Isaiah’s Apocalypse
Isaiah 24:1-23
September 3, 3023
For the last 3 months we have sat and analyzed and thought upon
Judgments that occurred 2700 years ago.
From the safety of our air-conditioned sanctuary
• We have examined the dilemma of God’s people as the Assyrian threat circled around their nation.
• We have heard God emphatically warn them not to trust in anyone but Him.
• We have heard God call them to sincere repentance.
• We have heard God warn them not to make the mistake of trusting in their own glory or strength.
• We have heard God declare judgment on them for loving the world.
• And we have heard God speak of an economic judgment on their region.
And all of that happened 2,700 years ago.
It is historical
It was real
And we sat here studying it, hopefully learning from it,
But honestly without any real skin in the game.
• IT’S NOT LIKE Assyria was advancing on us.
• IT’S NOT LIKE we were facing death and hoping some ally nation would come to our aid.
• IT’S NOT LIKE we had to make any pertinent decision regarding our own survival.
Sure we see the lessons in it, but there’s no real urgency for us.
This story came and went.
These judgments already occurred.
Tiglath-Pilesar is dead.
Shalmaneser is dead.
Sennacherib is dead.
Nebuchadnezzar is too.
They were interesting stories like a documentary on the history channel,
But there’s no reason to get all worked up.
And then we come to Isaiah 24.
And all of a sudden, Isaiah looks up from his parchment
And makes eye contact with you and me.
He’s no longer speaking only to the people of his day.
He’s no longer giving counsel just to Hezekiah.
He is now speaking to the FUTURE.
He is now a voice crying in the wilderness to ALL MEN.
He is now a light shining in the darkness to EVERYONE.
The Assyrian conquest…
The Babylonian conquest…
THOSE WERE NOTHING.
Those threats were but a mere precursor to what was coming.
And now Isaiah writes words that were meant for you and me.
TONIGHT we learn that figuratively speaking
• Assyria is at our gates.
• Babylon has come.
There is a threat and the world has yet to feel it.
The things Isaiah will speak about in the next few chapters
Have never been fulfilled.
They have not yet happened.
They are still coming.
I suppose the delay in their fulfillment
• Could cause you to doubt the accuracy of the prophet,
• But we heard Isaiah predict with accuracy the fate of 9 other nations.
• So far he’s batting 1.000 and there is no reason to doubt him yet.
Beyond that, other prophets from other ages will come and report that they have seen the exact same thing Isaiah saw.
• One of them is John who receives a vision we call “Revelation” on the island of Patmos.
What Isaiah says here is true.
And it is for you and for me.
And the message is simple.
JUDGMENT IS COMING
Don’t pass this off as some historical sermon preached to a people who have long sense died.
Read this chapter like a warning from God to you who live today, for any moment this prophecy could break forth.
So let’s read about it and learn what the church should do with it.
4 main points tonight.
#1 THE REVELATION
Isaiah 24:1-3
Isaiah closes verse 3 like this: “for the LORD has spoken this word.”
You DON’T HAVE the CREATIVE POWER of Isaiah at work here.
You HAVE the PROPHETIC POWER at work.
God spoke to Isaiah.
God enlightened Isaiah to His plan.
And Isaiah does not ease into it.
“Behold”
• It is a loud interjection.
• It is meant to shake you from your preoccupation.
• It is meant to close your mouth and open your ear.
“Behold, the LORD lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants.”
Isaiah has moved beyond the regional.
We are no longer talking about Philistia or Moab, Edom or Arabia,
This is “the earth.”
And the SOURCE of the judgment isn’t even cryptic anymore.
• God isn’t judging through His Assyrian puppet.
• God isn’t using Babylon anymore.
There is no mistaking where this is coming from.
God, by His own hand, “lays the earth waste”
And you know this.
We’ve all read about the opening of the seals of God’s judgment.
Revelation 6:12-17 “I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
In that day men don’t blame some earthly power for their judgment,
They know where it’s coming from.
This wrath is God’s wrath and He has made it known.
The judgment that is described is GLOBAL and THOROUGH.
• “lays the earth waste”
• “devastates it”
• “distorts its surface”
• “scatters its in habitants”
Jeremiah once walked into a potters shop and watched him form a pot by the skill of his hands and then all at once crush and destroy the pot he was making.
God asked Jeremiah that day
Jeremiah 18:6 “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.”
Of course the answer is yes.
But here it is NOT JUST the nation of Israel.
Here it is every nation.
In fact here it is the very physical landscape of the earth.
• God is rearranging continents.
• God is wiping away mountain ranges.
• God is uprooting islands.
• God is erasing cities and structures.
He is shaking the earth like an etch-a-sketch.
He is taking the clay and re-flattening it.
He is going to destroy this earth.
That’s the message God has for Isaiah.
And on that day it won’t matter who you are.
(2) “And the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor.”
What sort of things make you more important today?
What sort of things ascribe worldly value you to you in our culture?
• If you have money?
• If you have an education?
• If you can throw a baseball 100 mph?
Well on the day when God reaches down with His hand
And starts realigning continents it won’t matter much.
It won’t matter if you are clergy or not.
It won’t matter if you are a slave or a land owner
It won’t matter if you are rich or poor.
That’s what John saw wasn’t it.
“the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains”
It won’t matter.
(3) “The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the LORD has spoken this word.”
God is going to destroy it all.
THIS IS STILL YET TO COME.
That is the Revelation
#2 THE REASON
Isaiah 24:4-6
We’ve heard a thing or two in our lifetimes about ENVIRONMENTALISM.
When I was in junior high
• We were constantly told that we were eating a hole in the ozone layer of the earth.
• We were told that things like hair spray, fire extinguishers, and freon were detrimental to this ozone layer around the earth
• And if we kept using it we were going to burn a hole in it and the sun would kill us.
In the last decade the message has shifted to global warming.
The main enemy I hear about is carbon emissions. (CO2)
If you’re not up to speed on the global warming theory…
“Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide (CO2) and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar radiation that have bounced off the earth’s surface. Normally this radiation would escape into space, but these pollutants, which can last for years to centuries in the atmosphere, trap the heat and cause the planet to get hotter. These heat-trapping pollutants—specifically carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and synthetic fluorinated gases—are known as greenhouse gases, and their impact is called the greenhouse effect.”
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/global-warming-101?gclid=Cj0KCQjwusunBhCYARIsAFBsUP88y0OYVUIGqEPYxG_lLoaVD13kzNlu9taqdWjQLLRqvuBpD3pkDfIaAvNnEALw_wcB#causes
So basically it’s this.
• We get sunlight and radiation from the sun.
• It is supposed to bounce off the earth and travel back into space.
• But we have polluted our atmosphere with what they call greenhouse gasses
like CO2 and methane and such.
• And these gasses keep the radiation from getting into space.
• So it heats up the earth more and more.
So now, radiation gets in because we have depleted our ozone layer,
But it can’t get out because we have polluted the atmosphere with carbon.
The result is that the earth is heating up and this causes natural disasters.
That is crammed down our throats today.
I’ve told you before that I am a fan of environmental conservation.
• For instance, I can dump my trash in my living room floor.
• It won’t cause my house to fall down, but it will make it a pretty miserable place to live.
We do understand that how we handle pollution
Can make the place in which we live more or less desirable.
But our world has made a religion out of environmentalism
And make no mistake our governments have capitalized on it
To seize power and make a lot of money.
What is the message of the Bible?
THE MESSAGE OF THE BIBLE
• Is that POLLUTION IS IN FACT THE CAUSE of the destruction of this earth.
• The Bible is also clear that the SOURCE of this earth destroying pollution is HUMANITY.
We see it in verse 5, “The earth is polluted by its inhabitants…”
We see that the earth grieves under this pollution.
(4) “The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers…”
Paul told us:
Romans 8:22 “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”
So the global warming message is right?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Human pollution is the problem
But it’s not hairspray or freon or methane
That will cause this earth to be destroyed.
IT IS SIN!
(5-6) “The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left.”
It’s everything we learned in the first 3 chapters of the book of Genesis.
• Mankind transgressed the laws of God.
• Mankind violated the things God told him not to do.
• Mankind broke the everlasting covenant.
• And the result is “a curse devours the earth”
• With the eventual effect that “the inhabitants of the earth are burned”
There is biblical global warming.
Isaiah says “they transgressed laws”
• This is just the natural law of God that is written upon the human heart.
• This is the basic good and evil which God has woven into the fabric of humanity.
And man continually sear their conscience
So that they no longer feel guilty about the things
They were designed to be ashamed of.
“the everlasting covenant” is a bit of a mystery.
It could be the general understanding that God is God and we are man
And we are called to walk in subjection to Him.
It could be the Noahic covenant where God forbid the shedding of man’s blood.
That certainly matches the pollution analogy.
Numbers 35:33 “‘So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.”
• We remember God telling Cain that his brother’s blood cried out to him from the ground.
• Certainly the shedding of innocent blood is a cause of the judgment of God.
• So I’m ok with the Noahic covenant being the reference.
And yet it is most likely the Abrahamic Covenant
Which is referred to as “the everlasting covenant” several times in Scripture.
The Commentary in the MacArthur Study Bible defines it as:
This covenant contains devotion to God’s moral law
And salvation by faith in Him.
It was the call of man to put away sin
And to trust in God for salvation from his sin.
And man has violated that as well.
You can also add in what Isaiah reveals in verse 4, “the exalted of the people of the earth fade away.”
(Which is a reference to judgment on human pride.)
And you then you can take your pick as to which sin is causing God’s judgment.
• Pride?
• Disobedience?
• Shedding innocent blood?
• Defiling the conscience?
• Refusing to honor or trust God?
These are the pollutants that hasten the judgment of earth not hairspray.
And incidentally electric cars or wind turbines
Will have zero effect on delaying this judgment.
God is going to judge the world because of the sin that has polluted it.
So you have the Revelation and you have the Reason
#3 THE RESPONSE
Isaiah 24:7-20
This is the longest segment of the chapter
And I want to break it down a little further.
We actually see the response here of 3 different groups.
1) THE WICKED (7-13)
You see there basically an announcement that drinking parties are over.
In our world pick a gathering and 9 times out of 10 drinking will be the chief source of entertainment.
MEN LOVE IT.
And it’s hard to imagine a scenario so grim
That men would actually skip out on an opportunity to participate.
But when God turns to judge this world they will.
ALL THE PARTYING WILL STOP.
Remember how angry God was at Israel for their response to the coming judgment, “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we may die”?
Well not next time.
(11) “There is an outcry in the streets concerning the wine; all joy turns to gloom. The gaiety of the earth is banished.”
God won’t allow men to even enjoy that.
• God is going to bring such a desolation on the earth
• That sinful men won’t even find it appropriate to have a drinking party.
• There will be so few men left that the party won’t occur.
(13) “For thus it will be in the midst of the earth among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleanings when the grape harvest is over.”
It is yet another harvest analogy for judgment.
• The earth will look like a striped cotton field.
• There may be a few gleanings hanging on here and there,
• But it’s more desolation than anything.
And the world will see no reason to rejoice.
That is how the wicked will respond to God’s judgment.
NO JOY
But it’s not just the wicked.
We also see the response of the righteous.
2) THE RIGHTEOUS (14-16a)
Here we have a righteous remnant
That breaks out into continuous praise at God’s judgment.
(14b) “They cry out from the west concerning the majesty of the LORD.”
They have waited and waited and waited for this day.
We’ve read so many of those imprecatory Psalms over the years.
Psalms 58:10 “The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; He will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.”
Or we even look at the end of the book of Isaiah.
Isaiah 66:24 “Then they will go forth and look On the corpses of the men Who have transgressed against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be quenched; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”
We’ve certainly read that infamous Hallelujah Chorus found in Rev. 19
• Where the saints of heaven cry out “Hallelujah!” as they see the smoke rising from the burning of the harlot.
There will be a great celebration on behalf of the righteous
Who have labored and groaned under the corruption of the wicked.
• Those who have continually been told to turn the other cheek.
• Those who have continually been told to go the extra mile.
• Those who have continually been warned not to take their own revenge.
• Those who have been promised that the vengeance is God’s.
And as they have labored to obey amidst such suffering and frustration
They have continually cried, “How long O Lord?”
Well on this day that cry will be over.
GOD WILL JUDGE SINNERS.
And on that day not only will they REJOICE but they will PREACH.
(15) “Therefore glorify the LORD in the east, The name of the LORD, the God of Israel, in the coastlands of the sea. From the ends of the earth we hear songs, “Glory to the Righteous One,”
That is a reassuring couple of verses for the redeemed
• To remind them that in Christ we are not under God’s condemnation.
• To remind that this world will not forever be consigned to evil.
• To remind that we win in the end.
While the coming judgment of God on this earth is real we do not fear it.
In that day we will rejoice at its coming.
But there is one more response listed here.
3) ISAIAH (16b-20)
Certainly there is coming a day when the righteous will rejoice at God’s judgment on the earth…BUT NOT TODAY.
Today is NOT a day of celebrating the destruction of the wicked.
Today is the day of salvation.
• Today is the day of warning.
• Today is the day of evangelism and missions.
• Today is the day of pleading with sinners.
Isaiah is filled with groaning and weeping
Because he sees this judgment coming
And his desire is to rescue as many as he can
And yet no one will listen to him.
“But I say, “Woe to me! Woe to me! Alas for me!”
Now have you ever heard anything like that from Isaiah before?
(Yes, when he was confronted with the holiness of God)
• In Isaiah 6 Isaiah cried out for the peril of his own soul.
• In Isaiah 24 he cries out for the peril of his neighbor’s soul.
And he is burdened because they won’t listen.
“The treacherous deal treacherously, And the treacherous deal very treacherously.”
• Men who violate their promises to God continue to do it.
• Men who violate their covenant with God do it to a great extent.
• And no one seems to care.
Isaiah sees what is coming.
(17-18) “Terror and pit and snare Confront you, O inhabitant of the earth. Then it will be that he who flees the report of disaster will fall into the pit, And he who climbs out of the pit will be caught in the snare; For the windows above are opened, and the foundations of the earth shake.”
Isaiah has made the point over and over and over
THROUGH THE ORACLES
That no man is able to escape by his own glory or his own strength
The coming wrath of God.
He has continually warned that you won’t be able to endure that day
And yet men won’t listen.
They think they can flee from disaster.
Isaiah says, You’ll “fall into a pit.”
They think they’ll climb out of the pit.
Isaiah says, You’ll “get caught in the snare;”
POINT: You won’t escape.
(19-20) “The earth is broken asunder, The earth is split through, The earth is shaken violently. The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard And it totters like a shack, For its transgression is heavy upon it, And it will fall, never to rise again.”
Do you see why the world is going down?
• It’s like a table supporting too much weight…
• It’s like a ship with too much cargo…
The earth cannot bear up under so much sin and it will fall.
THAT IS CLEAR.
But please pay attention to ISAIAH’S RESPONSE.
It reminds us so much of John in Revelation 10 who is shown the coming judgment on the earth and then told to “prophesy again”.
Isaiah’s heart mirrors the heart of God.
• If judgment was the chief desire of God we would have already had it.
• If judgment was what He wanted most it would have happened years ago.
But God sent His Son into the world
Not to judge the world but to save it.
And it is clear to me that if we can weep over our own predicament,
But we cannot weep over the coming predicament of sinners
Then somewhere our heart does not align with God’s heart.
Go back to this idea of global warming for a second.
I realize that to those at the top this is a power grabbing money making scheme.
It is a way for them to gain control over people and get rich in the process.
But NOT everyone is lying about global warming, some are DECEIVED.
There are some who genuinely believe it is true.
There are some who genuinely believe that CO2 is going to kill us all.
And what sort of behavior do you see from such people?
They have become loud and dominating activists haven’t they?
(In fact they probably irritate you)
WHY ARE THEY SO LOUD?
WHY ARE THEY SO VOCAL?
• Because they really believe the message of global warming.
• They really believe they have seen the end.
And anyone who has truly seen the end
Is certainly responsible to tell others what is causing it.
And then we come to the church.
We have seen the end and it doesn’t seem to matter much to us
If the world knows it or not.
You say, “No, I care preacher, it’s just that they won’t listen.”
• Ok, so do you grieve?
• Do you share Isaiah’s burden?
• Do you cry “Woe”?
Back in 2020 we took our kids to our own personal youth camp
Because all the main ones were closed do to COVID lockdowns.
You may remember that the buzz word of the day was “Essential”
• Only essential businesses could be open.
• Only essential jobs could be done.
So we took that word as our theme for camp.
I started working on what my opening sermon for that camp would be.
• I wanted to talk about why salvation was essential.
• And as I worked it out in my mind how I would prove to a teenager that salvation was essential
• It all funneled down to one reason.
And this was our text:
Revelation 20:11-15 “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
The reason salvation is essential is because sinful men
Abide under the wrath of God and there is coming a day
When God’s wrath will break forth and destroy those wicked men forever.
Salvation is essential because every man needs to be saved.
Every single human has offended God by means of their sin
And therefore abides under God’s wrath and thus must be saved.
And the question I would ask you as the church tonight is:
DO YOU BELIEVE THAT?
Do you believe that your coworkers, who haven’t repented or trusted in Christ, do you believe that God will one day throw them in the lake of fire?
Do you believe that your neighbors, who haven’t repented or trusted in Christ, do you believe that God will one day throw them in the lake of fire?
Do you believe that your friends, your family members, who haven’t repented or trusted in Christ, do you believe that God will one day throw them in the lake of fire?
I ask that because the total lack of evangelism
That goes on in the American Church today
Would cast serious doubt as to whether or not we really believe that.
We either don’t believe our sinful friends are going to hell
Or we are the most cold-hearted people on the planet.
Either way our own Christianity is in serious question.
When we don’t care about warning the world of the coming judgment it can only mean one of two things:
1. We either don’t really believe God will do what He says.
2. We believe He will we just don’t care about people.
Global warming isn’t real but people who believe it
Will try to turn our world upside down to save us all from it.
How can a deceived global warming activist
Seem to have more conviction than a redeemed child of God?
Just like an environmental activist will turn this world on its head to stop CO2 emissions, we must do the same to warn this world of sin.
YOU GET THE POINT.
There’s not a doubt in our mind that Isaiah believed what he saw.
• He warned and warned and warned.
• He was rejected and rejected and rejected.
• He wept and wept and wept.
This world is going to be judged and it is not a secret.
God has made it clear.
It seems as though the ones who know about it
Should be leading the charge to get the message out,
Even to those who won’t listen.
I love the Spurgeon quote:
“If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”
–Charles H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon At His Best, compiled by Tom Carter, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1991 reprinted edition, first published 1988), 67.
The Revelation, The Reason, The Response
#4 THE REASSURANCE
Isaiah 24:21-23
Just in case Isaiah has been anything but totally clear.
(21) “So it will happen in that day…”
IT IS COMING.
And it is not just a day of judgment on wicked men,
But also on that devil usurper who showed up in the garden
And got the ball rolling.
(21-22) “So it will happen in that day, That the LORD will punish the host of heaven on high, And the kings of the earth on earth. They will be gathered together Like prisoners in the dungeon, And will be confined in prison; And after many days they will be punished.”
We know all about this timeline.
Revelation 20 lays it all out for us.
• God will bring 7 years of horrible tribulation and judgment upon this earth
• Then Christ will return to reign upon it.
• While Christ reigns Satan and his cronies will spend 1,000 years locked up in the prison
• And then will be set free for the Great White Throne judgment.
• Christ will destroy this universe
• Then make a new heaven and new earth where righteousness will reign for all eternity.
(23) “Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, For the LORD of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, And His glory will be before His elders.”
It will happen.
It is coming.
The sin of this world will cause God to destroy this world
And sinners will not escape.
The only hope of salvation is repentance and faith in Christ
And like Isaiah we are the messengers of all of it.
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
• We are the tornado sirens…
• We are the fire alarms…
• We are the watchmen on the walls…
God has made known to us both His judgment and His salvation
And we must tell men.
