditions will obtain, praise God. And if he decides to just skip the millennial reign, and go right into the eternal state, none of you who are there enjoying it will complain, I assure you. You'll be delighted and happy to be there. But look forward to it. Feed your minds with it. Put your hope on it. The future is gloriously bright. And allow the sevenfold Spirit of God to saturate your lives, as he saturated Christ's life.

John the Baptist said, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). Allow Jesus to saturate your day with the sevenfold Spirit of God. And if you lack wisdom, go to Jesus and say, “Send forth now your Spirit of wisdom. I don't know what to do in this situation. I don't know what to do. My husband. My wife. I don't know what to do with my boss, with my employee. I don't know what to do with my financial situation. I don't know what to do with my child. I don't know what to do here, Lord.” Like Jehoshaphat said, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you, [O Lord]” (2 Chronicles 20:12). Look to him, and ask him to give you this kind of wisdom that we talked about today, and delight in the fear of the Lord. Fear him and obey his commands. Walk in his ways. Don't play loose with grace and think that because you're covered in grace you can live however you want. He still upholds his commands. Live in the fear of the Lord. Delight in the fear of the Lord and be blessed in that.

And finally, take part in that regathering. It's going on, praise God.  Pray for the missionaries that your church supports, for both their internal journey of sanctification and the external journey of the advance of the gospel.  And pray for others that you know, that aren't connected with your church, but you know they're doing good ministry of regathering both Jews and Gentiles brought into the Kingdom. Get involved in that.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 10:5-34. The main subject of the sermon is that God evaluates the motives of His creatures without difficulty.

The Bible is a constant amazement to me. I’m constantly in awe of this book. To me, it’s like the ocean. I picture my little children sitting in their colorful bathing suits right at the edge of the ocean, splashing in its rippling, foamy water, making little sandcastles, and just kind of playing there at the edges, never imagining the depths there really are in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They are just happy to be there and sit at its edges.  In the same way, the Bible speaks of simple truths that they can understand. There is a God. God is love. God loves you. God will take care of you. God will protect you. God sent His Son. Jesus died on the cross for you. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. These simple things are right at the edge. And we can enjoy these things, and we can learn them right away, as soon as we become Christians. They never change. They are a source of eternal joy and security to us. But the Bible has a lot more to say than those kinds of things.

The Bible talks about milk doctrines that are really easy to understand. Then the Bible talks about meat, things that are more difficult to understand. This passage, Isaiah 10, brings us into deep waters today. I think about the depths of God’s counsel when the Apostle Paul was seeking to explain in Romans 9-11 about the difficult problem of why it was that the Jews were rejecting Christ, their own Messiah. He gives a multifaceted answer the depths of which would take us forever to plumb. It is very deep. He talks about eternal predestination. He talks about the Word of God going out to the ends of the earth and that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. He talks about a remnant chosen by grace and saved by faith. He talks about olive trees and branches grafted in. He gives us this mystery that all Israel will be saved. Then he makes this incredible statement, “God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He might have mercy on them all.”

After making all of these very deep statements, he says, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgment, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36) And so we come to a deep and difficult topic today. It has to do with this: how does the sovereignty of God overrule events in human history in such a way that God uses the wicked actions of evil people who do not know Him? He uses them to bring about gloriously good ends, then turns and judges those people for doing the very thing that He decreed that they would do. How is that fair? How is it just that God sovereignly overrules these kinds of actions? His decree is before the foundation of the world: the wicked actions will most certainly happen, and then He will judge them for doing it.

Think about the complicated case of Judas Iscariot. The night before Jesus was crucified, they were there at the Last Supper. Matthew 26: 21-25, “And while they were eating, he said, ‘I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.’ They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, ‘Surely not I, Lord?’ Jesus replied, ‘The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born!’ Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, ‘Surely not I, Rabbi?’ Jesus answered, ‘Yes, it is you.’ “

It’s astonishingly deep. Jesus said He would be betrayed by one of His disciples, and that it would happen just as it had been written. He pointed to the decree of God even before the foundation of the world. But then He goes on to say, “Woe to the man who does it.” Judgment is going to come down on the individual who does it. It would have been better for him if he had never been born. Well, how then was he born? Why was he born? Who knit Judas together in his mother’s womb? Who gave him breath? How do we understand these things? How is it just for God to judge Judas for doing the very thing that He decreed he would do? My answer to that is that I don’t fully now. I really don’t. It’s deeper than I can fathom. But I believe that Isaiah 10:7 gives us a glimpse of the truth of how God does it. Our passage today helps answer this difficult question. The key verse, I think, is verse 7. What does the evildoer intend in what he does? What are the purposes of his heart? What is he thinking when he does it? It is on these bases that God judges him. He is not judged based on what God intends nor what glorious principles can come out of the evil things that we do. What are our intentions? What are the purposes of our heart? That is what God is studying on Judgment Day.

Look at verse 7, “This is not what he intends, this is not what he has in mind,” “He” being the Assyrian. “His purpose is to destroy.” Now in our passage, Isaiah calls Assyria “God’s rod of punishment for Israel.” He sends Assyria to punish Israel. Then He turns and punishes Assyria for doing it. How is this fair? How is this just? This is the meat of today’s sermon. This is what we’re going to take the rest of the morning to try to understand. God has these surprising messengers, the Assyrian army. Look at verses 5 and 6, “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hands is the club of my wrath! I dispatch him against a people who anger me.” Assyria on a mission from God? Isaiah plainly addresses the Assyrian in the singular, representing the Assyrian king, I think, and through him, symbolically, the whole nation. He is portrayed, amazingly, as being on a mission from God. He is called “the rod of my anger,” of God’s anger. He wields “the club of God’s wrath.” Clearly, he is sent by God. Look at verse 6, “I send him. I dispatch him.” He is the sent one, sent by God himself. He is dispatched. The Hebrew word means “to command, to lay a charge or a commission upon.” So God has a work to do against his own people.

Later in the same text, in verse 22, it says “Destruction has been decreed.” This is a very strong word. In verse 23, “The Lord, the Lord Almighty will carry out the destruction decreed upon the whole land.” This is the decree of the Almighty God, this destruction. But it’s the Assyrian who is going to do it. The Assyrian is going to carry out this decreed destruction. Look at verse 12. God has a work to do against His own people. “When the Lord has finished all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem.” This is the work of the Lord, this work of judgment against Mount Zion and Jerusalem. It’s a shocking mission then, a mission to destroy Judah, to destroy Israel. Look at verse 6: “I send him against a godless nation. I dispatch him against a people who anger me, to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets.” God has ordained the destruction of Israel and the devastation of the promised land. God dispatches these wicked, violent Assyrians to trample the Jews down like mud in the streets. Why? Because Israel has forsaken the covenant of God for centuries. God is slow to anger, but time is up for Judah, for Jerusalem, and for the people of God, for Israel. Even more shocking is the assessment of Israel as a godless nation, an atheistic nation.

He calls his own people a godless nation. Why? Because they had turned their backs on their God to worship those who were no gods at all, who really didn’t exist. Isaiah 45:5 says, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me, there is no God.”  They just don’t exist, these gods. The Yahweh that they thought existed didn’t exist either. The one who’s happy to share Israel with other gods didn’t exist either. So they are a godless nation. They don’t worship the true God, therefore they worship no God. Israel had exchanged the true God for idols of gods who were no gods at all, who didn’t even exist. Therefore the horror of it was that Israel had become a godless nation.

God’s Even More Surprising Message: Woe to Assyria!

The even more surprising message from God, in verse 5, is “woe to the Assyrian.” Judgment is coming on the Assyrian. Why? For doing precisely what God told them to do. This is exactly what God had sent them to do, and now He’s going to judge them for doing it. Look at the judgment declared in verse 12: “When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say ‘I will punish the King of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes.”

God has sovereignly ordained, commanded, sent, and dispatched Assyria to do a certain thing: to destroy Israel for their godlessness, for their rejection of the Mosaic covenant. God then turns on Assyria and punishes them for doing the precise thing He sent them to do. How can He do this and be just? How is this the God of love and the God of justice and righteousness that we worship in the Bible? Look at verse 7. The key issue is what he, the Assyrian, intends. What is he thinking as he does it? Verse 7 says, “This is not what he intends, this is not what he has in mind; his purpose is to destroy, to put an end to many nations.” This is one of the most important principles in the Bible concerning judgment day. We need to internalize this principle. We need to understand what God is teaching us here. God is sovereign over the evil actions of godless people like the Assyrians. He uses them to do His will. Thank God for that! The world is not spinning out of control. God knows exactly what He’s doing. Nothing that any evil man or nation can do thwarts Him in any way. God actually uses their actions.

God orchestrates the flow of their evil actions and their evil intentions for His own sovereign purpose. God also weighs their hearts at every turn in the road. He’s staring at the human heart. And in these verses the issue is the motive of the Assyrian that God brings to judge Israel. So here we come to it, the central issue of motive. Why do you do what you do? What motivated you to come to church today? Why did you do it? Why did you get in the car and come? That took a great deal of effort and energy. For some more than for others, to get a family in the car is the big achievement of the week. It is a great deal of effort. Why did you do it? Why do you give someone a compliment? Is it genuinely to build them up, or is there flattery involved? Are you trying to get something back from them? Why do you do it?

Why did you choose the car you chose to drive? Now some of you may say, “I didn’t choose that car. That car chose me. And I’m stuck with it.” That may be. But still you have choices in the matter. Why do you spend your time the way you do? Every hour, every minute of the day, why do you do what you do? Why did you put an offering in the plate? Why did you not put one in? What’s going on in your heart? God studies this extremely carefully. It matters to Him immensely. In 2 Peter 2, it says, “With the Lord a single day is like a thousand years.” He carefully studies every tick of the clock, every inclination of the heart, every glance of the eye. He’s aware of everything you’re doing. God looks at motive.

What are God’s motives? What is God’s motive in history? What is He about? Well, His motive is His own glory in the salvation of a multitude of sinners from all over the world. That’s what God is doing. He is glorifying Himself by saving sinners.

God is going to orchestrate history for His own purposes, according to His wise purposes for His own pleasure, so that He might be glorified in saving sinners. That is what He is doing. So God can bring an earthquake on a community and accomplish many different things at once. But they all tend toward the same: His glory and the salvation of sinners. The death of a stubborn rejector of the gospel in that earthquake may bring final judgment and wrath as well as a warning to those that still live. In the death of a Christian in that exact same earthquake, He may be bringing a Godly person to his eternal reward so that he doesn’t have to suffer any more pain in this wicked world. God escorts the Christian right through the earthquake and into His presence. In that same earthquake, a surviving non-Christian, seeing the devastation around him, may come to his sense and flee to the cross and Christ at last, finding forgiveness as he sees everything that he cared about fall apart.

A surviving Christian from that earthquake may be learning some lessons about idols that have been in his heart, or about the brevity of life, or the need to be more passionate about evangelism. God may be doing all of that through one earthquake. God is at work always to glorify Himself in everything He’s doing through the salvation of sinners. Isaiah 43: 6-7 says, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth—everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Sons and daughters of glory from the ends of the earth, created for His glory, redeemed for his glory, and preserved for His glory, will be resurrected for His glory. We will live for His glory in all eternity. That’s what He is doing. That is His motive.

But what about the Assyrian? What’s going on in his heart? What are his motives? They are put on display here in the text. We can find out what he’s thinking about, and it’s not the glory of God. That’s not what he intends. That’s not what he has in mind. He’s not thinking about the glory of God and the salvation of people all over the world. That’s not it. He’s not concerned about the glory of God at all. He’s concerned about his own glory. He’s building an empire. Those motives are put on display. Verse 7 says, “His purpose is to destroy, to put an end to many nations.” The Assyrians simply enjoyed viciously crushing other people. They just enjoyed it. They were implacably cruel.

It says in Nahum 3, “Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims! The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses and jolting chariots! Charging cavalry, flashing swords and glittering spears! Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses.” That was Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire. Implacable cruelty, that’s what is in their hearts, as well as arrogant empire building. In verse 8 he says, “Are not my commanders all kings?” “My commanders are all kings compared to you. I am a king of kings. They’re all kings.” In verses 9 and 10, he talks about the countries he’s conquered, “Places I’ve been, people I’ve seen, people I’ve killed and murdered and trampled down like mud in the street.” Let’s recount them in verses 9 and 10, “Has not Calno fared like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad, and Samaria like Damascus? As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols, kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria.” You have your idols too; they’re just not very good. They’re low class idols. The better idols were in the countries I’ve already conquered. In verses 13 and 14, he says, “I removed the boundaries of nations, and like a mighty one I subdued their kings.” He’s talking like a god. Do you see that? You see the lust of power, the delight of domination, of being in charge, of extending the empire as far as it will go, as greedy as the grave. It was like taking candy from a baby, taking eggs from a nest. No problem. He could do it again in a heartbeat. He could do it any time.

There’s also covetousness here. Look at verse 13, “I plundered their treasures.” Ah yes, the gold and the silver, the costly stones, the brocades of silk, the works of art, and all of the stuff in each of these kingdoms; I got it. It’s in my treasure house now.

And of course, above all, pride of heart and self-worship. “I can be a god,” at least for a little while. In verse 12 he speaks of the “willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes.”  In verse 13, he says, “By the strength of my hand, I have done this, and by my wisdom, because I have understanding.” I’ve got strength. I’ve got wisdom. I’ve got understanding. I can do anything. There’s arrogance here. The Assyrian is in love with his own wisdom, his own power, and his own understanding. He marvels at his self-achievement.

It never enters his mind that God enabled him to do it all. It never occurs to him to fall on his face and give God the glory for everything he’s achieved. “For in Him, we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) “You did not give honor to the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways.” (Daniel 5:24) These thoughts never entered their minds, though there was ample evidence for the existence of God all around them every day in the physical glory of creation. So that’s the motive of Assyria’s heart. And God’s going to judge him for it. He’s going to judge him for his motive, for why he did it.

Look at the judgment described in verses 15-19 and also 24-34. We see first this parity of human arrogance over deity. It’s insanity. It’s insane to boast against God. Look at verse 15, “Does the axe raise itself above him who swings it, or the saw boast against him who uses it? As if a rod were to wield him who lifts it up or a club brandish him who is not wood!” Which is greater, the club or the one who wields it? “You’re nothing. You’re a club. You’re a chunk of wood. I raised you up for a purpose,” He’s saying. “And you’re boasting against me!” God absolutely despises that kind of pride. Assyria is merely a tool in his hand. But at the very gates of Jerusalem, the Assyrians boasted directly against God himself.

Listen to one of the underlings of the King of Assyria. Remember when he said, “Are not all my commanders kings?” Well, they sure act like it. One of these underlings comes and arrogantly boasts in the hearing of Hezekiah and that tiny little remnant of Judeans that are left inside the walls of Jerusalem. This is what he says, “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 hands 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 been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand.” (Is. 36: 18-20). Ooh.

I said this morning in Bible for Life that it was Hezekiah’s one little glimmer of hope when he heard those words. He said, “Did you hear what he said? Of course, God, you heard what he said. It may be that God will hear the words of the underling of the King of Assyria that he sent to despise the Almighty God and will judge him for it.” Well, that’s precisely what God does! The Lord gave a response through Isaiah the prophet. Speaking to the Assyrian, “Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel! By your messengers you have heaped insults on the Lord.” (Is 37: 23-24). And now you will die for it.

It’s actually insane! We’re created beings. Our very atoms are held together by the power of Almighty God. This is the God who holds our lives and all our ways in His hands. Death stands over all of our achievements to sweep them into dust. But God is enthroned above the heavens, ruling over all the nations. Isaiah 40: 12-15 says this, “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who has understood the mind of the Lord or instructed him as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding? Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.” That’s the One that the Assyrians boasted against.

So God’s going to send a specific judgment on the Assyrians. He tells them ahead of time what it’s going to be, right here in Isaiah 10. This is where you find out what happened that night. This chapter tells you how they died. It’s going to be a wasting disease. It’s going to be dead soldiers. It’s going to happened in a single day. He’s very plain about it. That’s what God does. He tells you ahead of time what He’s going to do, and then He does it to His own glory. Wasting disease, sturdy warriors, a single day. Keep that in mind. That is what He says He’s going to do.

Look at verse 16: “Therefore the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors; under his pomp a fire will be kindled like a blazing flame.” When I read that I think of the fire of fever, like they’re burning up. “The light of Israel will become a fire, their Holy One a flame; in a single day it will burn and consume his thorns and his briers.” It’s a burning image there. Verse 18: “The splendor of his forests and his fertile fields it will completely destroy, as when a sick man wastes away.” He’s telling them what He’s going to do. They’re going to die from a wasting disease. Verse 19, ”And the remaining trees of his forest will be so few that a child could write them down.” He’s speaking of his army. It’s one of the most dramatic moments in the whole Bible, a striking moment. Arrogant Assyria, is right at the walls of Jerusalem, ready to conquer that city, and the Lord sends out the Angel of the Lord. THE Angel of the Lord.

In many places in the Old Testament, it’s pretty evident that the Angel of the Lord is equal to God Himself. The pre-incarnate Christ does the work as He will in Revelation 19 with the sword coming out of His mouth. And so He comes. Listen to the account in Isaiah 37:36, “Then the Angel of the Lord went out and put to death one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning there were all the dead bodies!” In a single day. “A single night.” Isaiah 10:17. Dead. 185,000 of them. And the remaining soldiers were so few that a child could write them down. I don’t know how many that is, but it’s not many. It’s just enough witnesses of what happened that night. That’s what happened. Isaiah 10 explains how it happened. He struck them with a wasting disease and they died quickly. More descriptions of the judgment are in verses 24-34. It’s very dramatic. He says in verse 25, “Very soon my anger against you will end and my wrath will be directed to their destruction.” You’ll see what will happen. It will be like the day he struck down Midian. Remember Gideon? In a single night they were dead. It will be like the Red Sea crossing, when the water crashed down on Pharaoh’s army and they were destroyed in a single night. Like that, the army will be wiped out.

Verse 28 describes their progress. They’re coming in now. They’re going to invade. The Assyrians are coming. This is like a travel log. This is a campaign, a military campaign. They enter Aiath. They pass through Migron. They store supplies in Michmash. They go over the pass and say, “We’ll camp overnight at Geba.” Ramah, then Gibeah, then Gallim, and Laishah, and Anathoth, and Madmenah, and Gebim. It’s city after city, falling, falling, falling, falling. The water of the Assyrian river is going to come right up to the neck, city after city. But then they’re going to halt at Nob. That’s within sight of Jerusalem. They’re going to get close, and they’re going to shake their fists at the mount of Jerusalem, at Mount Zion. Why? Because they couldn’t get in there because the Lord stopped them short. He cut them off.

In verses 33 and 34, “See, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will lop off the boughs with great power. The lofty trees will be felled, the tall ones will be brought low. He will cut down the forest thickets with an axe.” Interesting. At the beginning of the chapter, Assyria was the axe in God’s hand. At the end, they’re the tree. God’s got another axe and He’s going to chop them down. Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One. What are the effects? Assyria loses an empire. That’s what happened. They lost an empire. Very soon Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar’s father, would rise up, come up the Fertile Crescent, and topple Nineveh in fulfillment of Nahum’s prophecy. Then Assyria is gone from the pages of history. They lost their empire because God will it so. Because they refused to glorify God, they fell from the height of glory

What about Israel’s future? It’s summed up in this one phrase, “A remnant will return.” Thanks be to God for the remnant, because the Jews should not imagine they were any better than the Assyrians. They weren’t. Neither are we. Remember, I’ve said again and again that the danger in the book of Isaiah is thinking, “I’m different from the sinner that’s being described by Isaiah. That’s not me. I’m not like him. I’m not like the Assyrian, shaking my fist at God. I’m nothing like that. I would never do anything like that. I’m one of the good ones. I’m King Hezekiah kneeling down and humbling myself. That’s what I am.” I’m saying it’s dangerous to read it that way. Instead, God speaks of a remnant chosen by grace. That’s who is going to return. Look at verse 20, “In that day the remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no longer rely on him who struck them down, but will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.” Verse 21, “A remnant will return.”

A remnant of Jacob will return to the Mighty God. “Though your people, O Israel, be like the sand by the sea, only a remnant will return. Destruction has been decreed, overwhelming and righteous. The Lord, the Lord Almighty, will carry out the destruction decreed upon the whole land.” Is 10:22-23. God’s going to bring an overwhelming destruction on Judah. Most of the people will die by the sword, famine, or plague. Most of them will die. Some of them will be exiled. And seventy years later a tiny remnant, 40,000 plus, will be allowed to come back and resettle. It’s the remnant chosen by grace. Isaiah has already mentioned this in Isaiah 1:9, “Unless the Lord Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we should have been like Gomorrah.” In other words, Isaiah is saying that we’re no different than Sodom and Gomorrah. We’re the same. We are sinners. We deserve the same wrath. Isaiah is going to mention this remnant again in Isaiah 37:31-32, “Once more a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above. For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”

Paul mentions the remnant of the Jews. In Romans 9 through 11, where he’s describing why the Jews have almost universally rejected Christ as their messiah, Paul says, “It’s not universal. I’m a Jew and there are Jewish Christians. There are Jewish believers in Christ.”  “So too, at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace.” (Rom 11:5) That is what he is dealing with here, a remnant. A key characteristic of that remnant is trust in the Lord. Look at Is 10:20, “In that day the remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no longer rely on him who struck them down.” That’s the Assyrian. Remember how Ahaz turned to Assyria for hep? He’s looking to Assyria for help, a bad idea. Isaiah says they are not going to rely on Assyria any more for help. They are not going to rely on Babylon or any gentile. They are going to rely on the Lord. They are going to truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. This is the heart of the matter: the faith of God’s people. They had many false trusts, many false hopes. They had been trusting in idols and the idols couldn’t save them. They trusted in Assyria and Assyria came to destroy them. But now at last, finally, they will have learned their lesson. They will trust in the Lord alone, for He alone can save.

In the same way we also have many false trusts and hopes. There are many things we turn to and think are going to deliver us and save us. We are constantly drifting back toward our own good works and achievements and the basic essential good nature of our hearts. We think we’re essentially good people until the scripture lays us bare, and life lays us bare, and we start to see who we really are. The Lord works in us the same thing He was working in His people: humility and trust in Him and in Him alone. We can trust in our righteousness. We can trust in our technology, in our medical community and all of their achievements and research. We can trust in our wealth. We can trust in our military prowess. We can trust in all kinds of things as a nation and as individuals. But this remnant trusts in the Lord alone, for He alone can save.

So the judgment is coming: overwhelming and righteous, but restrained. It says in I Peter 4:17, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God.” If it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the Gospel of God? It is a basic principal concerning judgment. The more you know of God’s will and His word and disobey anyway, the more deserving of punishment you are. But where does that put us as 21st century American Christians? We have the Old Covenant. We have the New Covenant. We have Christ’s death on the cross as a matter of history. It’s already happened. We have his resurrection. We have the outpouring of the spirit. We have twenty centuries of church history and the fulfillment of all of Christ’s promises concerning the advance of the Gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. We have more knowledge of God’s word and redemptive history than any generation that has ever lived. Therefore, our sins are all the more severe. I Peter says, “It is time for judgment to begin with the family of God.” If it starts with us, what will be the outcome for those on the outside who don’t even know Christ?

This passage calls on me to repent. It calls on me to say, “What are the motives of my own heart?” God is bringing this judgment and it comes with surgical precision. It’s overwhelming. It sweeps across, but it stops right were it needs to. You’ve heard of the expression “collateral damage.” In World War II, there were bombing raids day and night. The bomb sites really weren’t that accurate. The bombs weren’t that accurate, and wind could blow them off course. Basically, they just laid cities low. London, Dresden, Tokyo, city after city, just laid low, completely wiped out. That’s what they call collateral damage. Nowadays, we pride ourselves in our advanced laser-guided smart bombs. You can watch, in the first Gulf War, a bomb go down an air intake in a modern skyscraper and say, “We can minimize collateral damage.” But there are still images of hospitals that are in rubble and that kind of thing. We can’t get rid of it.

There’s no collateral damage with God’s judgment. There is none. The wages of sin is death. The sinner deserves to die, every one of us. So this judgment that comes is overwhelming and righteous, but it’s also restrained. God saves a remnant. Do you find yourself there in the remnant that was saved by grace? This is the only deliverance there really is: Christ’s true deliverance.

It says in Is 10:27, “In that day their burden will be lifted from your shoulders, their yoke from your neck.” The real crushing burden, the real yoke, is sin and hell and judgment day. That’s the real burden on our shoulders. We can’t throw it off apart from Christ. Thanks be to God that Christ has come and that Jesus died on the cross to take our yoke on Himself! The yoke of wickedness, and evil, and sin, and the wrath that it deserves, He takes that judgment on Himself. He offers us a lighter yoke: His kingly rule.

He says, ”Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt 11:28-30) That’s what He offers to you. It may be that you have never trusted in Christ and that God brought you sovereignly here today to hear the Gospel, to hear that God sent His son. He lived a sinless and perfect life. He died a bloody death on the cross as a substitute, not for His own sin, because He never committed any, but for our sins. All we need to do, as in the text, is trust in the Lord alone to save us from our sins. That is the Gospel.

If you’ve already come to Christ, then understand a few things from this passage. First of all, God uses the Godless to accomplish His purposes, and everything’s under control. He knows what He’s doing. It may seem unfair. It may seem like the tyrant has ascended for a while. Bu God is always watching and assessing their motives. Always. Even a tyrant, by the way, like Nebuchadnezzar, can repent and turn and believe in Christ. In 1 Timothy 2, Paul wants prayers to be offered for all kinds of men, including kings and those in authority, because God desires all men to be saved. So we can pray for kings and we can believe that God can actually turn their hearts. But He is watching the motives of their hearts at every moment. It is not unjust for God to use Satan and then judge him for it, for God to use Judas and judge him for it, for God to use the Assyrian and judge him for it. It’s not unjust because He is testing the motive of their hearts.

So, what about your heart? You’ve already come to faith in Christ. That’s fine. Is there any value to today, Sunday? Is there any value to tomorrow? Does God have any good works for you to do? Does He want you to live a certain way? Well guess what? He’s going to be searching your hearts and your motives as well. And on judgment day, you’re going to have to give an account based on your own motive, your heart motive. It says in Matthew 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven.” That should be your motive. Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. That should be your motive. 1 Corinthians 4:5 says, “Judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.” Romans 14:23, “…Everything that does not come from faith is sin.” What’s your motive? What’s going on inside your heart for everything that you do?

If you give to the needy so that you can be noticed and praised, Jesus says, “you’ve already received your reward in full.” If you pray so that everyone will say, “Boy, your prayers are just awesome. I love it when you pray,” Jesus said, “You already have received your reward in full.” If you volunteer for Urban Ministry or come to HOPE For Durham so that you’ll be noticed by other people, so that you’ll be praised by them, or because you’re single and you’d like to meet someone, you ought to be aware that God is aware of why you do what you do. Say, “Test my heart oh God, and show me why I do what I do. I want to study myself. I want to know what my motives are.” Because that’s going to be the topic on judgment day. By the way, if you do some specific thing, and then you’re disappointed by people’s reactions to the thing you did, what was your motive? Pride is at the heart of it.

Now, I recognize that there’s a little selfishness and self-centeredness in everything we do. All of our gold and silver and costly stones will have to be refined by fire. Thanks be to God, He will do it. He sees the motive of the heart. It says in Revelation 2:23 (this is Jesus speaking), “I am He who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.” My final word of advice to you is this: be humble when God chooses to use you. Live for the glory of God and have this attitude: “What is Apollos? What is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed. Apollos watered, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow.” (1 Cor 3:5-7) Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 9:8-10:4. The main subject of the sermon is learning to fear the righteous and holy wrath of God.

One of the most sober responsibilities I have as a preacher of the word of God is to urge you to flee from the wrath to come because there is a wrath that is coming. One of the greatest joys of my ministry is to tell you that there is a place to flee to. The cross of Jesus Christ is a safe sanctuary from the wrath of God. One of the saddest thoughts in my mind now as I come up to preach is that there are some that are going to hear me today that will experience the wrath of God for all eternity. I don't know who they might be but I preach with that in mind today, that there may be some listening to me today that will experience the wrath of God for all eternity in hell. And a great joy that I have is to think that many who listen to me today are free from the wrath of God, and for them there is no condemnation and they will spend eternity in the presence of God and not suffer his wrath. And so it is a mixed ministry that I have today, because our text today speaks of the anger of God and of his wrath. And for me as a pastor, I have to think what words can I use to make that day, the day of reckoning, so vivid in your minds that you deal seriously with it. What words could I use?

 This was a problem for a pastor, a visiting pastor who was in a pulpit in Enfield, Connecticut in 1741 while revival fires were sweeping over New England, and really all over the American colonies. But not every community was experiencing the revival. It had passed by Enfield, Connecticut. As they came to church that day to hear a guest preacher, they were laughing, joking, lighthearted, with no sense of seriousness, no sense of the presence of God, just goofing off as they came into the sanctuary and sat down to hear Jonathan Edwards preach Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, one of the most famous sermons in all history. His text that day, Deuteronomy 32:35 (KJV) was, "Their foot shall slide in due time." In other words, just because you haven't seen the wrath of God or the judgment of God on sin yet doesn't mean it isn't coming. And his doctrine was this: there is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell but the mere pleasure of God, and the God who keeps you out of hell is angry with you for your sin. Speaking of the wicked, of unregenerate people, that was the doctrine.

It is a very famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and it is a troublesome view of God to people in the 20th and 21st centuries. They fight against it. They deny that it's true, and they write little poems and they study it in high school literature classes as though it were some strange thing from a bygone era, like opening up some kind of time capsule with a strange aroma that wafts up out of the time capsule. How could it really be true? And so one clever poet wrote this about Edwards and Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. This is what she wrote:

And if they had been taught aright,

Small children carried bedwards

Would shudder lest they meet that night

The God of Mr. Edwards.

Abraham's God, the Wrathful One,

Intolerant of error -

Not God the Father or the Son

But God the Holy Terror.

Well, that's a clever ditty. But it fails to deal with the question: is the reality of the wrath of God that Edwards was preaching about true? Is it really going to happen? Is there in fact going to be a judgment day? Is there in fact going to be a hell where the reprobate will spend eternity suffering the torment of God? Is that true or not?

And if it were true, how could a preacher, like Edwards or like me, craft, if that's the right word, words to awaken his hearers to the seriousness of the issue. What kind of words would you use? But that sermon has taken hold in American imagination. Some years ago, we saw the Disney movie Pollyanna. I don't know if you remember that. Hayley Mills plays a little optimistic girl who goes through a trial and her optimism is tested. But earlier in the movie, she sits through a sermon by Reverend Ford, played by Karl Malden, and he used this phrase almost taken exactly from Sinners in the Hands of Angry God, and he makes the chandelier shake as he preaches. I don't think I could do that today.  I don't know how I would do that or to what effect, but he did it. And the people were just looking like they wanted to be ill and one man walks out and a horse neighs and he says, "Exactly" to the horse. Kind of mocking. So afterwards, Hayley Mills, Pollyanna, finds Reverend Ford out in the field as he is practicing yet another such sermon. And she says, "Do you know that my father," who is a missionary, "my father told me there are over eight hundred happy verses in the Bible. Why don't you preach one of those?" And he actually is transformed and then he says, "That's enough for sixteen years worth of preaching on the happy texts in the Bible."

Well, listen, I think it's marvelous to preach on a happy text of the Bible. I love one in particular. How about this one? Romans 8:1, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Is that a happy text in the Bible? But what does it mean if you don't know what condemnation is? What does it mean to be saved if you don't know what you're being saved from? And therefore paradoxically, some of the happiest people on the face of the earth are Christians who have stared down biblically into the doctrine of the wrath of God and found escape through faith in Christ and they are forever free and joy-filled and happy. There's a happy text for you.

But happy text or not, I want to know, is it true? And if it is true, how can a preacher awaken the consciences of his hearers to deal seriously with the doctrines there? Is this an archaic view of God, a mythological view of God that God is angry, passionately angry about sin and that he will act on that anger in acts of judgment? Is God angry with the human race? Is he angry with sinners? And if you look in the text, four times we see a reference to God's anger and wrath connected to Israel's sin: 

It's as if Isaiah is saying, God's wrath is not so easily extinguished. Even after all of that judgment, there is still more to come. It is a relentless, terrifying force, inescapable were it not for the cross of Christ. Isaiah is saying to Israel, "Yes, God has struck you and he isn't finished yet. There is still more to come." That's what he is saying again and again.

Now for us as Christians, I believe you really can't have the true joy of the Lord without understanding the doctrine of the wrath of God and of hell. You will not rightly esteem what Jesus did for you if you don't stare down into this doctrine and understand it. You will not give him the glory that he deserves for taking your cross up that hill and dying under the wrath you deserve if you don't study this doctrine. And so, amazingly, great joy, happiness, and security come for the Christian in studying this.

But what of the non-Christian? You are on my mind. I don't know who you are. Your faces tell me nothing of your status before God. I don't know who you are, you who are lost, who have come here today for whatever reasons. I don't know who you are, but I warn you to flee the wrath to come because there is a wrath to come. And I tell you the good news, there is a place to flee to and it is the cross of Jesus Christ. That's the sermon.

Not the God of the Greeks: Emotionless and Detached

Now this is just a historical prophecy set in the midst of Israel's history, but it teaches a timeless transcendent lesson that God is passionate, he is angry about sin. And there is a place to flee to, and that is Christ. So we look at the wrath of God. It is pure. It is holy. It is perfect. He is not the god of the Greeks, the philosopher god. The stoics posited a god completely incapable of being moved to emotion. Emotions, passions, they thought, were derived from the animal nature and beneath pure deity. Aristotle spoke of the unmoved mover, a god who causes great passions in others but is himself never moved to passion - the unmoved mover. One scholar put it this way: the god of Aristotle is little involved in the world. It would have been a sign of inferiority and imperfection for him to be so. This is the reflective, typically Greek attitude: to be affected by something external to yourself is a sign of weakness. This, however, is not the God of the Bible. Our God is a passionate being. He is shown to be emotional all the time.

Let's start with the joy of God and the salvation of a single sinner. Start there. It says in Luke 15:10, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." You know, that is in a cycle of parables: the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son (what we know as the prodigal son). And in the midst of that, in all three of those parables, the one who has lost something and then who exerts effort to find what's lost is the one who does the celebrating. And he or she in the parables might invite neighbors to come and celebrate. But the one who is doing the celebrating is the one who lost something and then sought and found it again. Who is that, but God? And therefore, who is the one rejoicing in that verse, Luke 15:10? "There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents." Well, that is God who is rejoicing. He is celebrating. And how often every day, every twenty-four hours, does he celebrate over a single sinner who repents and turns to Christ? Oh, he must be a joyful being constantly seeing therefore a single sinner who repents and comes to faith in Christ.

So there is joy. Zephaniah 3:17 pictures a very emotional God who rejoices over his people with singing. Zephaniah 3:17 says, "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Oh, what a picture - God singing over you! Who am I that God should sing over me? Well, if I ask that question, I haven't understood the gospel of grace. It's not who I am. It's who he is that he would sing over people like us. Oh, the grace and the love of God! But he is an emotional being. There are many other emotions ascribed to God in the Bible. For example, compassion - the Lord is gracious and compassionate. That means he is moved by the feelings of others. Grief or sadness or distress is ascribed to God. Isaiah 63:10 speaks of the sin of the Jews and says, “… they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.” So God is capable of grief. Or longing - Isaiah 30:18 says, "The Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion." It is an emotional being we serve. And he has other emotions as well, but the issue here is the issue of anger or wrath.

God Involved and Passionate

 Therefore, God is involved in human history and he is passionate about his involvement. It means something to him. And that passion includes anger over sin. Listen to Psalm 18:7-13. “The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him- the dark rain clouds of the sky. Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning. The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.”

Slow to Anger… But Overwhelming When It Comes

Now I think we have trouble with a picture of the wrath and the anger of God because of how easily we get angry. We get angry for prideful reasons, or when we are inconvenienced, or things like that. When we don't get a pleasure that we like, we get angry. God is nothing like that. God's anger is pure and holy. And the scripture reveals again and again that God is slow to anger, very slow to anger. But the anger, Isaiah 9 and 10, is overwhelming when it comes. There is nothing a human being can do to stop it when God pours out his wrath. Very powerful. And God is slow to anger. Exodus 34:6, “He passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.’” But once that anger comes, there is nothing we can do to stop it. He is the only one who can stop it.

I remember when I was working as an engineer and making a machine called an ion implanter. It had a big, heavy wheel that spun around really fast, and I needed to have a way to brake it to stop it quickly. So we set up a test with a big thousand pound steel wheel and a big motor, and this brake mechanism. I'll never forget the first test of the brake that was inadequate, watching the wheel start to turn slowly at first, a little more quickly, a little faster, faster, faster, really fast now. I mean, it was flying, a blur, this big thousand-pound steel wheel going so fast it was blurring. When they engaged the brake, the thing just exploded. We were behind a protective wall, thank goodness. But that was an inadequate brake. It just couldn't be stopped. That is nothing compared to the wrath of God. There is nothing we can do to stop it. When God wants to pour out his wrath, he will pour it out and nothing can stop it. It's terrifying.

Isaiah 9 and 10 depict four distinct judgments that come on Israel because of their sin. And each ends with this arresting phrase, "Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised."

 Israel’s Stubborn Pride: “We Will Rebuild It Even Better!!”

Look at the first judgment, verses 8 through 12. Stubborn pride results in invasion: “The Lord [verse 8] has sent a message against Jacob; it will fall on Israel. All the people will know it- Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria- who say with pride and arrogance of heart, ‘The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars.’ But the Lord has strengthened Rezin's foes against them and has spurred their enemies on. Arameans from the east and Philistines from the west have devoured Israel with open mouth. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.” Do you see Israel's stubborn pride? Yes, we've been destroyed, but we are going to rebuild even better. There is an arrogance here, a defiant spirit here.

God had already brought some judgment on Israel. Some of the buildings had been destroyed. There had been some destruction on the land. But they responded this way: "Alright, the bricks are gone, but it is going to get even better. We'll replace it with dressed stone." That's a higher building material, a better quality. "In the end, it is better," they're saying. "Yes, you've taken down the fig trees, but they're just weak. Wait until we replace them with cedars!" What an arrogant attitude. After the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001, I said to someone, "If I know the tenor of our nation, there will soon be a great deal of talk to replace those towers with one even bigger." So it is. We've got that tower. It is going to be 1,776 feet tall. It's just the way America tends to respond.

What They Should Have Done: Humble Themselves Under God

Now I don't know, and I can't connect it to the judgment of God. God hasn't sent a prophet or anything to tell us specifically that it is so. But it will be best for us as a people to come to God humbly rather than say, "This has fallen down, but we are going to make something even better in its place." But here with Israel, this is clearly a judgment of God. Isaiah told them so. And look how they respond. What should they have done? Well, they should have humbled themselves under God's mighty hand and let him raise them up in due time. James 4:8-10 says, "Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.

Result of Pride:  Invasion

The result of this arrogant response is invasion. God is going to send Gentile nations to come and devour them with open mouth. First it will be minor nations like the Philistines and the Arameans. But after that Rezin's foes are coming. That's the Assyrians, and they are going to devour Israel (the northern kingdom) completely. It will be gone. “Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.”

 That brings us to judgment number two: unrepentance resulting in the removal of leaders. Look at verses 13 through 17. “But the people have not returned to him who struck them, nor have they sought the Lord Almighty. So the Lord will cut off from Israel both head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day; the elders and prominent men are the head, the prophets who teach lies are the tail. Those who guide this people mislead them, and those who are guided are led astray. Therefore the Lord will take no pleasure in the young men, nor will he pity the fatherless and widows, for everyone is ungodly and wicked, every mouth speaks vileness. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.”

Israel’s Willful Independence

 We see, therefore, Israel's willful independence. They live an independent existence in their own minds. They have no thoughts for the God who made them and sustained their lives every day. And they have now been struck by God. There has been some kind of discipline, but they respond with arrogance.

What They Should Have Done: Repent and Return

They should have returned and repented. Look at verse 13 again. “But the people have not returned to him who struck them, nor have they sought the Lord Almighty.”

Can I just stop in the middle of this message and speak to you, just as a brother in Christ?  If you ever suffer some kind of painful stroke in your life, some medical catastrophe, some financial stress, some relational difficulty, any kind of adverse providence, anything, learn to come to God, quiet and humble and yielded to what he is doing. And say, "Lord, search me and know me and show me if there is any offensive way in me. Show me my sin." And humble yourself based on what he reveals. I do not say that every sickness or every adverse circumstance comes as a direct response to our particular sins. The book of Job refutes that. But it is safe for us spiritually to come with that kind of conception. Raymond Ortlund made a clear observation on this point. He said, "When God strikes you, the biggest mistake you can make is to turn away from him, instead of turning to him and inquiring of him."

When Jonathan Edward's wife learned the shocking news that her husband had died suddenly and unexpectedly from a smallpox vaccine while he was away at Princeton, her reaction is a classic illustration of a proper response to trials from the Lord. This is what she wrote to her daughter on hearing of the death of her great husband:

"What shall I say? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. Oh, that we may kiss the rod of discipline and lay our hands on our mouths. The Lord has done it. He has made me adore his goodness, that we had him so long. But my God lives and he has my heart. Oh what a legacy my husband, and your father has left with us! We are all given to God, and there I am, and love to be."

Now, that is the way to do it, friends. “God is my true husband, He is still here and he has my heart. I trust him.” Note what she says though, "Kiss the rod of discipline." Can you do that? That takes great faith. That's what this text is urging us to do.

Result of Unrepentance: Leaders Cut Off

Now what is the result of Israel's unrepentance? Well, their leaders are cut off. God decrees in effect the decapitation of the nation. Its leaders and officials are cut off. We already saw this earlier in Isaiah. He also removes the prophets who are supposed to speak God's words to the people. Now the wickedness of Israel's leaders, both head and tail, has led them into this grave sinful state.

Remember Israel's first king Rehoboam, and how he established a false religious system that continually led that northern kingdom of Israel into sin, generation after generation? They never turned away from Rehoboam's sin. He led them right away into idolatry and they never recovered. And so look at verse 16: "Those who guide this people mislead them, and those who are guided are led astray.” As a result, wickedness is widespread. Every mouth speaks vileness all the time. There is no one righteous, not even one. And so the wrath of God is coming. “Yet for all this,” he says, “his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.”

That brings us to judgment number three: growing wickedness results in self-destruction. Verses 18 through 21. “Surely wickedness burns like a fire; it consumes briers and thorns, it sets the forest thickets ablaze, so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke. By the wrath of the Lord Almighty the land will be scorched and the people will be fuel for the fire; no one will spare his brother. On the right they will devour, but still be hungry; on the left they will eat, but not be satisfied. Each will feed on the flesh of his own offspring: Manasseh will feed on Ephraim, and Ephraim on Manasseh; together they will turn against Judah. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.”

 Israel’s Wickedness:  Spreading Like a Wildfire

Here we see Israel's wickedness spreading, it says, "like a wildfire." One thing that history has shown us is the fact that sin does not stay put. It grows like a tumor. It metastasizes. It spreads like pollution. And it pollutes one well in one stream and one rivulet and river after another. It just spreads, and spreads, and spreads. It does not stay put. One chapter after Adam and Eve sin, we have the first murder. By the end of that chapter, Genesis 4, we have a man, Lamech, who marries two women, and who kills a man for insulting him and boasts over it.

By the time we get to Genesis 6:5 it says, “The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” So it spread quickly. It doesn't stay put. It's like a virus. It just multiplies and keeps growing. I think any of you who have been walking with the Lord for any length of time know exactly what I'm talking about. You just take a little sin into your life and pretty soon it is dominating, destroying whole days, destroying and polluting relationships. It does not stay put. The image here is of a wild fire spreading through the land. Verse 18, “Surely wickedness burns like a fire; it consumes briers and thorns, it sets the forest thickets ablaze, so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke.”

Again and again in history, you've seen the devastation of huge fires that were started by just one little spark, just one little place. The great Chicago fire of October 1871 started in Mrs. O'Leary's barn. That whole thing about the cow kicking over the lantern was just an urban myth. But it did start in one place, just a spark on a pile of a hay, and pretty soon it spread and destroyed four square miles of that great midwestern city. Terrifying. The great London fire of 1666 started in the oven of a baker, a single baker, on Pudding Lane in the middle of the night while he was sleeping upstairs. It burned for four days and four nights destroying 13,000 homes. That was in 1666, one little place. Or in 2003, in October, Southern California saw the Cedar fire burn 280,000 acres and 22,000 homes. Started by a single man, a hunter who was lost and lit a signal fire. That is what sin is like. It starts in one place and pretty soon it spreads. It's devastating. It destroys. 

What They Should Have Done: Rescued their Brothers

Now what should these people have done? Well, they should have turned toward their brothers and rescued them from sin. They should have cared. Instead of sin spreading from one person to the next, they should have been salt and light to stop the spread of corruption. That's what we are supposed to be for each other. That is what the church is supposed to be, for each other. We are supposed to love one another in order to help each other with sin, to confront a brother or a sister for sin, deal with it directly and lovingly, to stop a brother, to take the plank out of your eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Galatians 6:1, if you see somebody caught in a sin, “You who are spiritual should [go and] restore him gently. But watch yourself,” because pretty soon it is going to be you that will need it too. Be humble and know that the same sin that is in them is in you too. But do it with gentleness. It should have been love.

Result of Wickedness:  Brother Devours Brother

Instead, they were devouring one another, brother devouring brother, turning on each other. And it brought no satisfaction. Look at verse 20 and 21. “On the right they will devour, but still be hungry; on the left they will eat, but not be satisfied. Each will feed on the flesh of his own offspring.” It's disgusting. Five of the last six kings of the northern kingdom of Israel came to the throne by assassination. Some of them lasted only a month and then they would be assassinated in turn. They were feeding on each other, destroying each other viciously, very much like the warning that Paul gave the local church in Galatia. Galatians 5:15 - “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” Families can do the same - bickering, complaining, insulting, not loving. There is a biting and devouring that goes on, a feeding on each other's flesh instead of love. Matthew 22:39 says the second great commandment is “love your neighbor as yourself.” But they weren't doing it at all. They had thrown that off and so wrath is coming. And yet for all of this, it says, “His anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.”

That brings us to the fourth judgment: social injustice results in conquest. Chapter 10:1-4, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches? Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.”

Israel’s Injustice:  Laws Against the Oppressed

Here we see Israel's injustice toward the poor. They are actually making laws to favor the rich and powerful over the oppressed and weak and needy. By the way, issues of social justice are huge in the book of Isaiah. They are huge. And I am convicted every time I get up to preach on the issues of poverty. We are a wealthy church. We have been blessed. Are we known for our lavish generosity to the poor? Not that it is important that we be known, but it is important that they know where to come. Are our consciences clear in how we are managing our money? Do we have a sacrificial pattern of service to the poor and needy around us? Does God care about the poor and needy? “Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him” (James 2:5)?

Israel's leaders were actually making unjust laws to oppress the weak. They were taking advantage of their position and power to dominate and to crush.

What They Should Have Done:  Protect the Weak

What they should have done was to have protected the weak. Social justice flows right from the character of God and it is established in the laws of Moses. God established many laws to protect the poor and needy. Landowners, for example, were not permitted to glean, to pick up the extra droppings after a harvest right to the edge of their harvest field. They were supposed to leave them for the poor. And so in the book of Ruth, we have Ruth walking behind the harvesters gleaning so that she and Naomi can have something to eat.

Every seven years, the farms were to be left fallow, completely left alone so the poor could have something to eat, and the land could be regenerated. Judges were especially commanded to be careful in their dealing with the poor. Exodus 23:6-9 says, “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous. Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.”

The people were to be open handed and generous to the poor and needy. And it is very clear throughout the New Testament, particularly in I John, that a measure of saving faith is open generosity, material generosity to the poor and needy. Job, in his defense as he is summing up his plea for righteousness and his life, is very well aware of his behavior toward the poor in his life. Listen to what he said in Job 31:13-23 - 

“If I have denied justice to my menservants and maidservants when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers? If I have denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless - but from my youth I reared him as would a father, and from my birth I guided the widow - if I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing, or a needy man without a garment, and his heart did not bless me for warming him with the fleece from my sheep, if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, knowing that I had influence in court, then let my arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint. For I dreaded destruction from God, and for fear of his splendor I could not do such things.

Result of Injustice: Inescapable Justice

What is the result of this injustice, this social injustice? Inescapable justice from God. Look at verses 3 and 4 again: “What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches? Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain. Yet for all this, his anger has not turned away, his hand is still upraised.” 

So now we come to it, don't we? Is there a balm in Gilead? Is there a refuge to which we can flee? Well, I couldn't speak for two minutes at the beginning of the sermon without mentioning that refuge. Thanks be to God that there is a refuge, that we don't have to stand under the wrath of God and see all of his power concentrated down on our eternal destruction. What a terrifying thing that is. The smoke of their torment rises forever and ever in the presence of the holy angels and of the lamb. He doesn't turn away and watch his handiwork. He watches what he is doing in hell. He knows very well he is the one who is doing it. He is not squeamish about it. He will show no pity for the unregenerate sinner.

So look at verse 3 again, Isaiah 10:3 - "What will you do in the day of reckoning (that's judgment day) when disaster comes from afar (that's the coming of the judgment of God). To whom will you run for help?" Oh what is the answer? The answer is Jesus Christ. It is Jesus, the son of God, who shed his blood on the cross. That is our place of refuge. That's where we run.

The Two Greatest Displays of God’s Wrath

There are two great overwhelming displays of wrath in the Bible. The first is the cross of Christ, and the second is hell. And in the first, Jesus stood, as it were, under the lightning bolt of the wrath of God. There is a picture of a lightning bolt on the cover of the bulletin. Just look at it for a minute. Think about the power of God displayed in a lightning storm. Can you imagine knowing that the bolt of lightning was going to strike there and purposely going and standing there so that you might benefit someone else? What could it benefit? It can't, but just imagine the power concentrated down there.

Jesus is our lightning rod. Jesus is the one who absorbs the wrath of God. He knew full well what he was doing. He wasn't deceived. He wasn't tricked. God fully revealed to him in Gethsemane what it would be like to experience, to drink the cup of God's wrath. And there he is in Gethsemane, and he is down on the ground, and droplets of blood are coming from the pores of his face, and they are coagulating, dripping down like this, and he is praying with great intensity, "Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:30). What cup? Could it not be the cup of the wrath of God poured full strength that he would drink it to its dregs? That is what is happening at the cross. 

And there is no movie that can depict that. Mel Gibson can't show that. No picture can show it. It is a spiritual reality. No man died like this. But Jesus is our propitiation. It says in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That's all of us. If you're not convinced of it, then go to the law. Look at the Ten Commandments. Have you ever denied the Lord? Have you ever disowned him? Have you ever coveted? Have you ever committed adultery in your heart? Have you ever murdered through anger, as Jesus said it would be. You are in danger of the fire of hell if you did any of these things. But we have lived for years. We have done more than we can count. It's the wrath of God. And Jesus summed all of the law of God into two. “[You shall] love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. … [and you shall] love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:30,31). Have you done that? Have you obeyed it every moment of your life? If not, then apart from Christ you would deserve the wrath of God.

“Full Atonement, Can It Be?”

 And so Jesus came to be our propitiation. It says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 3:23-25 ESV). They tell us at preacher school you shouldn't use words like propitiation. People don't know what they mean. I tell you, I didn't know what it meant. I had to learn it. I had to learn a vocabulary word. I think you can learn a vocabulary word. It means the turning aside of the wrath of God by the giving of a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice. That's what it means.

And so the blood sacrifice has been given and God's wrath has turned away. He is our propitiation. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation (that's no hell, no wrath) for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Hallelujah! Praise God. Hallelujah for all of you who have trusted in Christ, because it is a redemption that comes by grace through faith in Christ, by trusting in him. But if you have no faith in Christ the wrath of God remains on you.

I remember another job I worked at. It was called an e-beam reactor. It used a powerful magnetic field to bend an electron beam through a field down into a crucible. And I had to look through triple polarized glasses to watch that process happen. I had my finger on a button in case it messed up because it would destroy the machine and become incredibly dangerous. And it was just this concentrated beam of heat and bluish light melting this metal and depositing it on these wafers that spun around above it. 

That's nothing compared to the wrath of God. The creative, or I should say, destructive intelligence of God boring down on you for all eternity. Revelation 14:11, “And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever.” There is a wrath to come. Flee from it. I don't know your names. You who are here today who are still under the wrath of God. I can't see. I don't know who you are, but flee to Christ because there is a coming wrath.

Applying These Lessons

 Now, if you have already fled, then consider two things. Consider your own condition, how grateful you ought to be that you will not have to suffer the wrath you deserve. You don't have to say it (but think it) when someone asks, "How are you doing?" Say, "Better than I deserve, infinitely better than I deserve." You don't have to say it every time. Maybe occasionally, once a week - "Better than I deserve". Be happy thereby, no matter what you are going through. You are not going to have to suffer wrath, 1 Thessalonians 5:9, “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation.”

Praise God for that. Secondly though, outwardly, you are living among a people in the land of the shadow of death. They are still under the wrath of God. John 3:36 says, "The wrath of God remains on them every day". They are not ready to die. And there is only one thing that can rescue them: the power of God for salvation, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when God brings some adverse circumstance in your life, kiss the rod of discipline. Thank him for it. Don't murmur against him. Don't turn away from God and be bitter. Turn to God and say, "What are you teaching me? Get me through this time that you have brought on me."

Thirdly, please pray for our nation. July 4th is coming up, the birthday of our country. God's nation is those who have repented and trusted in Christ. That's his nation. You understand that. “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? … whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48,49). How much more then, who is Christ’s nation? It is not the United States of America, nor is it any other political entity on the face of the earth. Pray for this nation that we would repent. And when some adverse thing comes on the nation that we would have times of outpouring of prayer and seeking of the face of God--as happened, frankly, on September 12th in this nation.

Praise God for it. But all the more. It says in Jeremiah 18:7-8, "If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned" (from Jeremiah 18, like Jonah in Nineveh). Pray for our nation on July 4th.

And finally, and this is not the last time I will mention it, understand God's intense concern for the poor and needy. Use your wealth and your time wisely. I want our church well known for generosity to the poor. And I know we need wisdom to know how to do that. God wants us to come to him and say, "What should we do about this and that and the other situation?" We need wisdom to know what to do about them.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 9:1-7. The main subject of the sermon is God's securing of His eternal kingdom through the coming Jesus Christ.

Well, I am really excited and joyful to be able to preach this passage to you this morning. This is a glorious section of scripture. It speaks of a great joy and people celebrating, of a sense of victory, coming through the victory of Jesus Christ. This passage speaks very plainly of Christ. And it speaks also of the government that he intends to bring. I think, in some way, the study of human history for thousands and thousands of years is the study of a fruitless quest of the human race for a righteous form of government and a righteous ruler to lead it.

It wasn't found in the ancient Egyptians for all of their achievements. You can still see the pyramids and the effects of the rule of the pharaohs over Upper and Lower Egypt. It wasn't found there. It wasn't found in the cruel Assyrians who swept in, who invented crucifixion, which took our Lord from this world. Just through their cruelty a pile of skulls was the measure of their success, the success of their kingdom. Certainly, it wasn't found in their cruelty. Nor was it found in the Babylonians, who through the genius of one man, Nebuchadnezzar, were able to build a glorious empire that lasted for just a short time and then sank back down into the dust. It wasn't found there. Nor was it found in the conquerors of the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, who came along with their wide-reaching empire, or Alexander the Great who sought to take Greek culture and philosophy and literature and language and spread it all over the world. He had a vision for that trained by the philosophers. He never lost a battle, but he did not bring in a righteous form of government, as the history after Alexander certainly proved.

It certainly wasn't found in the Romans for all of their great achievements, for all of the tens of thousands of roads that they made, and all of their great structures for the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, and that Roman system of justice, and their philosophers. They certainly did not bring in a righteous and lasting form of government in which we can rejoice. And after that darkness, the barbarian tribes swept in, hordes from the steppes of Asia who had no interest whatsoever in culture and just sought to destroy and to establish their own power for a short period of time. Nor was it found in Christendom, the kings, the feudal system, all of that. Things were only as good as the character of your king during that era. And that usually wasn't very good. And so they didn't find it in the kings and the nobles and the system of serfs and pages of the Middle Ages. It wasn't found there, in the divine right of kings. 

Nor has it been found in representative democracy, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people which came in after the enlightenment. It wasn't found there. Every four years, we listen to the hopes of another political candidate and the utopian language of what it's going to be like if this or that individual or this or that party is elected into power. We Christians ought to know better. Winston Churchill put it this way in 1947 very famously, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Typical of Churchill to put it so succinctly. It's basically the best we've been able to do. Certainly it is better than Communism, which had its run in the 20th century - enforced liberality to the poor, but really just a concentration of power in the hands of just a few. The same old thing, tyranny and corruption. It's the same always.

But the righteous king has been found. Amen? He's already walked our earth. Two thousand years ago, he came. He showed us what he was like. He displayed his character. And for two thousand years we've been getting a greater and greater sense of what kind of kingdom he is going to bring. And that kingdom is displayed so beautifully in the words of an ancient prophet who lived seven centuries before the king was born. And that's Isaiah. Look at verses six and seven, just to get a foretaste of the kind of government that Jesus will bring to us, in which we will live and rejoice for ever and ever. Put your hope here, friends, not in any political process. Put your hope right here. Listen to these words. "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this." Amen and Amen.

That is the government we're looking forward to. That's what I'm looking forward to. I'm yearning for the government of the king of kings, of Jesus, to come and show us what righteousness really looks like here on earth, to establish and uphold it forever.

 The Cause of the Darkness and Gloom

Now, the context of this glorious gift - and it is a gift, “for … to us a son is given,” the Father is giving us this kind of a government, he is giving us this kind of a king - is great darkness, a people who walk in darkness. Any passage that begins with the word "nevertheless" causes you to look back a little bit. We are starting right in the middle of the story here, right in the flow of Isaiah's prophecy, and we are caused to look back to the end of chapter eight to find out the nature of this darkness and gloom into which this light shines. And it is the darkness of ignorance and of rebellion against the law of God. That is the darkness in which this light shines.

Look at it again. Verses 19 through 23 speak of consulting mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter instead of consulting their God. Darkness and rebellion - they don't know God, they don't know his laws, they don't know his ways. They are ignorant, and they are rebellious. Even if they knew the laws of God, they would not follow them. And so this is a land of darkness. To make it even worse, these are the chosen people. These are the Jews, the people of God, the descendants of Abraham. These are the people who are walking in darkness, faulty spiritual guides who whisper and mutter - mediums and spiritists.

 Friends, we have this problem too in our culture. Have you noticed the increased fascination with the occult in America? Have you noticed programs on TV like Ghost Whisperer and Medium that talk about connection with the dead? Always for a good cause, helping law enforcement officials to find the bad guy, this kind of thing. We are being duped. We're being sucked in. We struggle with the same thing, the same ignorance of the law of God, the same rebellion against those laws we do know. And Isaiah 8 says it very plainly. Isaiah asks a simple question and gives a clear command. “Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word [the word of God] they have no light of dawn" (Isaiah 8:19,20).

They are ignorant of the word of God, and the result is utter rebellion against God and eternal judgement as we talked about last time. Verses 22 and 23 of chapter 8, "Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness." Yet in the midst of this bleak picture, this gloom and this darkness, shines a ray of light so glorious and so brilliant. And his name is Jesus. He is the light of the world and he shines into this darkness. "Nevertheless," it says, verse one, “there will be no more gloom for those who are in distress.”

 A Land in Darkness and Gloom Now Sees a Light

That land in darkness and gloom now sees a light. Now the context here, politically, is the humbling, it says, of the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. This is referring, I believe, to the military oppression under the Assyrians. God was sending the Assyrians from the north, coming down from the north to invade the northern kingdom of Israel as a punishment for their sins. And during this time, during Isaiah's time, Assyria came. In 2 Kings 15:29, it says, “In the time of Pekah, king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and took …Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and deported the people to Assyria.” So that is where it came first, that's the beginning of the exile, the beginning of the end of the people of God in the promised land. It is the beginning, I think, to what Jesus calls the times of the Gentiles, when the Gentiles will rule over portions of the promised land.

And so they deported... It begins with the land of Naphtali, the land of Zebulun, Galilee of the Gentiles. That's why it is called Galilee of the Gentiles, because the Assyrians come down, and not only do they deport the Jews out, but they bring pagans in to settle. This is what they did. They just rearranged peoples. And so the pagans came in there and they mingled with the residual people of God that were left there, the Jews that were left there, they mingled with them, they intermarried with them, and it became Galilee of the Gentiles. Idolatry and darkness from the ignorance of God and of his word. They were a people walking in darkness.

 Psalm 119:105, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." That's the light that God has given us, that we walk not in darkness but have everlasting light. But I tell you this, physical slavery and oppression, even under the Assyrians, is nothing compared to the cruel bondage that we feel under sin. That is the true task master. And I believe behind the political language and the military language of Isaiah 9, is the spiritual language of the release that Jesus has brought us, the release from sin and death, my friends. In John 8:34, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin." Romans 5:21 says, "…just as sin reigned in death." Now, there is a tyranny for you, sin reigning in death. It is vicious and cruel. So Galilee of the Gentiles was humbled by their military domination, by their ignorance of God and by their slavery of sin.

That's the past though. In the past. Oh but, “In the future,” he says, "he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan.” (Isaiah 9:1). How is he going to honor? The word literally means to glorify. He will raise them up out of the darkness and he will honor them and he will glorify them. Now what great honor can come to a land so downtrodden? What can these words mean?

“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Or shall I put it in the language of the New Testament? “Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come from the northern regions where the Gentiles were?” That was Nathaniel's statement when he heard about a messiah, the son of God who was coming from Nazareth and Galilee. “Can anything good come from that place? That's the place of judgment, the place of darkness.” Oh, yes, something gloriously good can come from there.

Jesus can come, and there is a clear prophecy here in Isaiah 9, that the Messiah would come from Galilee of the Gentiles. “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Isaiah 9:2). And his name is Jesus. This prophecy had been forgotten. Even those that studied the scriptures diligently did not remember. I'm speaking of the Sanhedrin. They spent their whole time studying the scriptures, at least some of them did. And you remember Nicodemus, how in John chapter 7 he stuck up for Jesus and said, “Can we at least give him a trial before we condemn him?” And so he gets a faceful of lead just for saying that. John 7:52, “Are you from Galilee too?” That's an insult by the way. To us it's not much of an insult, but that was an insult there. “Are you from Galilee too? Is that where you come from Nicodemus? Look into it and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.” Well, they should have looked into it.  You can imagine Jesus saying, “Have you not read in Isaiah nine, 'The people walking in darkness have seen a great light’?” They've come walking in darkness and Jesus shines in Galilee of the Gentiles. Here he comes. 

Deeper symbol: life without Christ 

It's a deeper symbol though. It is the life that all of us faced apart from Christ before we were converted. And let me tell you something, you are surrounded every day by people who are walking in darkness, who live in the land of the shadow of death, an eternal death, the second death, the death in the lake of fire, that hangs over people you live with every day. They are walking in darkness. They are dead while they live, because they are following “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” (Ephesians 2:2). They are under the power of death. They walk in darkness every day. They need the light that we can bear, the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what they need. 

It says in 1 John 2:11, "Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him." And only Jesus himself can bring light into that darkness. Jesus said in John 8:12, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." I think many of you who are listening to me today can testify to that truth, Amen? Amen. You have found Jesus to be light in a dark place once for all in the salvation of your souls. And day after day after day he shines his light to you and teaches you the way to go. He is the light of the world.

Result of Light: Great Joy (vs. 3)

Now what is the result of that light, the shining of that light? Look at verse three: great joy. Verse three, "You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder." Sin's darkness, and the depression that comes from it squelches all joy. It just crushes it. And so people put on a happy face. They celebrate things that don't really matter. They don't have any sense of lasting happiness and joy because they haven't found Jesus. They don't know what it is like to be a branch on that living vine and to have the renewing power of joy day after day. Not a joy that comes from you or that comes from your circumstances but that comes from the truth of this word, that Jesus has crushed death forever and will never be under its dominion again. They don't know it. 

The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” And you know the answer. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. You were destined for eternal joy in Christ, you who are believers. That's what you were made for. You were crafted for joy and you haven't touched one millionth part of it yet. The greatest joy is yet to come. That is what he made you for. The joy of knowing God, of knowing his son Jesus Christ.

A Military Victory [Need to know OT history for this one!!]

Now the source of this joy is a victory likened to a great military victory: “the day of Midian's defeat” (verse 4). What is that referring to? Well, you have to know Old Testament history for this one. Look at verses four and five. "For as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire." Oh, what a great celebration! What great joy it's referring to.

Some of you may be old enough to remember the celebration at the end of World War II - VE Day and VJ Day. The rest of us who are younger have read about it. We have seen it in documentaries. There was wild, crazy dancing in the streets. The Nazis were not going to rule the world after all. VE day, May of 1945, the world is released from that bondage. Hitler is dead. The Nazi regime is crushed. It's over. But even then, tempered by the fact that there was still a war going on in the Pacific, still ultimate victory hadn't been won. But then in August came VJ Day and it was all over. World War II was over, and there would be none of that oppression and none of that bondage.

The story of Gideon and the Midianites

Well, like that joy and celebration, so it is with this victory that is the foundation of our eternal joy. "As in the day of Midian's defeat." Now what is this referring to? Well, this is coming right out of the book of Judges. You know that book, a strange book in the Old Testament, testifying to the wickedness of the hearts of God's chosen people, to the sinfulness of the Jews, how they continually violated God's law or didn't know it. The Levites weren't teaching it. And so there was a constant cycle in that book of rebellion and sin. And God would judge them by giving them over to some Gentile enemy. The Gentile enemy would rule for a while, and God would raise up a deliverer, and he would effect some military victory, and then the people for one generation would kind of walk with the Lord. And then in the second and third generations, it would devolve again, slide back down into rebellion and it would start all over again.

In the summary verse at the very end in Judges it says, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit” (Judges 21:25). I'm telling you, all of history can be summed up in this: the search for a righteous government and a king to lead it. And they didn't know the king, so they rebelled again and again. And so in Judges 6, we learn about Midian. It was Midian's turn to dominate the people of God. It says, “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves, and strongholds” (Judges 6:1,2). They are living in caves, not in their fertile fields, in the houses they did not build and the vineyards they did not plant. They were done with that. They were banished into caves and clefts, strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites invaded their country like locusts and destroyed all that they had planted.

Ultimately, they cried out to the Lord for help, and he heard their cry. And so he raised up a deliverer, Gideon. And the angel of the Lord finds Gideon threshing in a wine press. Not a good place. You want to be up on a kind of bare spot where the wind sweeps across. He is down in a sunken area trying to hide his grain from the Midianites. It’s not a good threshing area, but what can you do when you are under the boot of the oppressor? And so there is Gideon, and he is just toiling away. And the angel of the Lord comes and calls him to this role of being deliverer. And he chose from the smallest clan, the weakest family in that small tribe, this deliverer Gideon. He is doing it on purpose. And why? Because God's method in this deliverance is self-exaltation. He is going to deliver the people in such a way that he gets all the glory. He is going to do it through weakness. He is going to do it through frailty and he is going to do it by the enemy imploding on itself and using their own weapons to destroy themselves. That sounds like what Jesus did, as in the day of Midian's defeat.

Well, you know the story of how Gideon got the army together. He had to have some help for his weak spirit. So he puts out the fleece once and then he puts the fleece out again and God stoops to his weakness and lifts him up. And then he has a dream. He overhears in the Midian camp about some barley loaf that rolls down. What a strange dream. But he gets inspired by the rolling barley loaf. It's quite a story. It really is. A picture of weakness and frailty. This is no great military leader. And then he gets the army together and he says, "You've got too many men. Send them home." No general has ever done that. They are always looking for more recruits. He sends them home, he sends them home, he sends them home, until at last, he's got 300 men. Ah, the choicest of the brave, right? I don't think so. You've missed the point if that's what you think. They are not going to make a movie about that 300. Not at all. These are weak people who don't even bring a weapon to battle. They just stand around the Midian camp with torches and trumpets. And at the signal, they break their lanterns and the torches come ablaze, and the trumpet sounds, and the enemy turns in on itself and just destroys itself until they are dead.

To God alone be the glory for that one. To God alone be the glory. And that's the whole point, isn't it? Isaiah is making an analogy here. As in the day of Midian's defeat, so also will be this victory through Jesus Christ. And so he raises up a little baby (more about that in just a moment), a picture of weakness, a picture of frailty. But Jesus in the manger is nowhere near as weak as Jesus up on the cross, seemingly helpless, bleeding and dying, by his frailty, by his weakness, by his death on the cross, destroying the boot of the oppressor, Satan, destroying the lash of the tyrant, sin, just by dying. As in the day of Midian's defeat. We know what we're talking about here. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. That is the lash of the oppressor. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That is the boot of the tyrant. We can't throw it off. It is too strong for us. We can't defeat death. We need a deliverer. We need deliverance, and deliverance will come. Hebrews 2:14,15 says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil.” By dying, he destroys the devil. By dying, he destroys the devil and frees those who, all their lives, were held in slavery by their fear of death.

So what does he do? Well, he turns the devil's weapon back on himself. The devil's got in his hand the power of death. Not anymore. Jesus has it now. “I hold the keys of death and Hades,” he says (Revelation 1:18). He won them. How? By dying. And so Satan kills Jesus, and in so doing, in that way, he destroys himself. You've heard of one of David's mighty men who killed this powerful man by snatching the spear from him and killing him with his own spear. That's what Jesus does with Satan. Habakkuk 3:13,14 says, “You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot. With his own spear you pierced his head.” Satan made a bad mistake in killing Jesus, didn't he? He didn't know what to do. He did not know what to do and so he killed Jesus, because that is what he did. He is a murderer. He is a liar. He followed his own nature and in so doing he killed himself, as in the day of Midian's defeat.

Who will be this conqueror?  A child!!

But look at the conqueror in verse six. Who is this surprising mighty conqueror? Well, it's a child. "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders." Here is a surprising connection - a military victory in verses two through five, and a child introduced in verse six. Similar to Isaiah 7:14, "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Emmanuel [which means ‘God with us’].” The message is this, that domination and oppression is conquered by vulnerability and weakness and submission to the will of God. It is conquered by a little baby. But this child is no ordinary child. Not at all. There is a mingling here of the natural and the supernatural, even in the titles of Jesus. It doesn't come across so well in the English, but it is very strong in the Hebrew. There is a clear mingling. There is an incarnation here. A child is born that is human, but he is called Mighty God. Now that is divine. So we have a mingling. We have the incarnation right here in these verses, that “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14). That word, who is God, made his dwelling among us.

Natural Yet Supernatural… Isaiah’s Four Titles: 

Look at these titles. We have a divine aspect and human aspect: 

So we first have a miracle counselor, a counselor who is going to work miracles. He gives good advice, you ought to follow it. By the way, is there any difference between Jesus' advice and his commands? I think not. Any difference between his commands and his promises for us as Christians? I think not. It's all the same. He intends to do us good. Whatever he commands is a promise he's going to work in us, and also his advice. He is the wonderful counselor. He gives wonderful advice. “My sheep listen to my voice… and they follow me” (John 10:27). But he does miracles, signs and wonders.

Secondly, Mighty God, El Gibbor. Now, a warrior is what we need to win a victory. Jesus is a warrior. There has never been one any more powerful. If you want to read about a military victory unlike any there has ever been in history (it just hasn't happened yet) read Revelation 19, when Jesus comes back before the armies of heaven and everyone dies by the sword coming out of Jesus' mouth. That's the kind of warrior he is. Oh, he is a dreadful enemy but a marvelous savior! But the first one, El Gibbor, Mighty God. Now that is a word reserved in Isaiah's prophecy only for Almighty God. Isaiah 44:6 - “This is what the Lord says - Israel's King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last. [Listen to this!] Apart from me there is no God.” Same word, El. There is no God apart from me. Isaiah 44:8 - “You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.” He is saying there is no other God. Why is he saying this to Israel? Because they were syncretistic. They were mixing religions together. Yahweh, yes, but so also Baal and Ashtoreth and all the others. He is saying, "No! There are no other Gods."

 In effect, he is saying, "I have studied my universe. I made it. I know. I've looked top to bottom, front to back, left to right, north, south, east and west. There is no other God. I know not one." Isaiah 45:5 - “I am the Lord and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.” Isaiah 45:21,22 - “And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me. [Do you get it? It is very, very plain.] Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God and there is no other.” Oh, this is a title reserved in the book of Isaiah only for Almighty God, the creator of the ends of the earth. And yet it is ascribed to the child that's born. He will be called Mighty God, the deity of Christ established plainly.

And then Eternal Father. Father, of course, implies an intimate caring relationship to his people. Isaiah 40:11 - "He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” He is the good shepherd. He is a tender father, as a father should be. Caring for us, yes, but that word everlasting, now that's eternal. Eternal Father. Micah 5:2 says, "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel," listen to this, "Whose origins are from of old, from the days of eternity" (NASB). The one born in Bethlehem is coming from eternity past to enter into time. He steps into time at Bethlehem, but he is of eternal origins. And he says so during his trial before Pontius Pilate. Pilate says, "So you're a king?" Jesus always told the truth, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (John 18:37). That is eternity speaking there, friends. That is eternity speaking. Not one of us who draws breath today chose to enter this world. None of us. There was a stab of blinding light to your up-to-that-moment blind eyes, and there was some pain, and there was air in your lungs, and you were alive. And it's been interesting ever since. But you didn't make any choice there, not at all. But Jesus did. He chose to take on a human body. He is the Everlasting Father.

And he is the Prince of Peace. Prince is a natural word in Isaiah, like this for example, “Your rulers (same Hebrew word) are rebels, companions of thieves” (Isaiah 1:23). How does that sound? Or this one, speaking of Egypt's rulers: “The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools” (Isaiah 19:11). So that's what we get. Those are our princes - companions of thieves and fools. That is not good when government is run by companions of thieves and fools. But Jesus is not that way. He is a prince yes, but he is the Prince of Peace. He is a prince who brings eternal peace, divine peace. You've already heard this in Isaiah 2:4 - “He will judge between the nations and settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” The peace that Jesus brings is an eternal peace. It is a peace that goes up vertically with God and a peace that extends horizontally with all people.

And it was testified to by the angel who announced his birth. Luke 2:14, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." That peace. Or this one, John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do be afraid.” That's the peace that he comes to bring. Do you know that peace today? Do you understand the peace that only Jesus can give, a peace that Philippians says “transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7), a peace that settles into your heart and navigates you through whatever God chooses providentially to bring in your life? Do you know that peace? Jesus is the prince, the king of that peace. And ultimately that peace is with God. That is the basis of all the other experiences of peaceful feelings that we have. Romans 5:1 says, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith…” (what do we have?) "…we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” That's the nature of our king. He is the Wonderful Counselor. He is the Mighty God. He is the Everlasting Father. And he is the Prince of Peace. That is what he is like.

The Identity of the King: Jesus Christ

What is his kingdom like? Well, that's what we are talking about. In verse six, it says, "The government will be on his shoulders." Can we write him in in the presidential election this year? Can we do that? I don't know that it will get us far. He has his own timetable. In John 6, they tried to take him by force and make him king. I think if he got elected, he would not serve at this present time, unless that was his purpose. But he is the king. And the government is going to rest on his shoulders, because he is fit for it. God chose him for this role. The Wonderful Counselor and Mighty God is a perfect blend of wisdom and power, and that's what we need, don't we? We need a king who is wise and a king who is powerful. Now a king who is powerful and not wise, that's called a tyrant. We've seen plenty of those. A king who is very wise but doesn't have power, I think that's a philosopher. That's really not a king. We need somebody who is going to be wise and powerful, and that is Jesus. He is the one on whom the government is going to rest.

The Wealth of His Kingdom: Increase and Peace

Now, look at the nature of his kingdom. It says, “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7). His kingdom is characterized by increase. It's going to get bigger and bigger, and grander, and more and more glorious. For how long? Well, forever. Now hang on to that thought because that will blow the circuits in your brain. I am going to try to blow them in a minute. But I just want to talk about the increase of his kingdom from the time he entered until now. There has been an increase in this world as more and more people from every tribe and language and people and nation have been hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, have repented of their sins, have trusted in him and have found forgiveness. And I prayed this morning and I will pray again, that somebody who is listening to me today, who is in darkness because they have never received Jesus as their Lord and savior, will today receive forgiveness through faith in his name.

If you are a believer in Christ, pray for that person right now, that they would repent and that they would look to Jesus, that they would turn to Christ and be saved. And guess what? His kingdom will increase a little bit more. As another person gets saved, another person repents and believes in Jesus. Oh, trust in him! And so the kingdom just keeps on increasing until there is a multitude greater than anyone could count, from every tribe and language and people and nation, standing around the throne, dressed in white robes and saying, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne” (Revelation 7:10). Until that happens the kingdom is just going to keep on increasing. But it is going to be a secret increase. It is going to be a hidden increase. For the kingdom of heaven is “like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough” (Matthew 13:33, Luke 13:21). It just keeps permeating, and nobody really notices except Christians who care about unreached people groups, and who are evangelizing their neighbors, and praying for this very thing as we look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. We want his kingdom to increase. We are yearning for it. It is going to keep on growing. That is increase now in history.

It also increases every time you learn something new as a Christian. Every time you learn something new about God and about Christ, his kingdom gets a little bit greater. “[Oh] glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together” (Psalm 34:3). Let's make Christ greater. Let's speak scripture to each other. Let's think great thoughts of Jesus and expand each other's love for Christ, and his kingdom will keep on increasing.

Yes, but that just takes us to the end of time. That's not enough for Jesus. That just takes us to the end of history. Is his kingdom going to increase after he has established the eternal kingdom? Will it keep on increasing there? Well, it says, “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be…” What? "No end."

Well, this is where I started meditating. I said, "Well now, listen. Is it going to keep on getting greater and greater up there in heaven, in the new heaven and new earth?" For the longest time, I had a very static view of heaven. I've talked about this before, but it really characterized me for most of my first twenty years of being a Christian. You died. You saw Christ. You were transformed. 1 John 3:2 - "We shall see him as he is." And we're just transformed. We're made holy. Resurrection happens, we're conformed to him, and we get, in the modern 21st century language, an instant download. It's not that zero to one hundred percent kind of thing, the slow thing like with the old landlines. No, it is going to be “boom!” One hundred percent. You get instant knowledge. You will know him as fully as he has known you. And then forever you will rejoice in that instant knowledge you received. And we will all be kind of around the throne, learning nothing, mind you, but just celebrating forever these things we have come perfectly to know. Kind of like a picture that never moves - a perfect picture, but it just never moves.

 That is not where we are are headed. That is not where we are going. “Of the increase of his government … there will be no end." Well, how does that work? At the resurrection, they will neither marry nor be given to marriage. No babies as far as I can tell. No new people. No need for evangelism. They're all there. The elect have all been saved. There is nothing left of that. How then will this kingdom keep on increasing? Well, you are going to start to get to know some incredible people up there in heaven. Let's start there.

Let's say, for example, you sit down up there in heaven, and you talk to a Nestorian Christian, who took the gospel to China in 635 AD. Talk to him about his life. Let him share with you his testimony, how he shared the gospel there in the Tang Dynasty in China, and how he won Chinese to faith in Christ in that era of history. But imagine a three-way conversation. Jesus is sitting with the two of you, and he is filling in the spiritual details of what he did through angels, and by his power, and through the Holy Spirit to make all that happen. And Nestorian Christian’s mind is getting blown, and yours is too, and Jesus is downloading more and more, and you find out just from that one individual what God did through that person.

Or maybe a Japanese martyr who died in 1597 during the shogunate of Hideyoshi, and they would not yield and they died hideously for their faith, 1597. And again, imagine a three-way conversation, and you and that Japanese martyr are learning from Jesus all that he did to sustain that person right through the martyrdom. And then Jesus is filling in what he did (because the blood of the martyrs is seed for the church), and how he took it from there and just caused the gospel to advance. And that's just two people you have talked to.

 And meanwhile, you're gazing at the throne. You are focused on God. You are learning more about his glory and his power. There is a new earth to be explored. It is radiant and perfect. And “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). You are going to be learning forever. But the great thing is, you are never going to forget anything you've learned. You're just going to keep on learning and learning and “of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.” Forever and ever, we will be there. I can't wait. I'd like to go there today. But in the meantime, there is still some work to be done, isn't there? There are still some things to be done.

The Nature of His Kingdom: Prophetic, Secure, Holy, Eternal 

David's throne - Jesus will reign there. It is a prophetic kingdom. It is predicted that he will reign on, but it's not finished yet. All the elect haven't been saved. Not every tribe and language and people and nation have heard the gospel yet. He is going to establish and uphold it forever. It is a secure kingdom. There is no sliding back with Jesus' kingdom. It always keeps growing. But there is work to be done. It is a holy kingdom of justice and righteousness. But there are still things we need to do. We have a role to play. And what is our power source? It says it right there, "The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this" (Isaiah 9:7). Amen and Amen. A picture of it is the sun. Fusion. Burning and burning and burning and never decreasing. Just burning with the zeal of God Almighty for his only begotten Son. "Sit at my right hand," he has said, "until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet” (Psalm 110:1). Oh, we need fear nothing except failing the Lord in this hour of need. This is the time for us to step forward. This is the time for us to advance the kingdom to some people who don't know him at all, who are still walking in darkness. We have a labor to do.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 8:1-22. The main subject of the sermon is the two paths to eternity. One leads to everlasting light and the other to everlasting darkness.

In 1916, one of the premiere poets of the 20th century, Robert Frost, was walking in the woods with a friend of his. The two of them would go frequently walking in the woods. And the friend was constantly second-guessing choices he would make in his life, even to the point of coming to a fork in the road in the woods, not knowing which way to go, then choosing one, then thinking he should go back after going one hundred yards up the road, and wanting to come back to do it again and try the other one.

And so Robert Frost wrote his most famous poem "The Road Not Taken." This what it says:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Now Robert Frost called that a tricky poem because it seems to espouse independence, going the way that no one else goes. He actually says it's not that at all. But frankly, he doesn't say what difference it made. Could be good, it could be bad, we really don't know. What he is saying is, "You have to make a choice." 

Another poet, not so famous and not so schooled in his letters, Yogi Berra, put it this way, "When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it." Well, I don't think that's going to help us much. But Jesus spoke, I think far more poignantly, of two different roads, and of a choice we all must make. And those roads end up at eternal destinations, and it makes a huge difference which road you take. And somewhat like Robert Frost's poem, in eternity, in the future, you will look back on that decision. I really believe both those in heaven and those in hell will think much on what they did with Christ, and what road they took in the end.

Christ’s Clarity: Two Different Roads, Two Different Eternities

He spoke of this very plainly in Matthew 7:13-14. He said, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Two different roads that you can be on, two different destinies, two different destinations, both of them eternal. One of them heaven and the other one hell.

So Also Isaiah: Two Ways Woven Together

And so also, here in Isaiah 8, I believe we see these two ways woven together in the text, side by side, running through the last two-thirds of this chapter. Look at verse eleven. He speaks of it there. "The Lord spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not follow the way of this people." He is really speaking there of a way he should not follow, and then one that he should. And this morning I want to unravel those two different ways - what I'm going to call the way of light and the way of darkness - and describe them to you. But they are woven together side by side in the text. And that is somewhat appropriate, isn't it? Because that's the way it is in our everyday life as well. The children of God and the children of the devil live their lives side by side, and in many ways their lives look very, very similar to each other.

In the parable of the wheat and the tares both grow up together, intermixed, their root systems seemingly competing for the same soil. If you pull up the wheat, you may root up the weeds with them. If you pull up the weeds, you may root up the wheat. They are just totally intertwined and only on judgment day can they be unraveled. But we must be clear now, in our minds, about what road we're on. We must know whether we are on the road of light or on the road of darkness, whether we're heading for heaven or hell. We must know. And God gives us many indications so that we can know.

In the end, we learn from scripture, there is really only one way to eternal life. Jesus doesn't merely point the way, teach the way, display the way. He is the way. John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.”

Now, what is the context here in Isaiah 8? Well, as always, there is something going on in history, and God is using those current events to bring these spiritual issues to the fore. How deceived are the people of this world who think current events are the real deal, that they are the issue of life? They aren't. What is going on in the hearts of men and women? That is the real deal, what they are doing with Christ. That's it.

Phase 1:  Assyria Comes to “Deliver” Judah

But there are historical issues going on, and so it has to do, again as we saw in chapter seven, with Assyria. Now the context, you remember from chapter seven, is that these two smaller kingdoms of Israel (the northern kingdom of Israel, the ten tribes), and Aram were allying themselves together against the small southern kingdom of Judah. And that was a big problem for a faithless king Ahaz and his people. They were afraid they were going to get wiped out. There was going to be a conspiracy between these two kings, and they were going to topple Ahaz and the Davidic king. And they were going to set up another puppet king and rule over Judah. That's what the plan was. That's the context.

 Now Isaiah, in chapter seven, had warned them not to fear, not to do anything stupid, not to do anything foolish, but to trust in the Lord and not be like a fluttering leaf. But Ahaz refused this, and he actually sent for the King of Assyria to come and help him. He sent envoys, and he sent money, and he asked for the king of Assyria to come help him. Remember the analogy we used, like a small mouse facing two larger mice or two rats? Afraid he is going to be devoured, he sends for the alley cat. "Please come and help me." And the alley cat is more than happy to come and devour the two rats. And then what? To turn on the mouse.

So phase one is Assyria comes to deliver Judah. And so Isaiah, the prophet, wants to give a message to Judah concerning these current events. And he gives them a mysterious message. It's given twice. First, it is written on a large scroll. And second, it is connected with a son that he and his wife (he calls her "The prophetess”), have. The first is written. Look at verse one. “The Lord said to me, 'Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen: Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.'” The translation is, "Quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil." "Write those words out, so that everyone can read them. Just write that symbolic message out."

Then there is this baby boy with the same name, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, born to Isaiah and his wife. And the boy is like that boy Immanuel. Maybe he is the same boy with two different symbolic names. He says later in this chapter, "Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols" (verse 18). There are, perhaps, two different children, and there is this symbolic name. But the same issue, both in chapter seven and in chapter eight, is of a ticking clock, a prophetic clock. And so he says in verse four, "Before the boy, [Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz,] knows how to say, ‘My father" or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.” So before the boy can say, literally in Hebrew, "abbi" or "immi." That is "My father, my mother." 

Not remembering child development like I should, I asked my wife, "Now, when does this happen?" She said, "You have five children." I can say this - she's not here. But she was, "Somewhere between the first and the second year, they begin saying things. Okay, you remember?" I didn't remember but I knew she would, so I asked her. And so within one or two years, these two kingdoms are going to be destroyed. And here comes phase one: Assyria comes to deliver Judah by destroying these two kingdoms.

Phase 2: Assyria Comes to Destroy Judah 

But then comes phase two. Now the ravenous cat turns on the little mouse, and Assyria comes to destroy Judah. And the reasons are given, but we'll get to what Assyria's reasons were in chapter ten. They had their reasons. But God has his reason for bringing Assyria, and the reasons are given right in this text: what they (Judah) rejected, and what they rejoiced in. That's why he is bringing Assyria. 

Now look what it says in verse six. "Because this people has rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah." What does that refer to? Well, I believe that these gently flowing waters are being contrasted with the mighty flood waters of the king of Assyria, the River. This is “the king of Assyria with all of his pomp” and his power (verse seven). Ahaz and his people are easily overawed by Assyria. They are impressed by Assyria's power, by their military strength. They are impressed and they reject these gently flowing waters of Shiloah.

Now Shiloah was a little tributary stream coming from the Gihon river which carried, by a small aqueduct, the water for the city of Jerusalem. It gathered in a pool there, the Pool of Siloam. It is mentioned a number of other times. In the New Testament it is where the man born blind washed the mud off when Jesus healed him. And these people, therefore, are rejecting God's provision for them. God provides enough. He speaks quietly. You know, as in the still, small voice. It's not spectacular, but he is there sustaining, loving, comforting.

People didn't want it. They wanted something spectacular. They wanted deliverance by Assyria. They rejected God, really. What did they rejoice in? Well, they rejoiced over Rezin and the son of Remaliah. The Hebrew word implies great exaltation, a shout of elation and triumph. These are the two kings that are allied against them. Why are the people of Judah so excited? Why are they celebrating? Well, because these two kings are getting destroyed. They are getting judged by God.

I believe it refers to gloating sinfully over the demise of dreaded foes. There is a German word, 'schadenfreude,' which means delight in somebody else's misfortune. And the more I meditate on this theme, the bigger it seems to me to be in popular American culture. We swim in a sea of schadenfreude. We love it when other people have trouble. I don't know how YouTube would make it without it. Somebody makes a mistake, somebody says something they ought not to, somebody slips in a speech, somebody says something foolish in a beauty pageant, and for the next three months that person has to relive it. A million hits, one after the other. Or even a political figure, somebody that we don't want to see become president, or something like that. And there is some event that hinders greatly their candidacy, and there is a delight in it. I think the local news feeds on it. Something happens, and I don't know how Jay Leno and David Letterman would make it without this kind of stuff. Something happens, and pretty soon it is fodder for the evening comedy routine.

 But God hates it. Now, why does he hate it? Because it means we don't understand ourselves properly. We are not looking properly at ourselves. It is the exact opposite of, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." I deserve worse. We deserve that and worse. Jesus dealt very forthrightly with this issue, very forthrightly, that we should not gloat over the misfortune of an enemy. We should instead say, "I deserve this. I deserve it." Unless we repent, we will all likewise perish. More on that in a moment. But the book of Proverbs says this, Proverbs 24:17, "Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice." And Proverbs 17:5 says, "Whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished."

Job, in his defense of his own godly lifestyle, rejected schadenfreude, delight in an enemy's misfortune. He said this in Job 31:29: “If I have rejoiced at my enemy's misfortune or gloated over the trouble that came to him, [then…]” In effect, he said, "May I be cursed." It's especially evil when you realize the son of Remaliah was the last king of Israel, the northern ten tribes, and they are being evicted from the promised land because of idolatry. What is there to gloat about in that? The people of Judah should have been weeping. These were the sons and daughters of Abraham, and from the very beginning of that northern kingdom they turned away to idolatry. There should have been brokenness. There should have been sackcloth and ashes. There should have been weeping and sadness and repentance and a looking inward. 

Because of these things, what the people rejoiced in and what the people rejected, Assyria is coming to destroy Judah as well. Look at verses seven and eight. "Therefore, [because of this], the Lord is about to bring against them the mighty flood waters of the River - the king of Assyria, with all of 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. Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land, O Immanuel!" Here it the prophecy: Assyria is coming for you too, oh gloating Judah. Assyria is coming like a river that overflows its banks. This is very poignant, because the promised land was to the northern extent of the river. That's as far as the promised land went. Well, the Assyrians are coming over that river. They are coming down into the promised land. They are going to take it over.

And note also the accuracy of the prophecy. I love this. Verses 7 and 8, "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." You get the picture of a man whose legs are trapped. And he is in a flood. And the flood is getting higher and higher, and he can't get his legs out. He's stuck there, and the water just gets higher, and higher, and higher. It's like one of those submarine movies. Have you ever seen that? And I start to breathe. But the waters are getting higher and it goes right up to the neck. Almost dead, but not quite. The accuracy.

 Phase 3: Assyria comes to Be Destroyed in Judah

 Phase three: Assyria comes into Judah to be destroyed. We will get to this later in the book of Isaiah. But you know what happened, how godly Hezekiah spread out the letter from the king of Assyria, and how the Lord sent out one angel, and 185,000 Assyrian troops were dead, like that. So Assyria is going to be destroyed. Those are the three phases. That is the context. And why? Because God is with us, because of Immanuel. That's what he says. Look at verses nine and ten. "Raise the war cry, you nations, and be shattered! Listen, all you distant lands. Prepare for battle, and be shattered! Prepare for battle, and be shattered! Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us." He is referring to Assyria here. So Assyria can make their plans. They can come in, but they cannot extinguish the people of God, because God is with them.

God With “Us”… But Who is “Us”?

Now in the rest of the chapter he is going to define what 'us' God is with. Who are the people God is saving? Clearly, he is sweeping away the northern ten tribes, with most of them dead. Many of the southern tribe of Judah are going to be killed as well by the Assyrian invasion. But God has his eye on the remnant and he has his eye on the future. He wants to define the people of God. He wants to describe what kind of life it is that he is giving. And so in the rest of the chapter we see these two ways intricately woven together, the way of light and the way of darkness, so that we may know what he works in a people whom he saves, so that we may know whether we are among them.

 A Life In God’s Strong Grip

He describes it and he starts with this: it is a life in the strong grip of the sovereign God. Verse eleven, "The Lord spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people." So the way of life begins with the sense of the hand of almighty God plucking you as one rescued from the fire, a sense that God is with you, plucking you from the highway of hell. "His strong hand upon me." That is God's. He has taken hold of Isaiah as a prophet. But I believe that Isaiah also represents the elect, the people of God. And he takes hold of his elect and he will not let them go. They are secure in his grip, praise God. They will most certainly be saved, and not because of their own striving and effort, but because God is mighty, and he will not let us go.

John 10:27-30 says, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow 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; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one.” One in what? Well, one at least in this, in holding onto the sheep with the sovereign power of God. That is where it starts, with God taking hold of you. And he will not let you go. 

A Life Listening to God’s Word… and Warnings

Secondly, it is a life of listening to God's word and heeding his warnings. The people of God, those who are on that narrow road that leads to life, listen to God's word and heed his warnings. Look at verse eleven. “The Lord spoke to me, you see, with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people. He said…,” etcetera. He's listening. He's listening. Now Isaiah is a prophet. He hears God speak to him. He hears God's promises. He takes seriously God's warnings. And this is the essence of the way of life. John 10:27 again, "My sheep listen to my voice… they follow me." It is a way of listening to Christ as he speaks.

A Life Apart from the Crowd

Number three, it is a life apart from the crowd, apart from that broad road that leads to destruction. Most people are traveling on it. This is a life apart from that. Look at verse eleven. "The Lord spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people." Don't go their way. It's a way that leads to destruction. At some point, a person says, "I'm not going to do that anymore." And they break with people who are going the wrong way. They break up those relationships. They don't do those things anymore. They stand up under ridicule. They just break off and go a separate way. God calls Isaiah and all of us away from a lifestyle of the crowd. Isaiah was not to look at the threat of Israel and Aram the same way that the lost people do. He is not to look at the invasion of Assyria the same way they do. He's to see everything differently. He's to see God behind all of it. It is a life of separation, a life apart from the crowd. “‘Therefore come out from them and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you.’” (2 Corinthians 6:17). 

A Life of Fearlessness… and Fear

Fourthly, it is a life of fearlessness and fear. For me, theologically, I'll reverse them. First, one kind of fear, and then fearlessness. Let me say directly, fear the Lord and you need fear nothing else. If you don't fear the Lord, you must fear everything else, because God is sovereign, and everything is in his hands, and he can do anything he wants. If you fear the Lord, you need fear nothing else, for God is your loving Father. And he will care for you through some of the most horrendous trials. He will be with you and take you through, into his presence. You need fear nothing else. Look what he says here in verse twelve and thirteen. “Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty 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.” This is the focus here: do you fear God? Do you fear the one who sits high and lifted up on his throne, and the train of his robe fills the temple? And the seraphim are covering their faces before him, because they can't look at his full glory.  They are the ones who are calling out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.” Do you fear him? Do you fear what he thinks, what he can do? Do you realize what omnipotence is? Do you fear God? Well, if so, you need fear nothing else. Nothing else. 

And don't worry about conspiracy theories. I know some people who spend a ton of time working on conspiracy theories. One world government… That actually freaked me out. I got onto a plane and there was this sign, “One World Airline,” or something like that. I was like, "I don't know. Should I get on the plane?" I just laughed. I said, "Well, I'm in the hand of God. I can get on a One World Alliance airplane. It's okay. It's not the antichrist airplane, not yet anyway." But let me tell you something. I believe there is an intelligent, malevolent conspiracy being formed to seek to take over the world. And I think Satan is running it, and I think he has been for two thousand years. And I believe with all my heart it will break into space and time, and the antichrist will reign. It is all going to happen. I'm not afraid of it. It's been predicted. It's going to come. And the One who will reign over the earth, the Lord Jesus Himself will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and slay with the sword coming out of his mouth, with the splendor of his glory. What do we need to fear? Fear Christ. Fear him and you need fear nothing else.

Don't worry about conspiracies and all that. There is one. It's coming in all kinds of kaleidoscopic aspects and it's happening. Don't sweat it. Focus instead on the kingdom of God. Jesus put it this way, very plainly in Matthew 10:28, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, [I'll tell you who to fear,] be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” That's God. You fear him, you need fear nothing else. I think too many Christians live in constant fear of people. Proverbs 29:25 says, “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.” Many of you would be far more fruitful evangelistically if you feared people less and feared God more. I know the same is true of me. John Wesley put it this way: "Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen. Such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth" - John Wesley.

A Life Resting in the True Sanctuary

Fifth, it's a life of resting in the true sanctuary. Verses thirteen and fourteen say, "The Lord Almighty 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, and he will be a sanctuary." That's a safe place, a place of security. "With salvation's walls surrounded, thou may’st smile at all thy foes," says the hymnist John Newton. Isn't that beautiful? Just stand there up on the sure and solid wall of salvation and you need fear nothing else. The Lord is your sanctuary.

Proverbs 18:10 says, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." The New Testament version of that is Romans 10:13, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." We flee to Christ, to Christ crucified, to the one who shed his blood on the cross, and he is the sanctuary from wrath. He is the one that we come to and he will save us. He will protect us and nothing can touch us.

A Life in the Written Word

Number six: this life is a life in the written word. We do not for the most part, like a prophet, hear God speaking directly. We have the indwelling spirit, but there is a distinction there. What we have are the words of the prophets written down. "We have the word of the prophets made more secure certain," it says in 2 Peter 1:19. We have the written word, and we have access to it. And so verse one says, "The Lord said to me, 'Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen.' " He commanded his prophets to write it down so that it might be for future generations. Verse sixteen, "Bind up the testimony and seal up the law among my disciples." Do you see that? This is about the written word.

Verse twenty, “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.” So as long as this church remains, long after I'm gone, if the Lord tarries, you must get a man of God who will speak only according to this word. Because if they don't speak according to this word they have no light to give you. It is a life immersed in the written word of God. And the centerpiece of that word is Christ. 2 Timothy 3:15 says, "The holy Scriptures… are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." The scripture is always pointing to Christ, pointing to Christ. I can't preach a single chapter in Isaiah without mentioning Christ crucified. It's always pointing to Christ. He is the sanctuary.

A Life Inquiring of God

Seventh, it is a life inquiring of God. “When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God?” (verse 19). Now that's prayer. Go to God and ask. Seek his face. Ask him what to do. Ask God for advice. Say, "Lord, I don't know what to do." “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:5,6). And so we go and we ask. It is a life inquiring of God.

As I read this what comes in my mind is faithless King Saul who didn't inquire of the Lord at all. And at the end of his life he is going to a medium, the witch at Endor, and asking for something. We'll get back to him in a moment. But instead, we've got David, the man after God's own heart, and he is asking, "Should I do this?" And the Lord answers. "Should I do that?" And the Lord gives him insight, and he is inquiring of the Lord. It is a life of prayer, based on the word of God.

Ultimately:  A Life of Faith in the Lord

And then eighth, ultimately, it is a life of faith in the Lord. Verse seventeen, “I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. I will put my trust in him.” That is speaking of adverse circumstances, of trials. I don't know what he is doing. Like Habakkuk saying, "I don't know what you're doing, God, in my life. I don't know what you're doing in history, but I am going to wait for you. I am going to put my trust in you. And I believe, in the end, all things will be clear." It is a life, ultimately, of trust, of faith.

That is a description, not exhaustive, but from Isaiah 8, of the life that leads to eternal life. It is the life of light.

A Life Spent Rejecting God’s Gentle Provision

What about the way of darkness? Well, first it is a life spent rejecting God's gentle provision. I already gave this to you in the context section, but these people didn't want the gently flowing waters of Shiloah. They are not interested in the still, small voice. They want something more spectacular, something more dramatic, and so they reject God. Jeremiah 2:13, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” And this rejection, friends, is no accident. They have no taste for God. They don't want that. It is a willful choice to hear the grace of God and turn away empty. They don't want it.

A Life of Rejoicing While Others Suffer Judgment

Secondly, the way of darkness is a way of rejoicing when others suffer judgment. We already talked about this - schadenfreude. “Because this people has rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah and rejoices over Rezin and the son of Remaliah" (verse 6). They enjoy seeing their enemies fall. This is a great sin. It's cold. It's loveless, delighting in somebody else's downfall. But worse than that, as I've already mentioned, it means you don't know yourself. You don't know who you are apart from Christ.

We see some criminal at Enron go down, and we justify ourselves, saying, "We wouldn't do that." Some athlete cheats and uses performance enhancing drugs. "We would never do something like that." Some governor gets caught with a high-priced prostitute. "We would never do anything like that. He deserves what he got." This self-righteousness is the enemy of your soul. We don't know who we are. And as I said, Jesus told us very plainly in Luke 13 what we should think when we see disaster come upon someone. Some were gloating over some Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifice. You remember that? And they said, "They must have been terrible sinners." And Jesus said, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans…? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish" (Luke 13:2,3).  And regarding the ones who died when the tower of Siloam fell down, we have the same word here in Isaiah 8, the same thing. A tower fell down and a bunch of people died in that urban tragedy. And he said the same thing, "I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish" (Luke 13:5). We all have to hear that. And I tell you, the way of light hears that and takes that seriously. But the way of darkness blows that off. We always think it is somebody else, the sinners out there.

A Life of Stumbling Over God… and Being Snared by Him

Number three, it is a life of stumbling over God and being snared by him. Verses fourteen and fifteen, “But for both houses of Israel he, [the Lord Almighty], will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare. Many of them will stumble; they will fall and be broken, they will be snared and captured.” Now God was meant to be a sanctuary. But if he will not be a sanctuary he will be a snare. If he will not be a rock on which you build your life, he will be a rock on which you stumble and that will crush you. He will be friend or he will be a foe. He will be savior or he will be judge. He is going to be something in your life. And so in the way of darkness he is a snare. He is a stumbling block. They especially stumble over Christ, as I will say at the end. Christ is especially offensive to those on the way of darkness.

A Life of False Spiritual Guidance

Fourthly, it is a life of false spiritual guidance. Verses nineteen and twenty, “When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.” People are desperate for spiritual guidance. They want a word from the supernatural realm. Why? Because they fear the future. They don't know the future, and so they want to know the future. So they go to mediums and spiritists. Does this happen now, even now in the 21st century? Yes, it does. People want to know the future, even at the low level of horoscopes, up to just immersing themselves in the occult, in Ouija boards and all kinds of stuff. They want to know.

And those mediums and spiritists whisper and mutter, and gaze into crystal balls and make bizarre pronouncements, and channel spirits and conjure up ghosts of long dead relatives to give spiritual guidance. But no guidance comes. You know why? Because the wicked dead are too busy screaming in agony to give any advice. And there is a chasm that they can't cross, and they can't come over and say anything. And the righteous dead are in the presence of the Lord, gazing at his beauty, and knowing, as Abraham did in that story that Jesus told, that the word of God is enough. They don't need any more than that. Instead, it is the demons who are impersonating the dead, fooling and tricking people into that way of life.

 A Life of Spiritual Famine and Restless Roaming

Fifth, it is a life, therefore, of spiritual famine and restless roaming. Verse twenty-one, “Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God.” Having rejected the gently flowing waters of Christ, they are thirsty with a raging thirst. Having rejected the living bread, which is Christ, they are famished. They are abused by demonic forces, harassed and helpless, totally at the mercy of demons who have no mercy. And they become demonic themselves, interestingly. 

Hungry for wisdom, hungry for guidance, hungry for a touch from God, hungry for love, hungry for purpose in life, they roam around through life looking for it, much as Jesus described demons, when they come out of a man. Matthew 12:43, “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.” They are restless beings. They say, "Well, I'll go back to the house I left." So they go back. Or like Satan in Job 1:7, “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan answered the Lord, ‘From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.’” And it is so sad to see the roaming of lost people, who are on the road to destruction, hungry for something, feeding it with sex, and drugs, and entertainment, and success, and materialism. And they are feeding, and nothing satisfies. They are just so hungry. They are looking for something. And all of these excursions - it's like drinking salt water. It just leaves you with an even more raging thirst.

A Life of Rage and Cursing

And therefore it is a life, number six, of rage and cursing. Verse twenty-one, “Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged.” Do you see that? Famished, they are enraged. “And, looking upward, will curse their king and their God.” They are going to curse God because of their hunger. It is so strange how they think. If they would just accept God's gracious provision, they would find everything that they need in him. But instead they end up enraged and cursing God.

 And again, how like Satan are they? Think about Revelation 12:12, when it says, “Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.” And so it is with lost people. They know their time is short. It does not matter how big their mansion is. It does not matter how good the quality of their food, or clothing, or their position. They only have it for a little while, and then they lose it all, and it makes them angry, actually. And they are generally angry people. Do you see the rage in our land? It is an angry country we live in. But it is not just our country. It's all over, because people don't know God. They don't know his peace. They don't know his forgiveness, and so they are angry about it.

 Ultimately:  A Life of Darkness Now and Eternally

Ultimately, number seven, it is a life of darkness. Spiritual darkness now, real darkness eternally. And that is a terrifying thing. That is how this chapter ends. Verse twenty-two, "They will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness." This is the way of darkness, fleeing from the light. They live in darkness so that their deeds cannot be exposed. The ultimate punishment then is an eternity of darkness, away from God. You see God is light. They will spend eternity away from that light. And notice the strong word ‘thrust’. "Thrust into utter darkness." It bothers me when pastors or preachers say, “God doesn't send anyone to hell. People send themselves. God, in effect, says, ‘Have what you have always wanted.’” Well, let me tell you something, that is utterly false. On judgment day, when the lake of fire is obvious and some have already been thrown in, no one is going to send themselves to hell. They will be thrust there. That's the word.

Matthew 8:12, "But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." God sends people to hell because their sins were not forgiven. They never trusted in Christ. There was no forgiveness. The word 'thrust' is there. They are “thrust into utter darkness.” Matthew 25:41, “Then 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.'” That is the end of the way of darkness - complete darkness apart from God.

 Now Christ our Savior has come, and he can rescue people from the way of darkness, from the highway that leads to hell. He can rescue them and transfer them onto the narrow road that leads to life. He has that power. How? Because he is Immanuel. He is ‘God with us’. If God is with us, who can be against us? And how does he do it? He does it by entering life as a human being, as a baby, living a life, a physical life here on this earth. He did two thousand years ago. Tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he was without sin. He obeyed perfectly the law of God, obtaining a perfect righteousness, which he then gives us as a gift through simple faith. And all of this is taught in many, many places in the New Testament. He shed his blood on the cross so that the wrath of God might be averted, and we might not have to stand under the just punishment that we deserve. We know it. But we are free from it because Jesus drank it for us. Immanuel - God with us to save us, not to judge us.

And so the author of Hebrews, in Hebrews 2, quotes Isaiah 8 twice, and this is what he says. In Hebrews 2:11-15, “Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. He says, 'I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.' And again, 'I will put my trust in him.'” That is Isaiah 8. “And again he says, 'Here am I, and the children God has given me.'” That is Isaiah 8. Jesus speaks that. “Here I am.” Where? In heaven. "And here are my children, the ones God gave me. And I saved them all. I lost none of them, but they are all safe with me in heaven. Here am I and the children God has given me." “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

 VII. Application

 Understand We Are All on One of Two Roads to Eternity

That is salvation. Oh, friends, do you know him? You have to look. What road are you on? Search yourself. Search your heart. Are you on the way of light? Do you have the sense of God's grip of grace on you? Are you listening to him speak? Do you embrace his gently flowing provision for you? Are you delighted in it? Do you walk in the newness of life that Christ alone can give? Do you have the testimony of the Spirit, as you look over this list, that “these things are true of me, by his grace. They are true of me. I'm on the way that leads to life.”? If so, then praise God and keep walking. You're not done yet. By faith in Christ keep going. But if you're not, if you are in the way of darkness, oh, I urge you to flee to Christ. Flee to him now. Trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins. Amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 7:1-25. The main subject of the sermon is how God's people must stand firm in faith or else they will fall.

I remember well my first attempt at rappelling. Rock climbers use ropes to scale rocky cliffs and go back down them. I had never done it before. It was my first week at college, where you do all kinds of insane and crazy things. And so, there I was on the fifth floor of a town house on Beacon Street in Boston, on the wrong side of the fire escape. And I had the rappelling rope in my left hand and a harness around my body, and my right hand was holding firmly onto the fire escape.

I knew my hand, but I didn't know anything about this rope. I knew what my hand could do, but did I dare let go with my right hand and trust that rope? Well, I did, and it worked, and so I stand before you today. I survived, and I never did it again. I didn't really see the point. There was no great thrill in bouncing down the side of that brick house and making it down, except getting that harness off and saying, "I'll never do this again!"

Now, others may enjoy doing that kind of thing. More power to them. But I want to focus on that moment. I remember it well. When I looked at my right hand, I had to kind of tell it to let go, and it didn't want to. It seemed to know better than I did. "I'm saving your life, you don't want me to let go!" But it is a spiritual principle too. We know what we can do, and we are accustomed to trusting in ourselves. But this scripture today that we are looking at commands us to trust in Christ, to look away from what we can do, what schemes and plots and arrangements we can make to get ourselves out of whatever situations we find ourselves in, and to trust in Christ alone. And it is so hard for us to do it, to live by faith, not by sight, to learn how to rely on God who is invisible, to trust in the certainty of his promises, to look away from what we can achieve and to trust in him.

I think this is one of the biggest questions that we face in our lives. On what or on whom are you really trusting? What are you relying on? What is the truest source of confidence for your own life? Now most of the time, I think, in everyday life this question doesn't really come up. You're not asking intensely as you pour milk on your cereal in the morning, "Now, what am I relying on at this moment? Can I do it?" Or when your cell phone rings and you pull it out, "Do I have the power with which to answer this call?" Everyday life can just lure you into a sense of false security. You get behind the wheel, you turn on the ignition and you think, "I've done this before. I've driven many times to church, I can handle it." And so you don't really pray, you don't really think much about Christ at that moment and so you just go about your business.

But this is a grave misunderstanding of how totally and constantly we should be depending and relying on Christ, on Christ alone. It is a devastating state to be in spiritually, to rely on yourself. It will damn the soul. Because we cannot save ourselves and we must be trained to look away from what we can achieve and look instead to Christ and to him alone. And so, as we come to Isaiah seven, the central lesson of Isaiah seven, I believe is, “Stop trusting in yourself and the alliances you can make in your own strength, and rely on Immanuel. Rely on God alone, who is with us." 

Now, as we come to this passage, Judah is facing a crisis. The little kingdom of Judah is led by a faithless king. And this faithless king, Ahaz, a descendant of king David, is the very man whom God confronts with this promise: “God with us.” God wants to entrust the sign of Immanuel to him and Ahaz doesn't want any part of it.

Ahaz:  David’s Faithless Descendant

We need to understand the geopolitical context of Isaiah 7 to get its full richness. That's the challenge before me today, because you think about the history, what was going on, who are these names that were read for us? Pekah son of Remaliah, and the son of Tabeel, and Aram and Ephraim - who are all these and what does it have to do with anything? But this is the crisis that was revealing the true faith of Ahaz, I would have to say, his lack of faith in almighty God. As we come to Ahaz, we come to a descendant of David, grandson of Uzziah. He is the king of the southern kingdom of Judah.

Now, remember your history. Because of his wickedness, because of his idolatry, Solomon’s heart had turned away from God. And God had decided to judge him, not in his lifetime, but that his son would lose ten tribes. And those ten tribes became the northern kingdom of Israel. The house of David was left with one tribe, Judah, the southern kingdom. And the northern kingdom Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah were for the most part bitter enemies from that point forward. And so Israel was the northern kingdom, and Judah the southern kingdom.

Aram, Edom, Moab - these were all little kingdoms or little countries in the ancient near east in Palestine that jockeyed for position.  At times some would be a little bit more powerful than the other, etcetera, similar perhaps to the small nations of Serbia and Belgium in pre-World War I days. But then there were the big empires, the big rulers like in pre-World War I days when you had Russia, you had the Austria Hungarian empire, you had Germany and Britain. So in those days, you had Assyria. Assyria was the big monster swimming in that small pool, the superpower of the ancient near east - violent, ruthless and brutal. Called the Nazis of the ancient world, Assyria was poised to gobble up all these minor nations like a lion devouring scraps of meat. That is the context.

Now this man Ahaz was Uzziah's grandson, but he had none of Uzziah's piety, none of Uzziah's love for the Lord. 2 King 16:3-4 says Ahaz “walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree.” And so God gave him over. Because of his sins, God gave him over to his enemies.

There is a plain connection between the king's false religion and his defeat by both Israel and Aram on the battlefields. The story is told in 2 Chronicles 28:5-6. Because of Ahaz's sins, “therefore the Lord his God handed him over to the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated him and took many of his people as prisoners and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hands of the king of Israel, who inflicted heavy casualties on him. In one day Pekah son of Remaliah killed a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers in Judah - because Judah had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers."

Sadly, however, Ahaz did not learn the lesson. He was of the pragmatic school of religion - what works is what we need to follow. And he followed the “if you can't beat them, join them” approach. So in 2 Chronicles 28:23 it says, “He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him; for he thought, 'Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me.' But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel.”

The Crisis:  A Scary Alliance

So that's the context. The immediate context in the issue of Isaiah 7 is a scary alliance. That is the crisis. Two of these little kingdoms have agreed to join together in alliance against little Judah, and the odds are overwhelming. If Judah can't stand up against one of them, how is Judah going to survive against both of them allied together? And so, look at Isaiah 7:5,6. “Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah's son have plotted your ruin, saying, ‘Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.’” This is the plot. This is what's going on.

Fluttering Like a Leaf

It is a dire situation for Ahaz and for the people of Judah. And as a result in verse two their hearts are fluttering like a leaf. “So the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.” The crises of our lives reveal true character. Even more significantly, they reveal what we are truly trusting in. And so God brings us through crises sometimes to show us our faith, what we really trust in, and perhaps to show us what we are not trusting in and how we should be trusting in Christ more.  These people, including Ahaz, had no solid foundation in the sovereignty of God. They had nowhere to turn, and so they were terrified, fluttering like leaf.

The Sovereign Lord Intervenes

And so the sovereign Lord intervenes. He steps in. Our God doesn't stand passively on the sidelines of history. That's not the God of the Bible. He is not an idler. He is not rooting and hoping for a proper outcome, powerless to do anything about it. No, he steps in and brings it about. He accomplishes what he decides.

He is sovereign in deciding what will happen on the stage of history. He moves his little finger and the nations convulse. This is our God. And so, he begins with a quiet word from the prophet to the king. His real desire, the real focus of God, is the hearts of his people. What is going on in your heart? Do you trust or do you not? That's what it is all about. And so he is moving so that his people will learn to trust him, even in the midst of that kind of a crisis. He sends Isaiah the prophet. So Isaiah goes out to confront Ahaz as he is making preparations for battle.

 Look at verse three. “Then the Lord said to Isaiah, ‘Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman's field.’” So he is out there, making preparations, perhaps getting some water ready for a siege. He is out there, and Isaiah goes to confront him, to deal with him.

 God’s Command:  Don’t Be Afraid… Only Believe

And God gives Ahaz and the people of Judah a command. He says, “Don't be afraid, only believe.”  Look at verse four. “Say to him, 'Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood - because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah.” So he gives them a command. So often Jesus does the same thing with his own disciples.

In the midst of the storm, he rebukes them and said, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matthew 8:26). So, often we get afraid of the future, and we should be trusting in God. Faith drives out fear and makes us strong and courageous. And so, God gives a command, and he says, “Don't be afraid, only believe.”

 God’s Promise: The Secret Plans of Man Will Fail

And he gives them a promise as well: “The secret plans of man will fail.” Look at verses five through seven. "Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah's son have plotted your ruin, saying, 'Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.' Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says: 'It will not take place, it will not happen.'"

That, my friends, is the final word on that. When God speaks like that, who can turn aside his will? His hand is stretched out and who is able to turn it back? He's made a decision in this matter and this will not take place. It's a promise. The secret purposes of man will not prevail.

“Man Proposes, God Disposes”

You've heard the saying, "Man proposes but God disposes." God makes the final decision. Oh, many verses teach this. Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Others teach plainly God's sovereign authority over the rise and fall of nations. Daniel 4:17, "The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men." Some verses even discuss directly the plots and plans and schemes and lies that political leaders make, even to one another, sitting at a conference table, and say God's sovereign plan will overrule all of that. Read Daniel 11. Well, here God decrees failure for this alliance. It will not take place. It will not happen. And here faith must find its resting place in the sovereign power of God. He decrees what will and will not happen. And in that we find our sure security, our stable resting point.

Tragically, however, Ahaz will not listen. He is not going to listen. Instead, he is going to flee willingly into the arms of the monster Assyria. He is going to turn away from a loving God and he is going to embrace Assyria to save him. Now Judah's enemies are merely human. How many times does it say, "The head of this country is only so and so. The head of that country is only so and so." They're only men. They are nothing.

Within sixty-five years, Ephraim will be too shattered to even to be a people. Who is speaking these words? Later in the book of Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 22 and following, "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. 'To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?' says the Holy One."  "The head of such and such country is only so and so, but I, I sit enthroned above the circle of the Earth, and all the nations are like grasshoppers before me. Who do you fear?"

 The Warning: Grave Danger for Unbelief

And therefore he gives Ahaz, and through him Judah and all of us a warning: "Grave danger for unbelief." Look at verse nine. To me, this is the center of this whole chapter. I know the promise of Immanuel is wonderful. We will talk about it. But the lesson that takes in the whole picture of Isaiah 7 is this one verse, verse nine, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” That is the warning that Isaiah gives to Ahaz.

The greatest danger in the universe is unbelief in Almighty God, for this makes the sovereign Lord, who sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth, it makes him your enemy. And who can stand before him? Here I perceive also the same issue as the gospel itself. Romans 1:17, “The righteous will live by faith.” Those who refuse to believe in Christ will be destroyed, and they will be destroyed by the very things they trust in, as Ahaz was destroyed by the very nation he trusted in, Assyria. Unbelievers trust in false gods and false good works, and they will prove the greatest enemies of our souls on judgment day.

Stooping to Our Weakness

And so the sovereign Lord stoops to our weakness. He stoops to Ahaz's weakness, and he wants to give him a sign, the sign of Immanuel. It's amazing, isn't it? How sweetly patient our God is. How much he is willing to reach out. "All day long," He says, "I have held out my hands to an obstinate people” (Isaiah 65:2). This is God. And so he stoops to Ahaz's weakness, and he wants to give him a sign. He knows Ahaz's heart is terrified. He knows it is faithless. He wants to give him a sign to help him. And so Isaiah, on behalf of the Almighty God, hands Ahaz a blank check with God's signature and says, "Fill it in, any amount, anything you want, and I will do it."

It's an astonishing statement here. "Ask the Lord your God," verse 11, "Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights, [anything, and I'll do it.]" And notice the language here, very hopeful. Speaking to Ahaz, "Ask the Lord your God, Ahaz.” “Your God” - that will change in a moment. But at this point, he has an invitation to trust in the God of his father David, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of power. And look at the graciousness of the command: "Ask for any sign."

Remember one time during the period of the conquest, when Joshua was fighting, and he asked God for an extraordinary thing. He just wanted a little more time that day to finish off the battle. Do you remember that from Joshua 10:12-14? "On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: 'O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.' So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies. … The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!"

Well, here Isaiah goes out on behalf of the sovereign Lord and says, "You can ask for anything. I'll even do that again if you want, so that you will know that God is still fighting for his people."

Ahaz’s Transparent Hypocrisy

But what does Ahaz do with this blank check? He crumples it up and throws it on the ground. And he does it with a transparent hypocrisy that is really quite shocking. "I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test" (verse 12). Oh, that is really lousy. And that smells. I know he's quoting Deuteronomy and all that. And I know the Lord said this in terms of casting himself off the pinnacle of the temple and all that. “Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah” (Deuteronomy 6:16). But God had told him to do it! That’s the whole issue. If the Lord had commanded, if God had commanded Jesus to cast himself from the pinnacle of the temple, Jesus would have done it without hesitation, knowing that God would send his angels to catch him. But God hadn't commanded Jesus to do that. The whole issue is what is God commanding? And here the sovereign Lord has commanded Ahaz, "Ask for a sign." And he says, "I won't do it."

The fact is that God is really testing Ahaz. He wants Ahaz, he wants all of us to see what is in his heart. There is nothing there toward God. He doesn't want to ask God to give him a sign, because he doesn't want God to do the sign. He doesn't want anything to do with Yahweh. He doesn't want anything to do with a mighty, wonder working God. All he wants is to solve his problems his own way. He already knows what he is going to do. He is making preparations for the siege. He already knows what his plan is. We'll get to that in a moment.

But Isaiah gives him a sharp reply from the Lord. Verse 13: “Then Isaiah said, ‘Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also?’” Oh, that is significant. Notice he doesn't say your God here. The moment has passed. There is a moment, and it passes. There was an opportunity there for Ahaz, and he threw it on the ground. And so now it is my God. This is the decisive moment, I believe, in Ahaz's life. He refuses the grace and help that the Lord will give. Judah will be saved, but not by Ahaz. Not by Ahaz.

The Sign: Immanuel

And so, here comes the sign, verses 14 through 16, "The Lord Himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him, Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste." Alright, so Ahaz won't ask for a sign, the Lord will choose the sign. He is going to give a sign. This time it is of the Lord's choosing. And notice that the sign is given to the whole nation. The word is plural. It's not just to Ahaz singular. It's "to you, the Lord will give all of you a sign." And this sign is a word. It is a child who symbolizes the word "Immanuel" - God with us.

Three Issues with the Sign

Now there are three weighty issues with this verse, three significant issues we need to try to figure out. First and foremost, was there an immediate sign given in Ahaz's time? Did God do something for Ahaz in his generation? Second, does this verse teach the virgin birth? Third, what is the significance of the word, "Immanuel"? Three key questions here.

Let's take the first. Was there an immediate sign given in Ahaz's time? Absolutely, yes, there was. The whole thing with Christian prophecy in the Old Testament is that of shadow and fulfillment. There is a reality that acts out an aspect of Christ's life, and then the perfect fulfillment is in Christ. And so, we have that again here. There was an Israelite young lady who was going to give birth to a son at that time, and they would give him the name "Immanuel." And that son, that boy, would be a sign and a symbol of something the Lord was going to do. This mysterious name, this word "Immanuel," is the essence of the sign. The boy, I believe, was just an ordinary boy.

But he became somewhat like a time clock, measuring what God intended to do. And so, how long does it take for a young boy to know right from wrong? It says, "He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste." They are not even going to be an issue anymore. Well that's what - five or six years? In a very, very, very short time, it is going to be laid waste. And you are not going to be wondering anymore about those two kingdoms that are allied together against you. And so there's the sign. It's a time clock. In a very, very short time - you won't have to wait long - those two kingdoms will be destroyed. So yes, there was a sign immediately given in Ahaz's day.

Secondly, does this verse teach the virgin birth? Now, that is problematic. I just said there would be a baby born. Born to a virgin? I think not. Why do I say that? I think that was utterly unique in all of redemptive history, the virgin birth. Never to be repeated. Never happened before. Now, we recognize that Mathew picked this verse as a prediction of the virgin birth. Mathew 1:22-23, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ - which means, ‘God with us.’” But the virgin birth is utterly unique in all of history. I can't imagine that a child born in Ahaz's day was born from a virgin. So Isaiah uses a word, "almah", a Hebrew word which always refers in the Old Testament to a virgin, but which does not emphasize specifically her virginity as another Hebrew word would have.

I love Martin Luther's quote on this. Martin Luther offered one hundred guilders, one hundred gold coins to anyone who could show that the Hebrew word "almah" ever referred to a married woman. In characteristic fashion Luther said only God knew where he'd get the one hundred guilders if someone could meet his bet. “I don't have that kind of money, but I'm pretty confident on this one, that you'll never be able show me that this word refers to a married woman.”

So I think this Hebrew word is admirably suited both for the immediate circumstances of Ahaz, and then for the future glorious fulfillment. I don't think anyone really could have understood until it happened that a virgin would literally be with child by the power of the sovereign God. 

What is the significance of the word "Immanuel"? Well, the word literally means “God with us.” Here in Ahaz's day, it meant that the true source of Judah's safety was the fact that Almighty God was protecting her. That is the source of Judah's true safety. Look over, if you would, just one chapter to Isaiah 8, perhaps right there on the same page, and look at verses nine and ten. “Raise the war cry, you nations, and be shattered! Listen, all you distant lands. Prepare for battle, and be shattered! Prepare for battle, and be shattered! Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand.” Why? “For God is with us.”

Do you see that? There's the protection. All you nations that mean us harm, just know this, you will lose. You go ahead and make your plans. Get yourself ready. It doesn't make a difference. Why? Because the sovereign God is on our side. We will find out later what he can do with one angel in one night - 185,000 troops. He can do anything. So the real safety and security for Judah is this: God is with us. No nation, no matter how mighty, can defeat God's people while God is fighting for them.

And so Deuteronomy 32:9-11 says this: “For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance… He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.” Oh, what a glorious picture! God as a powerful eagle protecting the little ones, and none can harm them because he is sovereign and powerful. That's what Immanuel means, the power of God to defeat all of our enemies. Now the deeper significance of Immanuel comes with the birth of Christ. More in a moment on that.

 Both God and Ahaz Summon Assyria

But then we see the false faith of Ahaz that proves ruinous. Assyria is coming. Assyria is coming, verses 17 through 25, and amazingly, both God and Ahaz are going to summon Assyria for very different purposes.

Faithless Ahaz turns away from God to Assyria for help

Despite the sweet promises of protection from the Lord, Ahaz turns away in faithless unbelief. He has no faith in the Lord. He must save himself, and so he makes a fatal alliance with Assyria. The tragic story is told fully in 2 Kings 16:7-9, "Ahaz sent messengers to say to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, 'I am your servant and your vassal.'" That should just make the hairs come up in the back of your neck. "I am your servant, O king of Assyria." I want to be a servant of the living God, don't you? I don't want to say that to anybody, “I am your servant.” Not in this sense. "I am your servant and your vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Aram and of the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” “Come up and save me," he says. "And Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria. The king of Assyria complied by attacking Damascus and capturing it."

So there is a little boy Immanuel. Within a handful of years, the two kingdoms will be destroyed and laid waste. By whom? By Assyria. Assyria is going to come and lay them waste. And in honor of his new liege Lord, the king of Assyria, Ahaz changes the worship patterns of Judah. He sees an Assyrian altar there in Damascus and sends the plans for the altar back to be built according to that pattern. When he goes back and sees his replica altar, he offers sacrifices on it according to his own new religion, and he seeks guidance from it. He took things out of the temple of the Lord and sent them in honor to the king of Assyria. “But that did not help him” (2 Chronicles 28:21). He eventually shut the doors of the Lord's temple entirely and set up altars on every street corner in Jerusalem and worshipped false gods after the pagan pattern of Assyria. That's what he did. Wholesale defection. That's why I say the key moment is here in Isaiah 7, when God invites him and asks him to ask for a sign.

This foolish act would eventually destroy most of Judah. And why? Because Assyria is coming. One commentator said, "It's like a little mouse fighting against two larger mice and summoning the cat to come help. And so the cat comes gladly and takes care of the two little mice. And what's left? The third little mouse. And Judah is going to get gobbled up too.

 God predicts and brings Assyria

Now, I said both Ahaz and Almighty God summoned Assyria, but for very different reasons. Now he is going to use Assyria to search the hearts of his own people on this very issue: Who are you trusting? Are you going to trust God, or are you going to trust Assyria? So when they come (look at verses 17 through 20), “The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah - he will bring the king of Assyria. In that day the Lord will whistle for flies from the distant streams of Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria. They will all come and settle in the steep ravines and in the crevices in the rocks, on all the thornbushes and at all the water holes. 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.”

Notice God does not merely predict that Assyria will come. That's not what it says. No, he brings them. He is going to bring the king of Assyria. He is going to whistle, like the master of bees and flies, for them to come. He is going to hire a razor to come do the shaving. He is going to humiliate his people. He is going to bring them. And the bottom line is this: What you trust in, if not the Lord, will ultimately destroy you. Assyria came not to save, but to destroy. 

Isaiah 10:6 tells us the purpose of the Assyrians. "To seize loot, and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets." That's their motive. Now, I believe if Ahaz had trusted in the Lord, I don't know what would have happened, but I think Assyria would have come anyway to take care of the northern kingdom. They were done. He would have come to destroy Aram, but they would have stopped at the border and would not have entered in. They might have wanted to come in, but they are not getting in there, because the sovereign Lord would have protected that little kingdom of Judah, as he can do. That's just speculation, but I think that's what would have happened.

But instead, Ahaz – Judah - reaches out to Assyria and God brings them. The final result is that the land will be destroyed. It will be a cursed land. Look at Verses 23 through 25. "In that day, in every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels, there will be only briers and thorns.” In that place where there was rich fruitfulness, there is going to be cursing. “Men will go there with bow and arrow, for the land will be covered with briers and thorns.” That's cursed. Verse 25: “As for all the hills once cultivated by the hoe [that's a blessed land], you will no longer go there for fear of the briers and thorns [that's the curse]; they will become places where cattle are turned loose and where the sheep run.” The land is going to be destroyed because of faithlessness, because they wouldn't trust in God.

Now, I want to focus on this sign, Immanuel, and its glorious fulfillment, Jesus Christ our Savior. The virgin birth - centuries later God remembered the sign that he had promised Ahaz. And Mary, the mother of Jesus, was pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is clear and given a clear testimony in Luke 1 and Matthew 1. After Mary was told by the angel what would happen to her, she yearned to understand. Luke 1:34-35, “‘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. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.’”

But it is Matthew who links this event back to this prophecy and focuses on the word “Immanuel”. “An angel of the Lord appeared to him [Joseph] in a dream” (Matthew 1:20). Joseph was resolving to divorce Mary. He had trouble believing, as any of us would, that this virgin was really a virgin with child. It had never happened before. And so being a just man, he resolved to divorce her quietly. “But… an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 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.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ - which means ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:20,21).  “God with us” – a literal fulfillment - Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. “The Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us, and we have beheld his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Hebrews 2:14, "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity." He is God with us as a human being. More than that, however, sweetly more than that, he is God on our side, God who has come to save us, God who has come to deliver us, God for us. Romans 8:31, "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

“Who cares who's against us?” My translation.  Well, not a translation, just a few extra things. We'll just preach on that. "Who cares who's against us?!” Assyria, Satan, the world and the flesh, it doesn't matter. If God is for us, who could be against us? God for us and God with us - through everything we're going through. As he says in Hebrews 13:5, "Never will I leave you; Never will I forsake you.” “When you pass through the rivers, I will be with you. When you walk through the fire, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2). Forever he is with us.

God walking alongside us in temptation. He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet he was without sin. Let's go to him then that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. God is with us in the midst of suffering. We endure, knowing that Jesus suffered more than any of us ever could or ever will on the cross. He knows suffering. Go to him as you are suffering. He is God with us. He is God with us in the trial of death. "He tasted death for everyone," it says in Hebrews 2:9.

He is also God with us in all of the work he gives us to do. Remember how, through the flames of the burning bush, God sent Moses to Pharaoh? And he said, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?" (Exodus 3:11). And what did the Lord say? "I will be with you." "I will be with you" (Exodus 3:12). And so he has entrusted to us the work of reconciliation for the whole world. To the church he has entrusted to us that we should “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19,20). But what does he say after that? “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” God with us in everything he has commanded us to do. He will never leave us and never forsake us.

The True Deliverance

And God with us to deliver us from the true danger. It's not the Assyrians. It's not the Arameans. It's not Israel. It's none of that. The true deliverance is from sin and death and hell. Hallelujah! He has come to deliver us from those enemies, and so he drank the cup of God's wrath. He drank hell in on the cross. He suffered hell for us so that we could be delivered. “And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night” (Revelation 4:11). That's the real deliverance we need. We need to be delivered from hell. We need to be delivered from judgement and from wrath. And we deserve it. We know it. 

The Final Fulfillment: Eternally with God

But Jesus has come to deliver us from what we truly deserve by giving us a free gift. And the final fulfillment of God with us is heaven itself. Heaven itself. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1-3). That's God with us friends. 

"Father," he says in John 17:24, “I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory.” And so the final fulfillment of Immanuel is Revelation 21:2,3. “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, 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, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men.’” God with men. That's Immanuel. “And he will live with them, [Immanuel], "they will be his people, and God himself will be with them, [that's Immanuel], "and [he will] be their God.” That is the fulfillment of the promise of Isaiah 7:14. Eternity in Heaven in face to face fellowship with Almighty God.

How Do You React During Trials?

So what is the central lesson of Isaiah 7? This is: What are you trusting in? What do your trials show you that you are trusting in? How do you react when you get bad news? Whether it's financial, or medical, relational, spiritual - when you get bad news and your heart is laid bare what are you really trusting in? Is your heart fluttering like a leaf when you get some bad news? Or are you rock solid knowing there is a God who sovereignly overrules your life and nothing can touch you except what is passed through his wise and loving hands. Which is it? Are you stable or are you fluttering? Christ is saying, "Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart" (Isaiah 7:4).

Even More Poignantly, What About Your Soul??

 Even more poignantly he says to all of us, to the human race, “There is an earthquake coming far greater than any we've seen in the current events. It is going to shake what you built. It is going to shake everything. Once more he will return and shake the earth. And if you do not stand by faith on that day, you will not stand at all.” Romans 1:16-17 puts it this way, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” I appreciated singing “Come Ye Sinners, Poor And Needy.” Oh, is that powerful! Wasn't that powerful? I wanted there to be twenty more verses.

I guess then I wouldn’t be preaching now. But that's fine. We'd still be singing. But that's fine. Oh the rich theology. The rich, rich theology. And one of the verses said this,

Lo, the incarnate God, ascended,

Pleads the merit of his blood:

Venture on Him, venture wholly,

Let no other trust intrude! 

Oh, is that potent. Venture out like you're on the seventh floor of a burning high rise and a hook and ladder has come to save your life. Don't hesitate. Go. Venture forth and don't look for anything else to save you. “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must saved” (Acts 4:12). It's Jesus alone. Call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved. And it says, “Let no other trust intrude!

Yesterday, I had the privilege of performing a wedding for Jim and Claire Ewell. And standing right here at the very end of the ceremony, I gave them permission, actually kind of a command. “You may kiss the bride.” I think he was eager to do it. And so he stepped forward and he embraced his bride and kissed her. A public display of affection right here in church. He gave her a big kiss. But at that moment of marital embrace, there was not a man or woman or child on the face of the earth who would have been welcome to join them. No one. I was closest to them. I wasn't tempted. That was their moment. That's a picture of the soul in Christ. Let no other trust intrude. He is the lover of your soul. He is the only one who can save you. Nothing else has a right to intrude on the embrace of your soul and your savior Jesus Christ.

 Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 6:1-13. The main subject of the sermon is how God called the prophet Isaiah into His service.

We come today in Isaiah 6, by faith in the Word of God, to the Holy of Holies, to the heavenly realms. And today by simple faith in the Word of God, we will see the Lord with new eyes and allow his holiness to search out our darkness. Today we may lose our pride completely. Today we may see taking possession of our hearts a deep humility that is totally appropriate for who we are and who God is. Today we will stand with Isaiah the prophet and gaze at the face of Christ on his throne. And perhaps like Isaiah, we will hear his call, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And perhaps by faith, like Isaiah, we will respond, “Here am I, [oh Lord]. Send me.” And perhaps for the first time, we will probe the depths of God's sovereign control over wicked human rebellion, over the rejection of his Word, and how God sovereignly rules over even that for his own purposes. And so therefore, there are four glorious themes in these 13 verses:

And as I said to a couple of brothers this morning, who is equal to such a task? So, pray for me while I preach.

 The Central Reality of the Universe:  A King on a Throne

It is an overwhelming passage, just thirteen verses, and yet these themes. But these four themes are not all equal. The first is the greatest of them all. The glory and majesty of Christ enthroned as the centerpiece of the universe and of the Scripture. There is no other theme like it. And if we accomplish nothing else in our time today than that you may think loftier, more majestic thoughts of Jesus, it will have been time well spent. The glory of Christ enthroned. That's where we begin. Look at verses 1 through 4. It begins with these words, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.” We come to the central reality of the universe here in Isaiah 6, Jesus enthroned, the Lord enthroned. The vision is awesome. The truth is inescapable. This is the central reality of the universe, and it is a throne. It is God enthroned. And this is the reality that Satan most wants to blind our eyes concerning, that we would not see this. That we would not live in the light of that throne, of his right to rule, his omnipotence, his exalted status far above all, above every created being. This is what Satan wants to fool us about every moment of our lives. And it is the glorious work of the Holy Spirit to clear away the dimness of vision so that we may see Christ enthroned at every moment and live accordingly. That is what the Spirit does in his illuminating work. Psalm 103:19 says, “The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.” That is the central reality of the universe, of my life and yours, of this church, of the world, of all things: God enthroned.

Context:  Political Instability: ‘in the year that King Uzziah died’ (740 B.C.)

 Now the context here is given right away, "In the year that King Uzziah died," 740 BC. It is an historical moment. Uzziah was the longest-reigning good king of the Jews, also known by his name Azariah. He became king when he was just sixteen years old. And he reigned in Jerusalem for fifty-two years. He was a good king, walking in the ways of his father, David. But Uzziah's pride led to his downfall. He got arrogant and illegally entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense, something permitted only for the priests. And God struck him that day with leprosy, and he had it to the day he died. He lived a separate existence. And his son, Jotham, reigned in his place even while he still lived. Now, this good but tragic king has died. It is a time of political instability, of great uncertainty about the future. And at this moment, God gives Isaiah the prophet a vision, a vision of the true king of the Jews, a vision of the Lord enthroned, the Lord of hosts who reigns on his heavenly throne.

A Glimpse Into Heavenly Worship

 It is a glimpse also at this moment into heavenly worship. We see things in Isaiah 6 that we don't see anywhere else in the Bible. He says there, “I saw the Lord.” Now, the word in Hebrew is adonai. It is a common title for the Lord, and hence the word is not capitalized all the way through, with capital letters, in the English translations. It's not the word Yahweh, but it's the word adonai. Yet, in verse 5, Isaiah says, the Lord, Yahweh, is the one he saw seated on the throne, right there in verse 5. “My eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” That's Yahweh, the great God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So, he sees the vision of God enthroned. Now, this is just a vision, for God had already told Moses on Mount Sinai in Exodus 33:20, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

So, he doesn't see the full glory of God enthroned. God, in his grace and mercy, has turned his glory down to a level that Isaiah can handle. Instead he sees, I think, somewhat what Ezekiel saw in Ezekiel 1:28, that incredible vision of God almost indescribable, with wheels within wheels and coals moving back and forth, and wings, and high above that a throne, and high above that one seated on it, and all that. And at the end of all of that description that defies description, we have this word, Ezekiel 1:28. “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.” That's what Isaiah saw, an appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And note that he is seated. He is enthroned. He is seated on his throne. He rules, and he delights to rule. It is not a burden to him to rule. He is enthroned. And he is sovereign. He is in power over all things. And it says, “I saw the Lord… high and exalted.” A sense of height gives a sense of the majesty and greatness of the person. Height equals majesty. It must have been something, to stand on that hillside and see Jesus ascend to heaven. The majesty of Christ, the greatness of the enthroned God is what strikes him here.

I remember, I was on a mission trip in 1987. We went to Pakistan, to the northwest frontier province of Pakistan, the most spectacular place I've ever seen on Earth, with the highest mountains I've ever seen, the second highest mountains in the world, the Karakoram mountains. We took the Karakoram Highway through those mountains across the border into China. But I'll never forget one mountain in particular. It was the mountain Rakaposhi. It's 25,500 feet high. That is a world-class mountain. Everest is 29,000 feet. It's an incredible mountain, but what was most astonishing is the way that the highway was cut. The rock of Rakaposhi came right up off of the highway over 19,000 feet straight up. It was unbelievable. You almost can't imagine what it looks like to see a wall of rock just ascending almost to the heavens in front of you. I felt very small that day. I became very small in my own eyes. I think the Lord intended for Isaiah, and for us, to become very small in our own eyes. We are much too great in our own eyes. Well, this is a vision that will humble anyone. “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted.”

And it says, “And the train of his robe filled the temple.” This gives a sense of the regal glory of the enthroned king. In 1953, when Elizabeth was enthroned as Queen of England, her train was only eighteen and a half feet long and four feet wide. It was made of silk and ermine, and it shimmered, and was beautiful. It's the best we could do. But this train filled the robe with a sense of the glory of the enthroned king and his great majesty, his right to rule. Now, what temple was he seated in? Well, I don't think it was that earthly temple in Jerusalem, not at all. Solomon knew the truth when he said, "Can anything that I build contain the God of the universe?" (2 Chronicles 6:18). It's impossible. Or Steven, picking up on that says this, “The Most High does not live in houses made by men” (Acts 7:48). As the prophet says, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” Do you know who the prophet was? It was Isaiah (66:1,2). And so, what was the temple, the throne room? It was the heavenly throne room that he had the privilege of seeing that day.

But that's not all he sees. He sees some created beings that appear nowhere else in Scripture. They are called seraphim, seraphs. Look at verse 2. “Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.” This is the only place that these seraphim are mentioned in the Bible. The Hebrew root means "burning ones." They are on fire. They are on fire with the glory of God. Terrifying purity and holiness characterizes the whole scene, but here are these ministers of fire moving around the Lord. And they seem again to defy description, these six wings. I’ve never seen them painted that way, but they have six wings. And with two wings, they cover their faces.

Oh, meditate on that. These holy seraphim never committed any sin. In them there is no evil. They are pure and holy. They have always done the will of the Creator. They cannot bear to look directly on enthroned deity. They can't look him in the face. They are hiding their faces, and they have these wings in front of their faces - the glory, the brightness, the majesty of God overwhelming even for them. And then with two wings, they cover their feet. I'm thinking right now about what the Lord said to Moses as he appeared to him in the flames of the burning bush. He said, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5). So there it is, it is holy Heaven and they are covering their feet. And with two they are flying. They are moving around ready to serve, ready to minister, to do whatever the Lord enthroned commanded them to do. They are mobile, able to serve and to move. But note that four of the six wings are given over wholly to worship, given over wholly to a sense of the greatness and the majesty and the holiness of Almighty God. We make too much of our own service. We ought to be focused much more on just worshipping Almighty God and his greatness.

And they are so mighty. They, the seraphim, are so mighty that the sound of their voices causes the ground to shake. The foundations of the temple are shaking with the greatness of their cries to one another. These are awesome beings, and the temple is filled with smoke, a sense of the holiness and greatness of that scene. And they are worshipping. They are praising. And what is the central theme? It is the holiness and the glory of God. Look at verse 3. They are calling to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Notice that the seraphim are not calling to God. They could do that, that's fine, we can worship God directly. "Holy, holy, holy are you, oh Lord. The whole earth is full of your glory." That's fine. There is ample evidence of that in Scripture. But they are calling to one another. Like, "Did you get that? Can you see it? Like I'm seeing? We're sharing this experience together. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt the Lord together!" They are doing it together. It is a shared, communal experience of the greatness of the enthroned deity. They are calling to one another. And the topic? The holiness and the glory of God. “Holy, holy, holy,” thrice stated. No other attribute is given this honor in Scripture. God is love, but here, it says, “Holy, holy, holy.”

It is the first lesson of Scripture that we sinners need to hear, the holiness of God. Now, what is holiness? Well, scholars tell us that holiness means separation. And in some way, God is separate. He is above all things. Above all things, infinitely so. I love what A.W. Tozer wrote about this. "We must not think of God as the highest in an ever-ascending order of beings, starting with a single cell and going on up from there to the fish, to the bird, to the animal, to man, to angel, to cherub, and ultimately to God. We should not think of God in his holiness that way. God is as high above an archangel as he is above a caterpillar. For the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite, while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite." Ray Ortlund put it this way, "'Holy, holy, holy' is not just repetition; it is emphasis. It isn't one plus one plus one. It is perfection times perfection times perfection. The holiness of God distinguishes him absolutely, even above the sinless angels." The Bible speaks of the splendor of God's holiness (Exodus 15:11), of the incomparability of God's holiness (Isaiah 40:25). His holiness is simply his godness in all of his attributes, works, and ways. And he's not just holy; he is “holy, holy, holy,” each word boosting the force of the previous one exponentially. And they are saying, “The whole earth is full of his glory.”

 A few weeks ago, I preached a sermon on the cross as a prism for the glory of God. How like a perfect crystal, it just breaks the white light of God's nature apart, so that we can see different attributes of God. So also, the physical creation does the same. Romans 1:20, “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, so that men are without excuse.” We can see the glory of God, his nature's attributes in what has been made. Or again, in Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” The physical creation has God's glory woven into it, in every atom, every green leaf, every crawling insect, every roaring lion, every soaring eagle, every wind storm, every constellation. They all proclaim the greatness and the glory of the Creator God. This awesome vision of the Lord on his throne, this is the center of the universe.

"Woe to Me!  I Am Ruined!”

Secondly, we see the Lord's messenger purified. The greatness of this vision of the holy God just shatters Isaiah. It just shatters him. Not only does he see God, but for the first time, I think, he really sees himself. He really sees who he is, and this vision shatters any self-pride, self-righteousness, self-confidence. They are all gone. And it’s a good thing too, don't you think? Would it be good to be so shattered today? And so he cries out, “Woe to 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 King, the Lord Almighty.” This is a sinner unmasked. He is stripped and laid bare in his own eyes. He sees himself. And like any prophet would, seeing such a display of wickedness and sin, he cries out that prophetic word, "Woe!" Only this time, unlike in chapter 2 and unlike in chapter 5, he directs it to himself. "Woe to me! I am ruined!"

 Now, God wasn't surprised. "Nothing in all creation," it says in Hebrews 4:13, "is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." He knows already. He knows what we are, each one of us, through and through. There is no hiding from him. But no, we deceive ourselves. We are self-deceived. Our sin is hidden before our own eyes. Pride makes us think much more highly about ourselves than we should. We do not detect our own sin until we come into the presence of the Lord. And we will come into the presence of the Lord - now by faith through Scripture, or later just by eyes on Judgment Day - but we will see our wickedness, one way or the other. In the mercy and grace of God, he gives to some the ability to see it now, and they will be saved. They will be saved.

And so Isaiah, seeing the awesome holiness of the Lord, immediately feels unclean, and he cries out woe against himself. This is the beginning of a true relationship with God. Psalms 51:17, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." This is where it starts, where it really starts: Repentance and faith. Faith and repentance. They are absolutely interchangeable, interconnected, cannot be separated. Because what is it we see by faith, but this God? And what will we immediately feel about ourselves, but our need to repent? And that's what it is.

Notice that Isaiah's sense of sinfulness focuses on his mouth. “I am a man of unclean lips.” The very instrument of his ministry. He preaches, he speaks, he prophesies with his mouth. And the very best, the very best he has to offer, he will later tell us, is as filthy rags in the sight of Almighty God. He knows. He's felt it most acutely here.

Now, if a godly man like Isaiah felt this unclean, what then will Judgment Day be like for the ungodly and the sinner who never came to repentance and faith, who has received no imputed righteousness from Christ? What will they feel on that day when they see at last the holiness of their judge? And when he speaks those dreadful words, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41)? What will they feel at that moment? Feel it now by faith, and you will be saved.

The Lord’s Messenger Must Be Holy

The Lord's messenger must be holy. Notice that the Lord doesn't counsel with Isaiah, doesn’t in effect put an arm around him, and say, "Actually, Isaiah, you're much better than you think you are. What you need is a boost of self-esteem here." He didn't do that at all. I think the truth is Isaiah hasn't seen it all yet. He doesn't realize just how completely wicked he is, but he feels acutely his wickedness. Instead, the Holy Lord deals with it in his grace and mercy. It says in Hebrews 12:14, "Without holiness no one will see the Lord." So too, 2 Timothy 2:21 teaches us that without holiness no one will serve the Lord. 2 Timothy 2:21 says, "If a man cleanses himself from the latter [impurity], he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work."

The Lord’s Messenger Purified

So, the Lord's messenger must be holy and therefore, the Lord sends and purifies his messenger. Look at verses 6 and 7. "Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the alter. With it, he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.'" Oh, we will feel the full joy when we see the holiness of God. May these words be true of us! May you say by faith, "Woe to me! I am ruined!" May you say it by faith. And may you hear by faith, "Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." It's my fervent prayer for each person in this room today. Only God can make a sinner holy. He is the only one who can do it. Only God can purify us from sin.

And we know the whole story of the Bible. He ultimately does this only one way, by the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. And so that live coal that purified Isaiah, it's just a symbol of imputed righteousness. By simple faith, the gift of righteousness is given you right from the throne, by grace, by mercy, just a gift through the blood of Jesus Christ. Isaiah will tell us more about that later in his book. He knows about the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world. And notice this also, that in this way God fits Isaiah to be his prophet. He touches his lips with that coal. Isaiah can be his messenger now, to speak fiery words from Heaven, to speak words of conviction, words of power, words of life and death, of salvation and damnation. He is equipped now to speak those words. He is prepared.

 A General Invitation: “Whom Shall I Send?”

And so, now we have the Lord's messenger recruited. Look at verse 8. "Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I, send me!'" Notice, this is a general invitation. It doesn't have Isaiah's name written on it.

The call was given by the Lord, since only the Lord can call prophets. He is the only one who can do it. Yet it is given generally, as if to all. "Is there anyone here who might be available to serve us? Might be available to go for us?" Now, we should not imagine that it was because there was a scarcity of eager servants up in Heaven. Read Daniel 7:10. "Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him." One hundred million of them, ready to go, would be eager to do anything for the Lord enthroned. Oh, what a privilege it is to serve God! What a privilege it is to have something to do for him that he has entrusted to you with his own hand. What a glorious privilege. And so, there is a general invitation to anyone who might want to apply. "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"

Now, throughout church history, it has been the courageous and faith-filled ones who have made that general call their own specific life mission, because in the pages of Scripture, that is what we get. I don't know if you've noticed, but your name is not written in the Bible. I mean, if it's in there, it's not yours; it was somebody else's. Okay? There are biblical names, but it isn't you, okay? But, God is calling to you from the pages of this book, generally, you see. It is a general call to whomever will come and apply and heed it and make it personal.

A Specific Response: “Here I Am! Send Me!”

Hudson Taylor, a 19th-century Englishman, a great missionary pioneer - I was reading his biography, and in the chapter entitled "Here I am, send me" (that's the name of the chapter, harkening back, I think, to Isaiah 6), this man, Hudson Taylor, was struggling with sin. He was wrestling, he was struggling and having a hard time with sin in his life, struggling to be fully consecrated to the Lord. And he begged the Lord, and he pleaded with him, "If you will just deliver me and keep me from falling, I will serve you no matter what you ask me to do." And at that holy moment, Taylor felt within his heart a clear answer from the Lord. "Then go for me to China." He made that his life calling the rest of his life until the day of his death.

Is the Lord Calling You Today? 

Is the Lord calling you today to do anything? Is he calling on you, perhaps for the first time, to repent of sin? I speak to any that are here that are in an unregenerate state. Look to Christ. Flee to Christ. Trust in him. That's where it begins. You can't do anything for him before that, because you are dead in your transgressions and sins. Come to life. Believe in Jesus. Trust in him. Perhaps, if you are already Christian, come to repent of other patterns of sin that are hindering you in your service to him. To lay them down, to repent, to turn away from that wickedness. To repent, to be cleansed. 

Perhaps he is calling on you to do some kind of work of witnessing to somebody you know. Maybe there is a lost person that even now you know the Lord is laying on your heart, and you are thinking immediately of the cost, and what it is going to take to share the gospel with him or her. It could be a boss, a co-worker. It could be a fellow student in high school, in middle school. Could be a relative, or a neighbor. God is laying that person on your heart and he wants you to go as a witness and share the Gospel, perhaps. Maybe he wants you to adopt an unreached people group and pray for them every day for the rest of the year, to the end of 2008; to pray every day that God would send missionaries to them, send out laborers in the harvest field. Maybe so. Maybe to go for the first time on a short-term mission trip. Maybe to commit yourself as a career missionary. Maybe as a retired person, to start looking into what the IMB has available for you in patterns of service that will cause you to sacrifice a comfortable way of life here in America. Maybe he is calling you to do that. Who knows what he is calling you to do? But I find for myself, and I hope that all of you find for you, not just a general call, but a specific call to patterns of service, that you might serve the Lord.

Well, I was doing some research on this passage on the internet, and I found lots of sermons. Most of them stop right there. They don’t usually go on to what message the Lord actually entrusted to Isaiah. Isn't that interesting? Especially when you read the message. You know why? Because this is a difficult message. Isaiah found it difficult. He struggled with it. Look at what the message was that was entrusted to Isaiah. "Go and tell this people: 'Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.' Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed" (Isaiah 6:9,10).

No Right to Craft the Message

Now first and foremost, Isaiah the prophet had no right to craft the message. No right at all. Any more than a waiter in a fine restaurant has the right to take the dish from the chef and pull off to the side and work on it a bit before he presents it to the table. The chef knows what he is doing; the Lord infinitely more so. And so, the prophet has no right to rearrange and shift the message.

Now I believe that live coal taken with tongs from the alter represents not just imputed righteousness for Isaiah, but also a message to speak and to preach to the people. The message must be preached just as the Lord told him to say it. The prophet has no power to change it, and no power to hold it in either. It is a fire within him. Jeremiah put it this way in Jeremiah 20:8-9, "Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." So he has this live coal taken with tongs from the altar, and he is going to go proclaim this message.

A Shocking Message of Hardness

And it is a shocking message, really. It is a shocking message of the hardness of Israel's heart against the word of the Lord. And not just that, but a massage of God's activity in that hardness. It is not just an accidental hardness. This is actually judicial hardness from God Almighty. God is judging his people by hardening their heart against his own message. God is confirming Israel in their hardness against his word.

They have consistently resisted his message from the very beginning of their relationship. God said to Moses on Mount Sinai, "I have seen these people… and they are a stiff-neck people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them" (Exodus 32:9,10). That is right at the beginning of their relationship! How much more after centuries of rebellion? So, they had in fact hardened their own hearts, no doubt about it. Satan also had hardened their hearts. Satan is active in this, for it says in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” So Satan is active in hardening and blinding too. But the real issue here isn't that. It’s not their own hardening, and it’s not Satan's work. It is God's work here. Note the strong verbs. “He said, ‘Go and tell this people: “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, ad hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed’” (verses 9,10).

God is decreeing their rejection of his word resulting in the total destruction of the country. As a matter of fact, there is indication, even in what he says here, that if God didn't do this, if he didn't harden their hearts, they would see with their eyes, and they would hear with their ears at some point, and they would understand, and they would turn in their hearts and be healed. So, therefore, it is very similar to the case of Pharaoh, and God hardening Pharaoh's heart so that he can perform all ten of the miracles and show the full display of all of his glory.

Answers Central Question: Why Did Israel Reject Christ?

Now this verse answers the central question that many ask, "Why have the Jews rejected Christ?" This passage, amazingly, is quoted five times in the New Testament. "I saw the Lord… high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple" (verse 1) – a very famous passage, but never quoted in the New Testament directly. “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? … Here am I. Send me!” (verse 8) – also never quoted in the New Testament. “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving” (verse 9) - quoted five times in the New Testament:

Now, Romans 9 through 11 addresses this very deep issue. The very issue of why the Jews are rejecting Christ. The answer he gives in Romans 9 through 11, in part at least, is that God has sovereignly chosen to harden the heart of many Jews until his purposes with the Gentiles are fully accomplished. Therefore, Isaiah 6 and Romans 9 through 11 teach the same thing.

Romans 9:18 says this, “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” And this one, Romans 11:7-8, "What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened, as it is written [Listen, listen carefully to these words!], ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day.’” Does that not sound like the message Isaiah was given to preach? God gave it to them. Seven hundred years before Christ was born, God had already determined to harden the hearts of the Jews. "Why?", you may ask, "I don't understand it. Why would God do this?" Well, the answer is that God's glory might be revealed in his mercy and his grace in saving everyone the same way. Romans 11:32, “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”

Oh, sweet mercy. Sweet grace. When you hear the gospel, to see Christ as a savior, to hear him call you, to respond, and to know that even your own softness of heart is a gift of God and you have no right to boast. Oh, how sweet is that grace and mercy! That is God's purpose.

And therefore, finally here in Isaiah 6, we see the Lord's people humbled and then exalted. Look at verses 11 through 13. “Then I said, 'For how long, O Lord?' And he answered: 'Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, until the Lord has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken. And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.'”

Israel Hardened and Judged

 So, Israel is going to be hardened and judged. Isaiah cries out over his people. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. The apostle Paul, in Romans 9:2, says, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart [over the Jews who are rejecting].” And Isaiah is like that. He is crying out, "How long do I have to preach this message? How long will it be true?" And God's answer is devastating.

Israel Humbled and Laid Waste

Israel is going to be laid waste. Every city in the promised land is going to be destroyed. Ninety percent of the people will be killed or exiled. And even the tenth that remains in the land, they are going to see it again and again anyway - a cycle of judgment and poverty, and Gentiles coming in, and the armies one after the other.

The Remnant: The Stump in the Land

But... Oh, praise God for the word but! That is not the final end to the Jewish people. It is not the final end. By the sovereign hand of God, there is a stump, and there is some life in the roots. By the sovereignty of God, he keeps life alive. There is a remnant of believers, yes. But I really think the holy seed is Christ. He is the branch from which all life comes, and we are just grafted into him, Jew and Gentile alike. He is the olive tree, and we are grafted into Christ. He is the life that still is there in the Jewish people. Salvation is from the Jews, and his name is Jesus.

And so, it says so beautifully in Romans 11:26 and 27, “And so all Israel will be saved…” That doesn't mean every single individual Jew. That's why Paul weeps for the lost. But the nation of Israel, at the end, will be saved. “…as it is written: ‘The deliverer will come from the Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob." Can He do that? Does he have that kind of power? Yes, He does. “And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” Oh, how sweet is that!

God’s Ultimate Purpose: His Glory

And so, God's sovereign control over the hearts of the Jews makes possible a full display of his glory, of his patience, of his power, his wrath, his justice, and his mercy and grace. God's design then is to make sure that all who are saved, Jew and Gentile alike, are totally dependent on his mercy and grace alone. And so, we are.

Now one final comment before our application. Who is the Lord that Isaiah saw? Who did he see? Well, it is John 12:41 that tells us the answer to this.

Israel’s Rejection of Christ Predicted, Effected, and Removed

At the end of John, after Jesus had performed all these miraculous signs... (we're talking about the healing of a man born blind; we're talking about the feeding of the five thousand, about walking on water; we're talking about a river of miracles more than we can even count - healings, demon-possessed people healed with the word - all of that, and the resurrection of Lazarus after being dead four days, up out of the tomb he comes) …after all that, they still didn't believe in him. It's amazing! It's astonishing! And so, at the end of that public ministry section John wants to describe why, and this is what he says in John 12:37-41: “Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet, 'Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?' [Isaiah 53]. For this reason they could not believe.” Oh, meditate on that word “could.” “Could not believe.” “For this reason, they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: 'He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn - and I would heal them.'" In other words, Israel's hardness of heart was ultimately the work of God, decreed by God's sovereign plan, predicted by God's foreknowledge through Isaiah the prophet, spoken in Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 6, to establish the future unbelief of the Jews.

 Isaiah Saw Jesus’ Glory 

Then comes the bombshell, in verse 41. It's quoted right in your outline. "Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him." “Jesus' glory.” Jesus of Nazareth, the One who walked the dusty roads of Palestine. Jesus. He uses his human name, not his title name, Christ. He is the Christ. I think the Jews could have accepted that a Christ could be, perhaps, God. That's a reach. But no, this is Jesus, the human baby. He is the One, the Lord of glory that Isaiah saw. This is the mystery, the mystery of the trinity. "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" Here is the mystery of the incarnation, that the baby, born and laid in a manger, who grew up, who ate and slept and walked in their streets and talked with them, the One who bled and died, is God himself seated on the throne. That is an awesome and inconceivable thought.

 Heavenly Worship of the Savior

So what is the application? Well, let's start with heavenly worship. Understand then the glory of Jesus Christ. The same Jesus that we have been describing here, the physical Jesus of Nazareth, is God of the universe, the Creator of the ends of the earth. There is not a person sitting here listening to me today who has too lofty a view of Christ. Everyone listening to me today has too low a view of Christ, including me. So magnify him. Magnify Christ. Magnify Jesus the Savior. Make him greater in your own estimation. How? How do you do that? Well, how about this afternoon you go over Isaiah 6. Go over these four great and glorious themes. Think great thoughts of Jesus. Pray to him as a great savior.

Heavenly Cleansing from Sin

Secondly, heavenly cleansing from sin. Do you realize how completely you are provided for in your sin? The Lord of Glory got down off that throne and came and died for you and me. You are fully forgiven if you are a Christian. Fully forgiven. Trust in him. But that is not enough. Look in the mirror of the holiness of God and see your residual sin, and how much it continues to trouble you and your family. And hate it. Ask God to remove it. Fight against it. Hunger and thirst for righteousness, and by the power of the Spirit, put sin to death. It is the enemy of Jesus, and Jesus is its enemy. Thanks be to God, he is going to win. Oh, but be holy, because he is holy.

Heavenly Warning to Listen to the Word

Thirdly, learn to listen to the Word of God with heavenly ears. Don't be ever hearing but never understanding, ever seeing but never perceiving. The worst talent in the world you can ever gain is to listen to the Word of God rightly unfolded and blow it off. Blow it off. “Just another sermon, just another message. No big deal." The centerpiece of our relationship in this world with God is faith in his Word. Trust in the Word of God. The commands, the rebukes, the warnings, the promises - trust in all of that. That is the center of it all.

Heavenly Calling to Do Good Works

And then finally, is God calling on you to do anything? Do you realize the glory of that? Do you realize the privilege of it, that God, this God, this Jesus, would actually give you something to do today? “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). Oh, do those good works. One hundred million angels competing - if you're not going to do them, they might come forward and do them. They would love to do any work that God entrusted. But he is not going to do it. He has entrusted those good works for you to do. Will you do them for his glory today.

Close with me in prayer.

Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 5:1-30. The main subject of the sermon is the tragic abuse of God's grace and patience.

In 2 Corinthians 6:1, I find a mysterious and troubling verse. It says, “As God's fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain.” Receiving God's grace in vain is a very troubling concept, and I think it is easily misunderstood. Now, God's grace comes to us in a variety of ways. It is by grace that God causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall on sinners whether they acknowledge him or not. It is by grace that we enjoy food, clothing and shelter. It is by grace that we are born into families and to mothers that nurture us, love us and provide for our every need. It is by grace that we enjoy warm human friendships. It is by grace that we look out over a natural beauty, such as a rolling ocean or a field of wild flowers or craggy mountain heights, and see that spectacular beauty. It is by grace that we get an education. It is by grace that we have formative experiences that shape us, that we can read and write and do arithmetic.

It is by grace that we enjoy every good and perfect gift, for they all come down to us from the Father above unto people who deserve his wrath. It is by grace that we experience all of these things. But all of these forms of grace can be received in vain, every one of them. If we fail to make the most of our opportunities, if we rebel, if we follow a lifestyle of sin, we have received all of those forms of God's grace in vain. Now, we believe in the new covenant, in something called effectual grace. It is a grace from God that cannot be received in vain. It is by grace, or it was by grace that Lazarus was raised from the dead. He could not receive that grace in vain. He had no choice but to live again. It was by grace that the man who was born blind received his sight. When he washed off the mud, his eyes had no choice but to see perfectly. It was by grace that Peter understood that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. He could not receive that grace in vain. And it is by grace that every true Christian in history is born again by the Spirit of God, by grace that the heart of stone is removed and the heart of flesh is given.

 It is by grace that we see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ and live forever. "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). Every spiritual advantage there is in this life comes to us by grace, but it is possible for a person to waste those advantages. Isaiah 5 speaks of lavish gifts of God's grace, bestowed from the kindness and covenant faithfulness of almighty God on the nation of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. And these people perverted the good gifts of God and used them for sin. This passage therefore speaks a word of warning to all ages, and it speaks a word of warning to us, the American Evangelical church, and we ought to heed it. 

No church in history has had as many spiritual advantages as has the church in America, as many Bibles in the wide variety of translations, as many good seminaries teaching the truths of the word of God, as many avenues of right doctrine, publishers, book distributors, internet resources, good preaching on tapes and CDs, and MP3 and streaming. As many opportunities to serve the Lord in short and long-term missions. As many good Bible believing and Bible preaching churches. And yet for all the avalanche of God's grace, it is amazing to observe how little genuine fruit there is here. Dr. Robert Coleman, who travels the globe constantly and understands the church, perhaps better than most, was having a conversation with Raymond Ortlund, and Ortlund wrote it down. This is what he said. "In the previous fifteen years, real church growth in North America has been zero percent, and yet the church in Asia and Africa and Latin America has been growing by leaps and bounds. Despite all of these lavish resources, zero net growth. Lots of activity, lots of programs, but so little fruit."

Now, Robert Coleman wrote a famous book, The Master Plan of Evangelism. In it he talks about the pattern that Jesus gave of deep discipleship for the purpose of spiritual multiplication. He said it was the strategy by which God intended to reach the world. Now, if you were able to preach to 100,000 people every day, and got a four percent return on the preaching, after sixteen years you would see 23,360,000 people converted - 100,000 every day. Now that's a busy life. A four percent response is very good for people to actually come to faith in Christ. But suppose instead you took one convert, and for six months you built a disciple who could reproduce, and then each one built another, and then the four each built another and so on and so on. After sixteen years, you would reach four billion people. Four billion in sixteen years.

Multiplication begins small but ultimately yields greater results. And these are genuine disciples, Christians growing and maturing, not babes in the faith demanding constant nurturing. So why hasn't that been happening? What is going on here? Well, there can be only one answer and that is sin. The sin of not receiving the grace of God properly. Receiving it in vain. We are in some sense receiving God's grace in vain because so little growth has been occurring. So much is invested and there is so little fruit. Now Isaiah 5 speaks a word of warning to us concerning this precise matter. Luke 12:48 says, "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." Friends, that is us. Let's be honest. That is us. God has entrusted much to us and He expects much back. And as we look in Isaiah 5, again, as I told you, I say it again and again. The great danger of reading Isaiah is to say, "Those people there, those people of Judah, those people of Jerusalem. How much they sinned." Don't do that!

Isaiah’s Love Song for God

Look at Isaiah 5 and find a mirror and then we will deal with this passage properly. It begins with an account of God's lavish grace and the question, "What more could have been done?" in verses one through seven. And it begins amazingly with a love song. Isaiah sings a love song, a love song to God. Look what he says in verse one. "I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard. My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside." This song must be the most tragic love song ever. The introduction shows Isaiah's love for God. A song for the one I love. He calls him my loved one. Now you know the first and greatest commandment, that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. That is the first and greatest commandment. And Isaiah loves God. In this case then his love for God knits his heart together with God's as he looks at the tragedy of what's really happening with Judah and Jerusalem.

 The Original Parable of the Vineyard

I think we have here the original parable of the vineyard. Now Jesus of course is going to take Isaiah 5 and change it a bit and speak a parable to His own generation. It is in Matthew 21:33 and following. Jesus said, "Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a wine press in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit." It's the same story - slightly different because they beat the messengers and eventually the master sends the son and they kill him, thinking to take his vineyard. But it is the same story as Isaiah 5. God's relationship with Israel was a long-term investment in a vineyard that ended in grave disappointment, in a failed crop, a harvest that never came.

God’s Lavished Grace

And so we see God's lavish grace. Look at it. First of all, it was a well-chosen site. It was on a fertile hillside. That's the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Notice also the hard labor. He dug it up, cleared it of stones and planted it with vines and built a watchtower and a wine press. Lots of labor went into this.

I was raised in New England, and the farmland up there over the winter grows boulders. That's what it does. They just get pushed to the surface. And if farmers want to have arable land, they have to remove those boulders. It’s just backbreaking work. So, you see all over New England these stone walls around these farms, and they're very quaint. But they testify to backbreaking labor. I'm glad I'm not a New England farmer. That's all I can say. But God did that kind of labor. He did all that and more. He constructs a watchtower and he hews out literally a wine press. You get this idea of a huge rocky boulder and he is carving out a space in it where they can press that sweet wine that they are going to make, with those wonderful grapes that are going to come. Hard labor in preparation for the harvest, and it's skillfully tended. He knew his business. He knew what a fertile hillside was, and he knew the choicest vines. He knew how to do all of that. And it was diligently and forcefully guarded with a watchtower, always looking out for the enemy, protecting the tender vines from being trampled.

Summed up in verse three and four he says this, "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and you men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?” “What more could I have done?" God in effect is saying "I spared no expense. I left off no diligence to ensure a success. The fault does not lie with me."

Israel’s Wretched Harvest

But look at Israel's wretched harvest. Verse four, “When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?” Now this is the eternal question, the great unanswerable question when it comes to sin, when it comes to evil. Why? It just stands over the human race. It just haunts us. So many people in times of great tragedy ask God that question. They look up to heaven and they say "Why?" Perhaps it's the death of a little baby to leukemia or a death of a child in a car accident. A great tragedy. Unlooked for, unexpected, shocking. And they look up to heaven and they say to God "Why did you do it? Why God?" Alright. Those kinds of questions are asked in the Bible. The Psalmists asked them frequently.

But here it is the other way around. It is the other way around even more poignantly, I think. God stands over the wreckage of human sinfulness, the senselessness of it, the waste of it, the insanity of rebellion and he asks us, "Why? Why?" Ezekiel 33:11, "Say to them, 'As surely as I live,' declares the Sovereign Lord, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, oh house of Israel?'" Or the prophet Nathan confronting David with his sin of adultery with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 12:9, "Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes?” Why? Jesus says to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, "Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?" (Acts 22:7). And so it is here. Despite all the skillful gardening of the Lord, still it produces only bad grapes.

God had given to the Jews every external grace.

Yet for all of these incredible advantages, there is still overwhelming national and individual sin. Why? It is the great unanswerable question. Sin is so irrational, so inexplicable, so insane. God is very clear about what those bad grapes were. He spends the rest of the chapter describing it. First, right away in verse seven he says this, "The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress." Despite all the advantages of his skillful tending, look what he gets. He gets injustice. He gets bloodshed. He gets cries of distress from his people. That's what he gets. And for the rest of the chapter, we will see that he lays out six clusters of bad grapes.

The central lesson here is the corruption of the human heart. Short of the miraculous transformation of the new birth, every external grace only hardens us more. Makes it worse, actually. If God doesn't change your heart, the hearing of good preaching actually makes it worse for you. For it says in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" The only possible hope is the new heart, a new nature, regeneration by the Spirit of God. Now God asks here, "What more could have been done?" (verse 4). God himself gives his own answer in the new covenant. There is something more that could have been done. He can take out the heart of stone and he can give the heart of flesh. Without that there is no hope. It says in Ezekiel 36:26, 27, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; 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 follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

And so the events of Jewish history prove this. No matter how many external blessings God lavishes on unregenerate people, they only harden our hearts more. If God does not add to them the great blessing and grace of a changed heart, we will only heap up our condemnation more and more.

God’s Shocking Judgement

So, God sends a shocking judgment. Look in verse five and six. “Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.” That is the judgment of God on Israel and on Judah.

So, for the rest of the chapter, we see six clusters of bad grapes and the corresponding judgments that come. "Woe" is a word of prophetic warning. The chapter then can be arranged around the six woes that the prophet speaks.

Woe #1: Aggressive greed (vs. 8-10)

 Look at what it says in verses eight through 10. “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing, ‘Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants. A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine, a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.’” These were economic empire builders, ruthlessly taking over the property of the poor and the needy. Like evil King Ahab who has Naboth murdered so he can steal his vineyard and take it over. Or like the Pharisees of Jesus's day. Jesus talks to them about this. They used their influence to steal widows' houses and to make themselves wealthy in this way.

Woe #2: Sinful Excess (vs. 11-12)

“Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine. They have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord, no respect for the work of his hands.” Now Israel was rife with idolatry and the core of idolatry, self-worship. The allure of idolatry is always sensual pleasure. Sensual pleasure, living for sensual pleasure rather than for God. These folks are dedicated to it. They are dedicated to pursuing excess. They rise up early in the morning to run after their drinks. These are words of great zeal and dedication, rising early to run after the drinks. To run after them. This is determination. This is sacrifice. This is commitment to a lifestyle of drinking.

What are they pursuing? They are pursuing drinks. They are pursuing getting drunk. They are pursuing music to enjoy a good tune, tambourine and a harp and a lyre. Ah, the delights of good music and a good bowl of wine! That's what they are pursuing with great dedication, and their addictive lifestyle comes from trying to fill an empty hole in the center of their souls, something that will ease the pain of that emptiness. The result is utter deadness to the glory of the Lord all around them. “They have no regard,” it says, “for the deeds of the Lord, no respect for the work of his hands.” They are just numb to what God is doing.

 Woe #3: Shameless Sin and Mocking of God (vs. 18-19)

“Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes, to those who say, 'Let God hurry, let him hasten his work so we may see it. Let it approach, let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come, so we may know it.’” The image is powerful. It's like these people are beasts of burden and they have ropes around them and they are hauling a cart loaded with boulders of sin. And they are just pulling it on. They are in bondage to sin and they can't break away. And yet, in the midst of that, they are mocking God. "Oh, that plan of God that He always talks about, let him bring it so we can see it and actually see whether it's going to happen or not." 

Woe #4: Relativism and Redefining of Truth (vs. 20)

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." Long before the theory of relativity, and long before philosophical relativism, and certainly long before the post-modern era, there was this redefining of truth, this redefining of what is good and evil, what is light and dark, what is sweet and bitter. There is nothing new under the sun, friends. This has been going on forever. Naming was a task given to Adam. Adam could name the animals. He could name different things. But defining good and evil? That is God's job. It is our job to just accept from him what he says is good and evil. He said right from the beginning in Genesis 1:3-5, "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day,' and the darkness he called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day." God alone has the right to define good and evil. He is the standard. We don't make it up inside ourselves.

Nowadays, people have become experts at redefining good and evil. After the Supreme Court upheld the limited ban on partial birth abortion, which is a disgusting procedure which I shall not recount here, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision alarming. She called the decision alarming! The procedure was not alarming to her. The decision was alarming. "Woe to you who call evil good and good evil, who put light for darkness and darkness for light, who put sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet." We can't exchange these things just because we name them something different. They are what they are. Good is good and evil is evil.

Woe #5:  Arrogant False Wisdom (vs. 21)

“Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.” I think we all spend some time here. “Wasn't that clever of me? Wasn't I smart to do that?” This kind of thing. This is a very convicting verse for anyone tempted in that direction. To fall in love with your own intellect. Would you like to play chess with God? You'll lose. We have a lot of smart people in this church. I know a lot of smart people. I went to college with smart people. Nobody compares with the omniscient God, and we ought to be humble in His presence. Amen? We ought not to be wise in our own eyes or clever in our own sight. But here are these people. And it is even more tempting for us, as we are technologically advanced people. We're really in love with the things we discover and invent and make happen.

Woe #6:  Drunken, Corrupt Justice System (vs. 22-23) 

We're back to the wine again. And it says, “Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.” One of the fundamental functions of government is to assure justice for all its citizens, so that neither rich nor poor get any preferential treatment, but that everyone will be judged fairly. The image of this in our Supreme Court building is of justice personified, a blindfolded woman who is holding a scale and a sword. And the ideal there is you will get justice here, no preferential treatment. The law will be upheld, and if need be justice will be meted no matter who you are. That is what the foundation of a good judicial system is.

But in Isaiah's day, the judges love the same lush life we talked about earlier, only they are really good at it. They are champions at mixing wine. "World champion wine mixer!" I wonder if they gave out trophies? It's a sense of, "What a hero I am at mixing wine." But look what they are doing with it. They're denying justice to the innocent. They're selling their services to the highest bidder with bribery.

So, we have a six-fold woe clearly depicting the corruption of Israel. And now with the sin clearly exposed, the corresponding judgment comes. And it comes centered around another word, the word "therefore." "Woe to them, therefore." There is a direct connection between the word "woe" and the word "therefore." Each of the "woes" describes a horrendous sin pattern on the part of God's people. And each of them results in a corresponding "therefore," which is the reasonable justice of God.

“Therefore” = The Reasonable Justice of God

Basic Sin: Rejecting God’s Word (vs. 24)

Now the basic sin, the root sin, I think, is in verse 24. Look at it. “They have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.” This is the core issue, rejection of the Word of God. This is the foundational sin. In fact, I think it is impossible to sin apart from the Word of God. God's Word comes first; sin comes after. For “where there is no law there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15). Where God has spoken we must obey.

Now, the sin nature seizes hold of the good commandments of God, (Romans seven), and uses them for evil, because we are all born under Adam's original sin. And we turn the good laws of God into corruption and we sin. That is what the people of God did here. It is an awesome thing then, to spurn the Word of the Lord. By God's Word he created heaven and earth. By God's Word he filled the seas and the skies and the land with various living creatures. By God's Word he saves souls. By the Word of the gospel and by God's Word, he condemns souls. Therefore, the most important thing a human being can do is to tremble at God's Word and cling to it as to your very life. Isaiah 66:2: "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word."

Resultant Judgments 

Well, the resulting judgments are listed here.

The Invading Army Described (vs. 26-30)
The invasion by the Assyrians. And a century and a half later, the Babylonians finish the people of God in the Promised Land until the restoration came. And the invading army is described. Look at it in verses 26 through 30. "He lifts up a banner for the distant nations, he whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Here they come, swiftly and speedily! Not one of them grows tired or stumbles, not one slumbers or sleeps; not a belt is loosened at the waist, not a sandal thong is broken. Their arrows are sharp, all their bows are strung; their horses’ hooves seem like flint, their chariot wheels like a whirlwind. Their roar is like that of a lion, they roar like young lions; they growl as they seize their prey and carry it off with no one to rescue. In that day they will roar over it like the roaring of the sea." Here they come, the invading armies.

Yet for All of This… His Hand is Still Upraised (vs. 25)

And yet for all of this, he says in verse 25, "His anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised." He is going to use this expression again and again in chapter 9 and 10. "Yet for all of this, his anger is not turned away, his hand still upraised." He has more anger to give. God is slow to anger but when the time comes, it is very hard to turn aside. For all of this. Now, this is a terrible judgment, invasion by a foreign power. Oh, but there's a far worse one. "Do not fear those who kill the body and after that there is nothing they can do. I'll tell you who to fear, fear the One who has power to destroy both soul and body in hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!" said Jesus. This is a dreadful word to hear. "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41). That is what you should fear, even more than the invasion of a foreign power.

Judgment is God’s “Alien Task”

Now, in the middle of all of this, strangely, are the sweet fruits of God's alien task. Look at verses 16 and 17. "But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness. Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture; lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich." Well, there had to be a glimmer of light in the midst of all of this darkness, and so there is. First of all, understand, judgment is God's alien task. We will learn that later in Isaiah, but I am going to quote it now. Isaiah 28:21: "The Lord will rise up…, he will rouse himself… to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task." What is he saying? God is good. He is loving. This isn't what he wants to do but he will do it. But it is his alien task. It is his strange work to do this. Though God delights in the end result of all this judgment, he doesn't delight in the judgment itself. He doesn't take pleasure in it. Like Jesus's crucifixion, like his death on the cross. He did it for the joy set before him. And so also, God brings judgment on his people for the good things set before him.

 The Lord Almighty Exalted and Displayed

And what are they? Two in particular. Number one, God is put on display. His holiness is put on display. His justice is put on display for all to see. Look at verse 16. "The Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness."

Sheep Peacefully Grazing

Secondly though, there are the sheep. Look at them in verse 17. "Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture; lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich." Pardon me if I see the sheep of Jesus Christ here. But Jesus said, "My sheep listen to my voice, I know them and they follow me" (John 10:27). Now I don't deny that there was a physical fulfillment, that when all the people were kicked out the lambs had the run of the place. And so they did. They could graze over the ruins and the wreckage, and they could just eat and be at peace and no one bothered them. And I don't doubt, as it says in 2 Chronicles 36:21, that the land enjoyed its sabbath rest, seventy years of rest. So, everything was peaceful and all that, but this is just a picture, friends. It is a picture, can't you see it, of lambs quietly walking over a safe ground where no enemy will make them afraid. Friends, this is the new heaven and the new earth. This is where we are heading - full restoration where there will be no danger anymore. Oh, that's what we're pointing toward!

Sovereign Grace that Produces Its Own Harvest

And therefore, in the Gospel of Jesus Christ primarily, we see all of these themes brought together. That's where we see it. First of all, a sovereign grace that produces its own effect. “What more could have been done for my vineyard?” “I'll show you what more I can do for my vineyard. I will transform them. I will make them into good people. I'll take out that heart of stone and I'll give them a heart of flesh. I will change them. They will be born again. They will be regenerated by the power of God." That's what the gospel promises to you and me.

Judgment of All Sins at the Cross

"Secondly, I'll give them judgment. I will give them judgment of all of their sins at the cross of Christ. I will pour out wrath on my only begotten Son. I will speak words of woe to him. I will speak words of cursing to him so that it doesn't hit you. I will interpose my Son's body and his blood between you and my wrath. And I will pour out my wrath on him and you will survive. And so, I will speak woe, woe, woe, to my own Son, but I will speak peace to you. If you'll only believe in him. If you'll only trust in him.

An Eternity of Peace in the Presence of God

And then finally, you will see an eternity of peace in a safe, comfortable place. You will dwell forever and ever in the new heavens and the new earth.” It says in 2 Peter 3:13,11,12 “In keeping with his promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, … 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 its coming.”

What application can we take from this? First of all, flee to Christ. I have no idea what your state is. I don't know if you died today whether you would go to heaven or hell. I'm not speaking to you individually. I know many of you love the Lord Jesus. But this is a vast assembly here. I believe with all my heart, and prayed for it, that God would bring some lost people here today so that they would be warned to flee to Christ, that they would look to Jesus, that they would see in his blood shed on the cross enough for all of their sins, and trust in him. If God is speaking to you today, flee to Christ, trust in him right now. Afterwards, come up and talk to me. Go through those doors in the parlor. There are people waiting to talk to you if you need to know more about the Christian life. Trust in him. Don't walk out of this building without knowing that your sins are forgiven. You cannot survive Judgment Day without Christ.

And for the rest of us who have trusted in Christ, understand the wall of protection that is around you. Don't get arrogant. Understand, because God has put a wall around you that he will not tear down. Satan can't get at you like he would like. We were talking in Sunday school today, if God took away all of his protection and we were left open to the demons, to the devil and his angels, and God did no sustaining grace, what would happen to us? I don't think it's melodramatic for me to say of myself, I'd be in hell this afternoon. I am sustained by grace every moment in my faith in Christ. I must have that wall of protection. I must have that watchtower, where the Lord is watching over me. Oh, trust in him, not in yourselves.

Close with me in prayer.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Isaiah 3:1-4:6. The main subject of the sermon is God's way of removing false glory and establishing true, holy glory.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, a huge pile of debris was left on ground zero - twisted steel, gutters, rubble and other wreckage which continued to smolder for five months after the attack. It was dubbed “the pile” by those who worked there. On May 30th, 2002, there was a significant ceremony. The last piece of steel from the World Trade Center was removed from the site. It was draped in an American flag and recycled as the bow of the new San Antonio class amphibious assault ship, the USS New York, and the term pile was no longer used after this. Now the clearing of ground zero in New York city was essential in order to go ahead with plans for building the proposed Freedom Tower in its place. Without the clearing of that pile of smoldering rubble, the Freedom Tower, 1776 feet tall, could never be built.

 And so it is also with the work of God in redemptive history. Across human history with the city that we know as Jerusalem and in our own individual hearts spiritually, until the wreckage that sin has left is removed the work of God cannot proceed. The building site must be cleared. It must be cleansed and then the building of God can be established. Biblically then the building site is ultimately the hearts of its people, the hearts of the people of God. That is the building site. I believe it also a physical Jerusalem as well. It’s both. The building that He is building is called, in Revelation 21, the New Jerusalem, a Holy City, a combination of a spiritual and physical dwelling place where the eternal God, the Holy God, will dwell with His people, His cleansed people forever. And they will see His face and He will be their God. And they will dwell in His presence forever and ever.

The rubble then is the residue of human arrogance and defilement and sin that must be purged. It must be removed or that eternal structure cannot be built. So it is then that we come to Isaiah 3 and Isaiah 4. In Isaiah 3 we see the destruction of the city of Jerusalem because of human sin, and a pile of rubble. A “heap of ruins,” it's called in verse six. But it must be cleared so that the New Jerusalem can be built. It is a passage that speaks a word of warning to our own nation, because there are many similarities spiritually between the Jerusalem that was cleansed and cleared in Isaiah 3 and our nation of the present time. And it is a word that speaks to each individual Christian, a word of warning of the need for repentance and personal faith and prayer. As I've said before, I say it again. I renew this encouragement and exhortation to you, to not let there be a distance between you and Isaiah and the people that he writes about. Find yourself here and you will be well. Find ground for repentance and humbling of yourself before God's mighty hand and He will lift you up. Don't keep a distance between you and the people of Jerusalem. I say that to myself and to all of us.

The Mountain of the Lord (Isa. 2) and the Branch of the Lord (Isa. 4)

As we look at the unfolding glories of Isaiah's prophecy we have what I call bookends of grace. We have two bookends of grace surrounding a pile of rubble. Bookend number one, we have Isaiah chapter 2, the mountain of the Lord's temple established as chief among the mountains, raised above the hills, and all nations streaming to it, a vision of glory. Bookend number two, we have Isaiah 4, the branch of the Lord established as beautiful and fruitful and glorious in Mount Zion, and a canopy of glory over Mount Zion, and there will God's cleansed and glorified people dwell forever and ever. In between, you have wreckage. You have a city destroyed because of human sin. And that's what we're looking at today.

Great Judgment Clears the Building Site (Isaiah 2-3)

Great judgment clears the building site - Isaiah 2, which we looked at last week. All lofty, arrogant human structures are removed and the Lord alone will be exalted. Isaiah 2:17 says, “The arrogance of man will be brought low, and the pride of men humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.”

And then in Isaiah 3 the Lord takes away. He takes away. He removes. He clears. Do you see it? Verse one, right away. “For behold, the Lord God of hosts is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah supply and support. All supply, support of bread, and all support of water.” He is removing the supports, the supply systems. Later in verses 18-20, the Lord snatches away the finery of the daughters of Zion, “the bangles and head bands and crescent necklaces, the earrings and bracelets and veils, the headdresses and ankle chains and sashes, the perfume bottles and charms.” He takes it away. He's clearing it, as though the building site is being cleared for a spectacular new building that will last for all eternity. That's what I see. And so in judgement, in a terrible chapter of judgment, still there is God's grace immediately after in chapter 4. And we'll look at it today.

CS Lewis in Mere Christianity put it this way,

“Imagine yourself living in a house and God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. You know these jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently, He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on Earth is He up to? Well, the explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting an extra floor up there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but He is building instead a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

So that is the clearing and the adjustment and the cleansing and the rebuilding that I see here, so that God can dwell with us for all eternity.

The “Pillars of Society” Are Gifts of God

Now it begins here in chapter 3:1-15 with the loss of stability. The pillars, humanly speaking, are getting pulled out. They are just getting pulled out and the wreckage comes as a result. Look at verses 1-3. “See now, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: all supplies of food and all supplies of water, the hero and warrior, the judge and prophet, the soothsayer and elder, the captain of fifty and man of rank, the counselor, skilled craftsman and clever enchanter.” These are the pillars of society, humanly speaking. Pillars are a source of support. They hold up buildings. These people hold up everyday life in society. They are pillars, the daily existence by which the inhabitants of that city made their life through the world. Now you remember the story of blind Samson whose eyes were put out by the Philistines. He was brought to the temple of Dagon, the false god. And the boy who was leading him by the hand asks him, “Can you put me at the place where there are the big pillars that support the whole building?” That has to be one of the stupidest moments in biblical history, matched only by Samson's own stupidity when Delilah kept asking, "How then can we destroy you?"  And Sampson toys with that question. But he returns the favor here. And remember he has his hands on the pillars that hold up the entire temple. And with awesome strength he pushes them out, and the whole structure comes crumbling down. Thousands were killed.

Perhaps you remember from last year a bridge in Minneapolis. The repair, the on-going upkeep, had been neglected. Perhaps it had a fresh paint job every year and looked good. But it was structurally unsound and people died as a result, because the bridge came crumbling down. So when the pillars are removed, everything falls. I think that is what is going on here. God is threatening to remove all the structural supports of Jerusalem and Judah. He starts with the stable food supply, all supplies of food and all supplies of water. God created us needy and dependent. We must have that steady stream of food and water. So He is going to remove that. I believe he is speaking here of both the Assyrian and then later the Babylonian invasions, when the people were starving and the food supply and the water supply were destroyed and the people would starve. But then he goes on to talk about other pillars, about human beings who play certain key roles in Jewish society. They are leaders and skilled craftsmen and counselors and people who play a certain role.

Let's start with the issue of good leaders. A godly king who rules with justice provides incredible blessings for his nation. Now Isaiah 3 depicts a total vacuum of leadership, the scourge of anarchy, and therefore resulting instability. So we see the removal of godly leadership. Proverbs 28:2 says, "When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a man of understanding and knowledge maintains order." And so He is going to remove these godly leaders, these qualified men who are able to lead. They are removed. They're not there. But he goes on to talk about military heroes, “the hero and warrior…, the captain of fifty and man of rank” (verses 2 and 3). These are all military terms and it has to do with the removal of a man who will stand in the gap at the key moment of battle and turn the battle with great courage and conviction. They are removed from Judah and Jerusalem. He is going to remove them. There won't be any at that key moment.

You remember back in the day of Judges, when God was judging his people for sin. And then He would raise up a judge. He would raise up a Jephthah or a Gideon or a Samson. And they would stand there, like Shamgar standing with an ox goad. Now it takes courage to face an army with an ox goad, but he was a courageous man. I don’t know much about him, but I do know this. Any man who will face an army with nothing in his hand except an ox goad, that is a courageous man. He is a hero and he was able to turn the battle from just sheer courage and conviction, by standing his ground. But in this final assault from the enemies of God, from Babylon in the end, there would be no hero to stand in the gap. There would be no courageous man to turn the battle. They'd be gone.

A nation depends in times of great trial on heroes who step forward and lead. I was reading recently about General George Washington in the winter of 1776. Of course there had been the glorious moment of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I think it is hard for us to imagine how much courage it took to put your name on that document. Someone once said, "We must hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately." So it took a lot of courage. They had to have the victory. They had to have the military victory and by the end of the year it was looking very bad.  General Washington had been thoroughly beaten in New York, barely escaping with the remnant of his army. He was across the Delaware river, licking his wounds and trying to hold the army together. The British were in strong control of three states and things looked very, very bad at that point. General Washington had lost about ninety percent of his army and panic and despair were spreading through the states. And he wrote privately of his opinion that the game was almost up. He knew that an army lives even more on morale and a sense of the certainty of victory than they do even on food. They will go a long time without food, but if they think they are going to lose, they will give up. And so at Christmas time in 1776, he crosses the Delaware (a very famous painting). He goes across. He catches the Hessians sleeping, defeats them, captures a thousand men, and turns the tide of battle. He was a great, great courageous hero at that particular moment and it took incredible courage to do it.

In our day, I think the soldiers who are risking their lives for the stability of Iraq are modern day heroes. We have one in our midst every week. You need to get to know Scott Smiley. He's sitting there a few pews back.  I asked if I could use his name. He is a soldier who went out to Iraq and stood his post courageously week after week.  Then on April 6th, 2005, he lost his eyesight in a suicide car bombing. And I think that is where his courage really took over. Because as a strong and committed Christian, he continued to be a witness, an encouragement, an example to people on how to overcome great obstacles. Please get to know him. He is here today. I think he is a hero, and I think our country has been blessed again and again by men who will stand in the gap at difficult places, in difficult times, and be a hero, a captain of fifty, a man of rank. But by the time this country, Jerusalem, Judah, is ready to fall, there is nobody like that. They are gone. The pillars are removed. There is no man who will stand and do that. They are all gone and woe to that nation that runs out of heroes and warriors at the time of crisis. And that is exactly what is going to happen to Judah in Jerusalem. There is no warrior, no captain of fifty. They're gone.

God Removes These Pillars

God removes these pillars. Why? Well, first and foremost, as an act of judgement, bringing the sins of Judah and Jerusalem down on their heads. Secondly, it is an act of vindicating God's holiness. God is saying, “You can't play with my laws.” God cannot be mocked. “So I am going to remove these leaders from you.” And ultimately, as I see it, because I love to declare this, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, as an act of mercy to clear the sight so we can establish what will last forever.

Anarchy

And so he removes them and the result is anarchy. The leaders are removed. The nation staggers, the nation stumbles, the nation falls. Now God's ordinary pattern of leadership is to raise up qualified men. He raises up mature men. He seasons them. He trains them. He prepares them to bear the burden of leadership. And yes, men, from the very beginning in Genesis 2 when God raised up Adam and he was alone and his wife had not yet been created, He established a man as a leader, not just in his own home, but Adam, we believe from Romans 5, is the federal head of the whole human race. And so he is the leader of all of it. He is the head. Now we know he sinned. And in Adam, we all sinned. But he was the head, and God therefore established men as leaders. But in Judah and Jerusalem, the men are dead or they are removed. All that are left are women and children and unqualified men, wicked men who shouldn't be leading anything at all. And so in verse four we have young children becoming rulers. “I will make boys their officials.” Look at it. “Mere children will govern them.” And whatever men there are left squabble over who is going to lead based on the most ridiculous terms. Look at verses six and seven. It's stunning. “A man will seize one of his brothers at his father's home and say, ‘You have a cloak, you be our leader. Take charge of this heap of ruins.’" Is that all it takes, a cloak, at that point? If you have a cloak, you can be king of the pile of ruin.

But he doesn't want the job. He says, "I have no remedy. I have no food or clothing in my house. Do not make me the leader of the people." “Jerusalem staggers, Judah is falling.” There are no leaders. There's no one that can step up. And the total absence of qualified male leadership results also in women ruling, and children. Look at verse 12. “Youths suppress my people, women rule over them. O my people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path.” God has ordained men to lead. A society like this that we're describing here in Isaiah 3 has totally broken down, fallen apart, and an indicator of that in verse 12 is that there are women leading.

Now Isaiah 3:12 is a fascinating verse for a nation like ours at this critical moment in history, about to perhaps elect a woman president for the first time. And we consider ourselves enlightened. We consider ourselves advanced and believe you're somewhat of a Neanderthal if you think it's not God blessed, that it's not a godly thing. But I have a simple question to ask Christians. What does the scripture say? Does Isaiah 3:12 support the direction of our country? Are you willing to be seen to be a Neanderthal and backward and to say the Lord has established men to lead, godly qualified men, and it's not a moment of enlightenment and something we can take pride in when a woman rules a country?

So, Isaiah 3:12 indicates how far Judah and Jerusalem have fallen. And the result is anarchy, an almost total loss of societal structure, when might makes right. Look at verse 5. "People will oppress each other - man against man, neighbor against neighbor. The young will rise up against the old, the base against the honorable." That's the result. Once you have anarchy, then might makes right. Whoever is the biggest bully rules and takes over.

The Root Cause

Now, what is the root cause of all of this? Look at verses 8-11. “Jerusalem staggers, Judah is falling; their words and deeds are against the Lord, defying His glorious presence. The look on their faces testifies against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They do not hide it. Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves. Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds. Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done.” These verses describe why it's gotten like this, why God is pulling the pillars out, why there are no qualified men to lead, why there are no heroes, why all the pillars are removed, why the supply of food and water is taken. Why? Because of defiance of Almighty God, because of violations of His law.

Now in chapter 1 Isaiah had already likened the people to Sodom and Gomorrah. He has already likened them to that. But now he says they parade their sin like Sodom. They are actually proud of sin. They are proud of what they should be ashamed of. One can scarcely read these words without visualizing gay pride parades, which we have here in our own city, and which we also see in Disney World and other places. They parade their sin like Sodom. They don't hide it. And it is amazing that there is an indication here that it would be better if they hid it. Now, we know from scripture that there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed. God is going to bring every secret out into the light of His presence. You can't hide anything. But it would be better if you did, that is the sense here, because there is a spreading contagion and corruption of sin when there is pride over what we should be ashamed of. That's why. That's why. That's why it is happening: defiant sin. And God will not be mocked. As a matter of fact, He can't be mocked. It is impossible to mock God. You’re really just mocking yourself.

And he zeroes in on specific wickedness by the rulers.  See verses 14 and 15. "The Lord enters into judgement against the elders and leaders of His people." He is really zeroing in on leaders who have led them badly at this point. And I'll tell you, Isaiah 3 is a very, very important chapter in terms of the importance of leadership. How are you leading? Whatever position of leadership you may have, how are you leading? I tremble about the Supreme Court justices that legalized abortion in our country and led us astray. They are accountable for what they've done because leadership matters. How you lead matters.

Look at verses 14 and 15. "The Lord enters into judgement against the elders and leaders of His people. ‘It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?’ declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty." These leaders are using their position to crush the poor and needy. They are using their power to rob the weak of their possessions. They have forgotten. They have forgotten that all authority comes from the throne of God, and it will go back to the throne of God; all of it. And each mayor, each councilman, each representative, each senator, each governor, each secretary of this or that, each ambassador, each cabinet member, each judge, each king, each emperor, yes, each president will give to Almighty God a careful accounting of what they did with their leadership time. These people, these leaders led the nation astray. They led them into sin.

Now there is a place of refuge in the middle of all this, verse 10, just right in the middle. “Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds.” God knows how to make a distinction between the just and the unjust, between the righteous and the wicked. He knows how to do that. The principle of judgement day is always the same. God will give to each person according to what he has done. Now we Christians, we know to tremble at that. And then we realize that it's only by the imputed righteousness of Christ that any of us are called righteous, that Isaiah 3:10 is not a null set, an empty set with no human being meeting the criteria. There are righteous ones. You know how they are made righteous? By trusting in Jesus, by looking to His shed blood on the cross, by trusting that His righteousness can be yours by simple faith. I say to you, if that is you, it will be well with you. You will enjoy the fruit of your deeds. But in verse 11, “Woe to the wicked!” That's the message.

 Pampered Daughters of Zion Lavishing Luxury on Themselves

In chapter 3:16 up to chapter 4:1, he talks about the loss of unstable, luxurious vainglory. And it begins with the pampered daughters of Zion who are lavishing luxury on themselves. Look at verses 16 and 17. “The Lord says, ‘The women of Zion are haughty, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, tripping along with mincing steps, with ornaments jingling on their ankles. Therefore, the Lord will bring sores on the heads of the women of Zion. The Lord will make their scalps bald.’” So these arrogant women of Zion have all the tricks of the trade, it seems, for attracting men. Really seeking for lust, I think. They are fishing for lust. Not the godly love of a husband here, but there is a kind of trafficking and there is a bait being put out and the desire is this: please lust after me. They are haughty in their attitude, there are haughty airs. And there is a flirting with their eyes. It says in Proverbs 6:25, “Don't let her capture you with her eyes.” So they know how to use their eyes. They know how to use jewelry to attract attention, bells jingling on the ankles and saying, "Look at me, look at me, look at me!" And there it is. It's just, "Look at me. Focus on me, on who I am."

And look at the list of equipment needed for that. It seems to take a great deal to achieve.  See it all in verses 18-23, “The bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces, the earrings and bracelets and veils, the headdresses and ankle chains and sashes, the perfume bottles and charms, the signet rings and nose rings, the fine robes and the capes and cloaks, the purses and mirrors, and the linen garments and tiaras and shawls.” Take a deep breath after that list! It's overwhelming the amount of equipment that these daughters of Zion need. God gave them an abundance of material prosperity. What did they use it for? They used it for vainglory. They used it to lavish on themselves this kind of luxury. In a few minutes, I am going to talk about the true beauty described by Peter, “a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight” (1 Peter 3:4). But we don't see any of that here. No, we see equipment. These daughters of Zion have forsaken true beauty, which is piety before God, and traded it away for the counterfeit kind.

God Takes Away Their Luxury and Gives Them Judgment Instead

Therefore, God is going to take away their luxury. He is going to give them judgment instead. Verse 24, “Instead of fragrance there will be a stench; instead of a sash, a rope; instead of well-dressed hair, baldness; instead of fine clothing, sackcloth; instead of beauty, branding.”

The Fall of the Men Signals the End of Opulence

Why? Well, because the fall of men, the fact that there are no heroes anymore, no captain of fifty and man of rank, means the protection is gone. And this kind of luxury here by the daughters of Zion can only flourish where there are men to protect. When the men are removed, then they are vulnerable. Look at verses 25 and 26. “Your men will fall by the sword, your warriors dead in battle. The gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.” So, the women are helpless before the invading hordes. In they come, and the invaders will snatch away everything of value. Usually the invading army then violates the women and slaughters them, or carries them away as captives to live the life of a slave in somebody else's house. The physical defenses of the city are gone, and these women will suffer. And how the mighty have fallen! By the time we get to Chapter 4:1 it is a whole different situation. “In that day seven women will take hold of one man and say, ‘We will eat our own food and provide our own clothes; only let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace!’" These once mighty women now beg for the lowest level of existence, seven of them willing to live together in some kind of an ad hoc harem under one guy's roof, having his name for theirs. They'll even pay their own way. They're willing, if he would just take them under his name. In that day, the disgrace of Jerusalem will be complete. So that's Isaiah 3 up to 4:1. It is a dismal picture, a picture of judgment, a picture of wrath poured out on the city of the eternal King, on Jerusalem. And why? Because the leaders have led them astray, and the people were corrupt and loved sin, and so God brought judgment.

 Oh, but redemption is drawing near, and praise God for it. You have to face the bad news before the good news looks as glorious as it should. And the good news is glorious. And it is infinitely more glorious than anything sin can do. Where sin abounds, grace becomes infinite. And so, we praise God for it.

And look what we have here in Isaiah 4:2-6. We have a gain of stable, luxurious glory. Look at these words. “In that day the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel. Those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem, will be called holy, all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem. The Lord will wash away the filth of the women of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire. Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who will assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over all the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.” Amen and amen! Oh, my friends, that is where we are heading. That is our future. That's a city of glory. And you know, if you read Isaiah 3 properly, you realize none of us deserve to go there. We don't deserve to be there.

The Branch of the Lord: Jesus Christ

But that, by God’s grace in Christ, is precisely where He is taking us, and it begins as it should with a focus on the branch of the Lord. There is going to be this branch of the Lord. Let's say His name is Jesus Christ. His name is Christ and He is the branch of the Lord. The image here is of a tree, a flourishing tree that has been cut down and there is nothing left but a stump. We get that in Isaiah 6. We get it again in Isaiah 11, the picture of a stump, the people of God. But from it springs forth the shoot, a grain shoot, and from that branch comes all life. And the shoot, the branch is Jesus, and all of us live in Him or we don't live at all. And so, the people of God are chopped down like a tree but out from it comes this branch.

Jeremiah speaks of the branch in Jeremiah 23:5,6. "'The days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.'” I think, with humility and with reverence, insert one little word, because it is understood: “The Lord is our righteousness!” That is Jesus's name. We have no righteousness apart from Jesus. And we must have righteousness to dwell in the city that He is describing here. The branch is our righteousness. “I am the vine” (shifting the image a little bit). “I am the vine”, Jesus said, and “you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

“Apart from me you are dead, but in me”, says the branch, “you can live forever and ever.” The branch is Jesus. And He comes. And He's going to emerge, and He will be beautiful, and He will be glorious. Now like the Jews after judgement day there is no beauty or majesty naturally in Him. And especially not, my friends, when He is dying on the cross under the wrath of God. Isaiah 53:2, much later in this book, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.” He was under the judgement of God. He was under the wrath of God. He was a cursed for us. Why? Because He was our substitute. “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21). To be Isaiah 3 for us, to be disgusting, wretched, Sodom-like sin for us. He made Him to be sin for us, so that in Him, we might be pure as the driven snow, so that we might be seen to be righteous. Oh, look to Christ! I don't know your hearts. I don't know what you are trusting in. But if you are trusting in anything but Jesus and His shed blood on the cross, you are lost. Look to Christ. Trust in Him. Say, "Lord Jesus, be my righteousness. Let your resurrection be my resurrection. I trust in you." And if that is you, if God is speaking to your heart right now, come and talk to me after the service> Or go through that door, and talk to the brothers and sisters that are going to be in the parlor. Say, "I want to know Jesus. I think I came to know Him this morning. I need to know more about that life. I want to be in Christ." Don't put it off.

Okay, so there is a glory in Jesus's death on the cross. Oh, but that future glory that we're looking at here is going to be beautiful, and it is going to be glorious. The branch is going to be beautiful and glorious, and so will the city be that He builds, where we will dwell forever and ever. Oh, you can't even imagine the ravishing beauty that will hit your eye at that point, how fantastic it is going to be, how beautiful the new Jerusalem will be. Matthew 24:30 says, “They will see the son of man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.” He is going to be glorious in that day, and beautiful. Revelation 21:23 says, “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.” Beautiful and glorious. And He is going to make the land fruitful. Oh, it's going to be lush! Eden would be jealous of how beautiful the new Earth is going to be. It's going to be lush. Look at Verse 2. "The fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel.” Now the promised land was meant to be lush. It was meant to be a land flowing with milk and honey, and it was when they came in to it. But when they were done with it, it was a desert under the judgment of God. You look at satellite photos of Palestine today, does it look like a lush garden of Eden to you? It looks like Arizona. Not meaning to insult anybody from Arizona, but it looks dry.

Where is the land flowing with milk and honey, a land blessed, where the ground opens up its mouth to drink in the early and latter rains? Where is that? It's under the judgement of God, that land is. It is a desert. And so the plot, the lush land, becomes a desert. But, we will find out later in Isaiah, He can turn it back again. He can go from desert back to Eden again. He can make it lush again and He will. The fruit of the land is going to be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel.

The Remnant Will Bask in the Glory

Then there is this remnant. Look at verse two. “The fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel.” Verse three, “Those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem…” “Remain” equals remnant. This is the remnant friends, the remnant of the Jews. The lush paradise will be the home of the remnant, the survivors in Israel. They are recorded in God's book. It says, "Those who are recorded” in God's book. Do you hear overtones of Romans 9-11 here? Concerning God's sovereign election of some to be saved, His predestination of them and His protection of them (though they don't deserve it)? So today there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if it is by grace, it is no longer by works. If it were, grace would no longer be grace (Romans 11). There is that remnant chosen and written in God's book and protected. He keeps them safe. Though they deserve wrath, yet they will have mercy. And they will have grace, and they will live with Him forever and ever. So they must be cleansed. Just because they're predestined, just because they are elect, just because they are the remnant, doesn't mean they are not sinful. Oh, they are sinful. Look at verse four. "The Lord will wash away the filth of the women of Zion; He will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgement and a spirit of fire."  And so, God will cleanse us, and we will be pure, and we will be made holy, and we will be radiant. Jesus says, “Then righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father” (Matthew 13:43).

The Dwelling of God is with Men at Last

We will be beautiful and glorious like Jesus is. He will cleanse us and make us pure, and then at last the dwelling of God will be with His people. Look at verses five and six. “Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over all the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.” Isiah finishes by recording the vision of God's holy habitation with His people in a cleaned up, a perfect Jerusalem, a cleansed Jerusalem. There is a strong Hebrew word here by the way, "The Lord will create." It reminds me of Genesis 1:1 - “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” So, at the beginning of eternity He is going to recreate the Heavens and the Earth. He is going to make a new Heavens and a new Earth, and it is going to take the creative power of God to do it. He is going to create it, and He is going to create a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night.

Doesn't this harken back to the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire that traveled with the people of God? It was a picture of His provision, a picture of His protection. Boy, if any enemy came, like the chariots from Pharaoh, the pillar gets there between the enemy and the people of God. Oh, you can't take the pillar on. You'll lose. And some of the Egyptians came to that realization. "God is fighting for the Israelites against us. Let's get away from them." Too late! They’re already in the Red Sea. Because God is powerful. He's a pillar to protect His people, and to guide them and lead them. Well, to lead them where? To the promised land. But now it's no longer a movable pillar. It's a canopy. It's a cloud of protection and a fire of glory, reminiscent of Mount Sinai when God comes down with His presence. And then, when the tabernacle was built as a dwelling place for God, and God came in with the Shekinah glory (that means the dwelling glory), He comes and dwells with his people. And when Solomon built the temple the Glory of God came and filled it, the place where God would dwell with his people. Those are all just pictures.

Solomon knew it. “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27). We raise money for it. No, no, no. God will dwell in a place He builds with His hands. A new Jerusalem comes down from Heaven, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. Comes down, made ready by Christ. And He's made it ready with His own power. And then at last, the people of God will dwell with Him. God is going to marry Jerusalem. That canopy? It's like chuppah, which the Jewish couples stand under for a wedding ceremony. It is going to be a wedding ceremony.

It says in Isaiah 62:5, "As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you." And then again, Revelations 21:1-3, “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. saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, 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, [that’s God’s voice], a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.’” “[Oh] Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory" (John 17:24). That's what He wants. That's what you want, isn't it? That's what I want. Oh Lord Jesus, come and bring it! Clean this place up get rid of the rubble, clear the building site, and build this place so that we can dwell with you forever and ever. Verse six, “It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.” A refuge and hiding place from God's wrath and judgement. You will be safe there forever and ever.

Come to Christ. I've already told you that. Come to Christ. Flee to Christ. You can't survive judgement day without Him. You can't escape, even if your sin isn't paraded like Sodom but hidden in the secrets of your life. God knows it. There is only one refuge, and that is the cross of Christ. Flee to Him.

Secondly, pray for our nation. Do you not see? When you read Isaiah 3, do you not see it? We are much like this. We lack godly, strong men to be leaders. We have people in our midst who brazenly celebrate sin and parade it like Sodom. We have poor in our midst, and we don't seem to care about them the way God would have us care for them. We need national and personal repentance. Our food supply is not as secure as we might think. Have you noticed the ever-escalating prices at Kroger’s, or Food Lion, or wherever you go? Is there an end in sight? I think it's interesting how some of these supermarkets are giving you money off on your gas. I think there's an incredible link between the two. So, I'm grateful for that I guess. But I just wonder where is the end in sight? We are vulnerable, friends. Most of our food comes from a thousand miles away. We should not arrogantly think that life will forever continue as it always has and we've always known it. We need to repent. We need to pray. We need to humble ourselves. 

Thirdly, thank God for qualified godly leaders and skilled craftsman alike, for heroes. Thank God for them. If there are still any in our culture, which there are, thank God for them. Pray for them, that they would be faithful to what God has called them to do. And ask God to protect them from falling into sin and leading people wrongly.

Fourthly, men, seek to be the godly leaders that God wants you to be, first over your homes. Lead your homes spiritually. Lead them well. And if God gives you a wider scope of leadership, be faithful to do it, knowing you are going to give God an account for what you do. And women, let me read the 1 Peter 3 passage I alluded to. "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is a great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters, if you do what is right and do not give way to fear” (1 Peter 3:3-6). Don't get your view of beauty from Cosmo magazine. It's not there.

There are some incredibly beautiful older women in this church. I don't think magazine editors would put their photo on the cover of a magazine. I think they ought to, but they won't, because they have a perverted view of beauty. I see them as beautiful because they have been walking with Jesus for decades. That's a view of beauty I embrace. That's a view of beauty that I want to see in my daughters, that I do see in them and in my wife. That's true beauty. I'm not speaking against jewelry. There is the positive use of jewelry in the Bible. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is, "Where does your beauty come from?" And when you get dressed are you seeking like these sinful daughters of Zion to allure, to entice to lust? Is that your motive? Dress before Jesus and you'll be fine. Just stand before Jesus and dress in front of him. He is your true husband. Dress in front of him.

Fifthly, ask God to purify your heart and your life. Fire burns through this passage. It's been burning in my heart all week. The fire of the judgement of God. Ask God therefore to search out the chaff in your life. There is some there. Say, "Oh, God. Show it to me! Purify me. Make me ready for fruitful service on Earth and eternal joy and reward in Heaven. See if there is any offensive way in me, any yearning for worldly luxury, any yearning for worldly power, any yearning for worldly beauty." Ask God to purify you with the fire of the Holy Spirit and wash you clean with the water of His word. Repent, and pray for our nation to repent. 

And finally, look forward to our glorious wedding day. Look forward to dwelling in the new Jerusalem. I can't wait. And like Paul, I’m happy to serve here as long as God wills, but I'm looking forward to this day when God will dwell with His people in a display of glory we can't even describe. Close with me in prayer.